Mission : Grounded in a human rights framework and focused on women in civil society, Urgent Action Fund is a human rights organization with a strategic mission.   Urgent Action Fund and Urgent Action Fund-Africa operate Rapid Response Grantmaking programs and Collaborative Initiatives linking justice, peacebuilding, security and women's human rights. As the only international women's fund in the world designed to respond on short notice, UAF collaborates with women activists in three primary contexts: peace building in situations of armed conflict, escalating violence, or politically volatile environments; potentially precedent-setting legal and legislative actions; and protection of women human rights defenders.   UAF joins with local women to build civil societies that honor their experiences and include women at every juncture, especially in areas of armed conflict and war, where they are most at risk.

Location : Boulder, CO, USA

Website : www.urgentactionfund.org

Channel grants : Channel made a grant to support the integrated and comprehensive implementation of the next phase of the Sustaining Activism Initiative. Channel also made a grant to support UAF’s Rapid Response Grantmaking in Afghanistan and/or Iraq. (2008)   

To download a copy of the book about the Sustaining Activism Initiative, "What's the Point of Revolution if We Can't Dance?" by Jane Barry with Jelena Dordevic in PDF form, please click here. Available in French and Spanish versions from UAF here.

UAF's newest publication, also supported by Channel funding, "Insiste, Persiste, Resiste, Existe: Women’s Human Rights Defenders’ Security Strategies (Resiste)" by Jane Barry and Vahida Nainar, builds upon the foundation created by "What's the Point of Revolution if We Can't Dance?". Resiste will be used as a tool to improve activists’ own ability to proactively mitigate threats, and to help the funding community to understand ‘security’ from the vantage point of women human rights defenders (WHRDs) in the field. Resiste is the product of a joint partnership between UAF, Front Line-The International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, and Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation.

Channel made a grant to continue supporting the Urgent Action Fund's action research project Protecting and Sustaining Activism of Women Human Rights Defenders. (2007)

Channel made two grants to the Urgent Action Fund in 2006. One was intended to fund an action research project on Sustaining Activism of Women Human Rights Defenders and the other was intended to fund UAF's rapid response grantmaking in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. (2006)