From Shared Experience to Collective Action: Displaced Women Leaders and Partners Meet in Berlin
What does it take to ensure that women affected by displacement do not simply participate in conversations about their futures, but actually shape the decisions, resources and systems that determine them?
This question is at the centre of the Berlin convening of the Action Network on Forced Displacement – Women as Agents of Change, taking place from 5 to 8 October 2026 under the theme Meeting the Moment: Feminist Action on Displacement in a Changing World.
The gathering brings together Network members, government representatives and strategic partners to reflect on the changing political and financial landscape and explore how feminist action and refugee leadership can respond to this moment.
With approximately 30 women and gender-expansive leaders, activists and experts with lived experience of displacement forming the Network, the convening creates a space where experience, expertise and political engagement come together.
The convening opened with a dedicated Community and Care Day for Network members on 5 October.
Rather than beginning with formal policy discussions, the day focused on strengthening relationships, creating space for storytelling and reconnecting members around the Network’s shared mission and feminist principles.
Through story-sharing and regional reflections, members explored their diverse experiences, perspectives and collective identity. The emphasis was on building the trust, solidarity and internal cohesion needed to sustain collective leadership.
On 6 October, the conversation moved towards the Network’s strategic direction and institutional partnerships.
Members engaged with BMZ leadership, including Federal Minister Reem Alabali Radovan, alongside representatives of GIZ and WPHF. Discussions provided an opportunity to reflect on existing collaboration, identify lessons and consider how the Network can strengthen its contribution to feminist development policy and international cooperation.
The political and partnership sessions on 7 and 8 October bring together selected partners with expertise in refugee leadership and gender equality.
The focus is on two questions that have become increasingly important in the current development and humanitarian landscape.
The first concerns financing: how can funding arrangements better support feminist action and refugee-led organisations beyond fragmented, short-term project cycles?
The second concerns localisation: when institutions speak about locally led development, whose leadership are they recognising, and who actually has the power to make decisions and control resources?
These are not merely technical questions. They speak to the distribution of power within the systems intended to support people affected by displacement.
Through expert contributions, facilitated dialogue and collaborative working sessions, participants are exploring the barriers within existing approaches and identifying opportunities for new strategies, tools and standards.
A defining ambition of the convening is to ensure that conversations translate into practical action.
The programme moves from establishing shared understandings of financing and localisation to identifying opportunities, developing possible solutions and testing approaches through collaborative design sessions.
Participants are expected to work towards prototypes that can help address identified challenges and inform future collaboration.
This approach reflects the Network’s ambition to position itself not only as a platform for representation, but also as a credible political partner, a source of expertise and an innovation space for meaningful participation.
At a time of shrinking resources, increasingly polarised displacement narratives and growing pressure on feminist organisations, spaces for collective reflection and political engagement are particularly important.
However, meaningful participation cannot end with inviting women into a room. It must create opportunities for them to influence the agenda, challenge assumptions, shape solutions and participate in decisions about resources and priorities.
The Berlin convening is an opportunity to strengthen that ambition through relationships, political dialogue and collective action.
As members and partners continue their discussions, the central challenge remains how to translate shared analysis into approaches that recognise the leadership of displaced women and make their participation meaningful in practice.
