Bringing together South Asian policymakers and civil society, this workshop offered a critical space for actors to construct regionally-grounded strategies towards the upcoming Third Conference on Financing for Development (FfD3). Regions Refocus worked with the Women and Media Collective and the Asian Pacific Resource and Research Center for Women (ARROW) to co-convene a deeply inclusive space. The conscious foregrounding of progressive, feminist, and youth voices ensured the collective understandings growing out of this space were grounded in marginalized perspectives.
Key topics of discussion included: the linkages between the FfD3 and the post-2015 sustainable development agenda, geopolitical analyses of the FfD3 process, and the interplay between FfD3 and national policy landscapes in the region. Participants produced a number of resources mapping the national policy landscapes in Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal, as well as a broader regional map that identified shared conditions and challenges. This analysis laid the foundations for participants across national contexts, sectors, and ministries to coordinate collective responses to the FfD3 process and its follow up.
Photos below courtesy of Women and Media Collective.