ActionAid USA

Women's rights: Actionaid emphasizes the importance of women's leadership in emergencies because we know that women have a strong understanding of their local contexts, inclusive of the needs and realities of the women and girls in their communities. Women offer crucial insights necessary to further engage in other response efforts and take part in decision making processes that might increase the likelihood of recovery and future preparedness. In 2022, Actionaid responded to three major humanitarian crises: the war on ukraine, the earthquake in afghanistan, and the drought in east africa. In all instances, our efforts were women and young people-led and prioritized the most overburdened communities, including refugees, female-headed households, and people with disabilities. Grassroots and corporate fundraising alone brought in just over $300,000 for the responses.

Climate justice: at cop27, the united states and other wealthy countries finally agreed to the creation of a "loss and damage" fund to support developing countries rebuilding and recovering from the impacts of a climate crisis they had little role in creating. This comes after many years of collective pressure from civil society; a fight that Actionaid has been a part of since the very beginning. Ahead of cop27, we joined 150 u.s. Organizations calling on the biden administration to stop blocking the fund and supported 13 members of congress to add to this pressure. In partnership with other organizations, we also mobilized over 20,000 people to sign a petition with the same demand. All of this together added up to a cop27 outcome that our colleagues in the global south are rightfully celebrating as an unprecedented victory, even despite the lack of progress on other key aspects of the climate negotiations.

Food and agriculture: in 2022, we raised awareness on the drivers of the global food crisis and advocated for real solutions. Most notably, Actionaid conducted research in 14 different countries and found that local communities in africa, asia, latin america, and the middle east were disproportionately affected by price rises caused by the war on ukraine. Many pay double, triple, or in some cases four times what they were paying for food, fuel, and fertilizer before the war began. Actionaid used this research for local, national, and global advocacy pointing towards real solutions that pull people out of crisis and prevent future struggle, including universal social protection and public services, agroecology, food reserves, and shifting public and private finance away from industrial agriculture and fossil fuels. The success of this research secured more funding to conduct a follow up survey and dig deeper into the impacts on people, especially women, through visual storytelling.

The remaining programs include land rights & biofuels and education.