Tanzania: A Feminist Fund Rewriting Laws, Power, and Public Narratives

Women Fund Tanzania Trust (WFT-T) is a feminist, movement-led fund grounded in principles of solidarity, accountability, trust and collective power. As Tanzania’s first women’s rights fund, it supports feminist actors through grantmaking, accompaniment, advocacy, and narrative influence. Before WFT-T’s interventions, grassroots feminist groups struggled with limited funding, shrinking civic space, low visibility and weak influence on policies. 

Restrictive laws, patriarchal norms, and chronic underfunding limited movement sustainability and advocacy impact. Through flexible funding, capacity strengthening, leadership development, and wellness-centered support, WFT-T enabled organizations to respond to emerging priorities, build resilience, and sustain long-term advocacy. It invested in collective learning, dialogues, feminist storytelling and media engagement to shift public narratives and expand discourse on gender justice. 

Collaboration across movements strengthened shared strategies and collective organizing. Partnerships with civil society, academia, media, and government helped influence legal and policy frameworks. WFT-T supported feminist actors to engage state institutions through principled dialogue, enabling more inclusive, gender-responsive decision-making. The change has been seen at local, national, regional, and global levels. Locally, norms and leadership structures shifted through feminist organizing.

Nationally, WFT-T contributed to influencing frameworks such as the National Plan of Action to End Violence Against Women and Children (NPA-VAWC II), maternity leave reforms, and strengthened enforcement on sextortion laws. Women, girls, children and feminist movement actors benefited from stronger protections, improved accountability, and expanded leadership opportunities. A landmark achievement was the inauguration of six Maasai women as customary leaders (Laigwanan), challenging patriarchal governance structures. 

Sustainability is rooted in movement-led leadership and community ownership. WFT-T supports long-term funding, training and wellness for community-based feminist leaders, ensuring safe, continuous organizing. Scaling occurs through coalition-based advocacy, lived-experienced evidence, and locally rooted knowledge shaping policy agendas. By strengthening movements, resourcing feminist leadership and shifting narratives, WFT-T continues to amplify collective power for gender justice and social transformation. 

Quotes 
Rose Njir, With the support of WFT-T, I moved from participating in the movement to leading change in my community.

Janeth Mawinza, My leadership journey did not begin in comfort it began in survival.