After five years of the We Lead programme, we, the Community of Action (CoA), take a moment to reflect on the progress we have made and to celebrate our collective strength and collaboration—even as we face the uncertainty of what lies ahead. Together, we have formed a coalition of CSOs, working on various approaches to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). We may work in different ways or target different populations; however, we are all facing the threat of a shrinking space for SRHR work and a decrease in interest or funding for any SRHR-related interventions.
These five years coincided with a global rise in anti-rights movements—targeting the very core of what we do: access to care and the right to speak up. That made our work more urgent but also more difficult—as we kept pushing forward with fewer resources and greater needs.
In Lebanon, that pressure was even heavier. We’ve been living through nearly six years of overlapping crises—economic collapse, political paralysis, the lasting effects of the pandemic, the Beirut port explosion, and the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the war in Lebanon. These crises did not just shape our context—they have deepened inequality, stretched resources really thin, and directly impacted the communities we work with every day.
Yet, we’ve managed to keep moving forward—and to make it count. With the support of the We Lead programme, our CoA remained active, responsive, and impactful even through the hardest times. We stood up for rights that were too often pushed aside during times of crisis. We kept essential services running when the existing systems fell short. We continued to produce data to guide policymaking, and we built programmes that reached communities no one else was looking at.
Our work was grounded in core values—inclusion, youth leadership, intersectionality, safety, and sustainability—that guided us daily, even in the hardest times. What sustained us was the deep care we held for one another as activists and rightsholders and for our communities, even when they weren’t in the room. That foundation is what gave us the ability to act quickly and meaningfully, as we understand the needs and the context, and we know how to respond.
Still, alongside our progress, one thing has become clear: that in the current shift of international priorities, solidarity has become transactional for some, and allyship conditional. Our feminist activists and SRHR service providers continue to face the challenge of not being recognised as full agents of change. Instead, they’re too often reduced to token roles in global advocacy spaces.
When opportunities for impactful advocacy arose, our members working on the ground with the most insightful perspectives were either forgotten or the last ones consulted by the global community. In this context, we’re calling for a more inclusive and truly collaborative approach — one that brings together local actors, donors, international institutions, and frontline SRHR organisations like each and every member of our Community of Action.
After five years of working in one of the most challenging contexts, we know that real impact comes from shared responsibility, long-term support, and trust. To build stronger, more effective responses moving forward, we need to work together as local organisations, donors, and stakeholders by taking the following measures:
- Invest in economic empowerment as part of SRHR interventions. The ability to access care is directly tied to economic stability. Funding that integrates economic justice within SRHR programming, from service delivery to education to advocacy, is essential.
- Embed sustainability into the funding structure. Programs must be designed with life beyond their end date in mind. This means budgeting for transition, continuity, and local ownership — not just implementation.
- Build relationships rooted in trust, not just compliance. Shift from extractive reporting to mutual learning, flexibility, and co-creation, and meaningful reporting that leads to change.
- Centre local and intersectional voices. Involve grassroots and community-based organisations not only as implementers but also as co-designers of strategy.
- Include emergency funds in budgets to quickly and flexibly respond to urgent situations.
Throughout the We Lead programme, we have achieved impactful and significant progress in our work on SRH-R. We have advocated for basic rights that were deprioritised in times of crisis. We have worked to sustain access to essential services in the absence of reliable public provision. We have produced data to inform evidence-based programming and policy. We have created programs that reached communities no one else was reaching. We have done it all with dedication, with limited resources, and sometimes, with nothing more than conviction.
We see our work as a cumulative process of improving the context, rather than merely navigating it. The implementation of our activities, such as awareness sessions, research, creative writing, advocacy campaigns, creating innovative SRH-R services, conducting emergency response, and empowering our youth communities, is the building block of structural change we all pursue. As we reflect, we see that we were able to work, support, and make an impact because we invested in our convictions of using creativity and innovative SRH-R programming. We have also realised that our anchor is the care and responsibility towards each other as activists and rightsholders, and towards our community members who may not always be present with us in the room.
