On Tuesday 17 June, The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Women, Peace and Security and the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN) hosted an event to discuss supporting women’s networks in crisis response.

The session, chaired by Baroness Hodgson of Abinger CBE, Co-Chair of the APPG on Women, Peace and Security, brought together a panel of leading voices including Sanam Anderlini and France Bognon from ICAN, Frederico Motka from Vitol, and Muna Luqman from Yemen. The discussion focused on the increasing complexity and frequency of conflict and climate-related crises, and how women-led peacebuilding organisations remain at the frontline of response despite being severely underfunded. The panel highlighted the need for more inclusive, decentralised, and sustainable funding models that direct resources to trusted, locally rooted women’s rights organisations (WROs), who are often the first to respond to emergencies yet the last to receive support.

Sanam Anderlini recalled the origins of ICAN’s work, referencing the 2010 report and the establishment of the Innovative Peace Fund (IPF) in 2015 as a direct challenge to traditional aid mechanisms. With current trends showing an increase in defence and deterrence budgets alongside cuts to humanitarian aid, speakers warned of the urgent need to redirect funding to grassroots actors. Muna Luqman shared a powerful account from Yemen, detailing how communities face weaponised water shortages and systematic deprivation. She described a “slow stripping away of hope”, exacerbated by social media harassment and a lack of accountability since 2014. Despite early warnings by WROs, action came too late, though initiatives like Water4Peace are now working to address the gap.

Speakers argued for a shift away from top-down aid delivery towards approaches grounded in mutual aid and hyper-local response. The Vitol Foundation shared its work on localising humanitarian support and reimagining systems that scaffold around survivor-led groups. The panel explored how locally led solutions often desecalate tensions, helping to manage security risks more effectively than large-scale interventions. However, concerns were raised about how bureaucratic and rigid funding structures can hinder these efforts. The phrase “funding corrupts” was invoked to challenge assumptions that funding must flow through traditional institutions. Examples from Sudan showed how emergency response rooms and local-national intermediaries offered more effective, immediate support to communities than many international agencies.

The discussion closed with a call to invest directly in women peacebuilders and local civil society organisations, whose resilience and access offer not only faster and more culturally appropriate responses but also long-term pathways to peace. Participants agreed that future funding models must be flexible, responsive and led by those with lived experience of crisis.