Women’s Voice and Leadership Sri Lanka

Advancing Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality in Sri Lanka

Women's Voice and Leadership–Sri Lanka (WVL-SL) was a five-year project from 2019 to 2024 funded by Global Affairs Canada. The project aimed to strengthen the capacity and the activities of women-led, women's rights organizations and movements seeking to empower women and girls and advance the protection of the rights of women and girls and achieve gender equality. WVL-SL was part of Canada's Women's Voice and Leadership Program, which is currently being implemented in several nations across the globe. Canada's feminist approach to international assistance recognizes advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls as the most effective way to reduce poverty and build a more inclusive, peaceful, and prosperous world.

WVL-SL worked with over sixty women’s rights organizations across Sri Lanka at national, district, and community levels. The project supported these organizations with:

• Multi-year funding
• Rapid response funding for distinct activities and short projects that allow for nimble, timely, and strategic responses to unforeseen events and to pilot innovative ideas
• Funding for institutional capacity building
• Funding for strengthening networks and alliances to amplify the voices of local women's rights organizations and foster an enabling environment in which broader collective action can coalesce