Key information
Research tracks: Track 3 – Time to change/break the rules
Country: Türkiye
Researchers: Hilal Gençay Demir, Özgün Akduran Erol, Çağla Parlak and Zeynep Ekin Aklar
Advocacy Summary
Turkish feminist organizations struggle with financial and structural challenges – international and domestic support have declined while political restrictions persist. The paper also highlights that ODA funding is dwindling and unpredictable. There is limited private sector funding of feminist movement. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds fail to address structural inequalities. The paper posits building a long-term, transformative, collaborative, feminist and accountable funding ecosystem. Advocacy can focus on increasing ODA funding and ensuring a conducive ecosystem for feminist organizations.
Recommendations
- Provide Direct, Long-Term, and Flexible Funding: All stakeholders—ODA providers, the private sector, and the feminist community—should prioritize direct, multi-year funding aligned with feminist values, avoiding intermediaries and supporting grassroots organizations.
- Ensure Inclusive and Transparent Funding Processes: Simplify funding procedures, increase transparency, and embed intersectionality and crisis-responsiveness to make resources more accessible and effective for feminist movements.
- Foster Collaborative, Trust-Based Partnerships: Encourage joint funding mechanisms and decision-making roles for feminist organizations, while building trust and shared ownership between donors, private sector actors, and feminist intermediaries.
- Expand and Diversify Resources for Feminist Movements: Broaden financial support beyond traditional ODA by mobilizing private sector and local funding, while building alliances across sectors to strengthen political power, sustainability, and solidarity.
Authors
Çağla Parlak (Istanbul, Türkiye) is a feminist, independent researcher, CSO professional & volunteer. She holds a BA in Political Science and International Relations from Istanbul University and furthered her studies in Gender and Women Studies at Middle East Technical University. Her involvement in the feminist movement began with the University Women United for Solidarity initiative. She actively contributed to the feminist magazines Akıllara Zarar and Ve-Fekat and was a member of the Socialist Feminist Collective. Between 2015 and 2020, she worked as a Project Manager at the Association for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. She has also actively contributed to research projects focusing on threats to religious sites, policy-level changes in cultural heritage management, and promotion of intercultural dialogue. Çağla is one of the Silva – Women’s Fund for Turkey founders.
Hilal Gençay (Istanbul, Türkiye) is a feminist researcher, social psychologist, and educational scientist. She graduated from Mimar Sinan University’s Faculty of Science and Letters, Department of Statistics, and completed undergraduate studies in Educational Sciences, Social Psychology, and Social Anthropology at Ruhr University Bochum. Hilal’s expertise spans adult education, women’s empowerment programs, gender mainstreaming, non-violent masculinity initiatives, feminist pedagogy, feminist monitoring and evaluation, and feminist funding. She currently provides consultancy in fundraising, monitoring and evaluation, and strategy development to various organizations within the feminist movement. Hilal is an active Women’s Human Rights Association member and Silva – Women’s Fund for Turkey.
Özgün Akduran Erol (Istanbul, Türkiye) is an academic and feminist activist. She joined the feminist movement within the women’s circle of Pazartesi Gazetesi, a feminist magazine in 1995 during her college years. She contributed to the University Women United for Solidarity initiative and Akıllara Zarar feminist magazine during that time. In 2000, she enrolled in the Women’s Studies Master’s Program at Istanbul University and completed her thesis on the gender dimension of privatisation. She was actively involved in establishing the Socialist Feminist Collective and contributed to the early years of Feminist Politika magazine. Her book “The Household, the State, and the Market” based on her doctoral dissertation completed in 2011, explored the topic of gender-sensitive budgeting in the context of social policies and women’s labor. Since 2008, she has collaborated with numerous women’s organizations, civil society organizations, and municipalities on gender-sensitive budgeting and equitable public service delivery.
Zeynep Ekin Aklar (Istanbul, Türkiye) is a feminist and trade union activist, researcher and CSO volunteer. She holds her BA from Middle East Technical University (METU), Department of International Relations, and had her MA in European Studies in METU and held her second MA in Labour Policies and Globalization programme with focus on women empowerment in labour relations within Global Labour University in cooperation with Kassel University and Berlin’s School of Law and Economics. She was actively involved in the Socialist Feminist Collective in Türkiye. Zeynep’s expertise focuses on trade union rights, labour relations, child rights, gender equality, violence against women, feminist funding and grant management. She currently provides regular consultancy for IndustriALL Global Union and has actively contributed to national research on funding, capacity building, monitoring, and evaluation. Zeynep is an active volunteer of Mor Çatı Women’s Shelter Foundation and Silva – Women’s Fund for Turkey and Karakutu Association.
