History

Women in Europe for a Common Future (WECF) was officially registered as a foundation in 1994 in the Netherlands following an initiative of European women to work together on sustainable development with a special focus on the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, following the 1992 Rio Summit. The philosophy of WECF was to enable the local project partners and network members to conduct advocacy work themselves with support from WECF, whether at local, national or international level, thus giving a voice to women and marginalized groups at the environmental policy table. This approach of combined advocacy and project work proved to be successful and became one of the strengths of the WECF network.


Gradually, WECF developed an active partner policy based upon longer term cooperation, capacity building and strengthening of the partner organisation’s own network. This helped to achieve successful project results and further fundraising. From 1999 to 2002 WECF expanded its network through advocacy projects on the POPs issue. Members in these projects were mostly based in the EECCA (Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia). This changed when EU Commissioner Margot Wallström called in for more active participation of women in EU environmental policy in 2001. WECF was approached to convene women from EU countries for a meeting with the Commissioner. This resulted in a very interesting workshop in Brussels as well a meeting with Margot Wallström. From that moment onwards WECF was gradually accepted as the European environmental women’s network and gained more members from EU countries. WECF then also managed to obtain the first project funding from European Commission's Directorate-General Environment which in later years became annual core funding.


The growth of the network and the organisation’s staff was enhanced by increased project funding by the Dutch Ministry of Development Cooperation from 2004 onwards, when developing countries in the EECCA region and Ukraine became eligible for that funding. As a consequence the new members are in majority from those countries. The recent decision by the new Dutch Minister of Development Cooperation to minimize project funding for the EECCA region may have a negative influence on funding opportunities for WECF’s partners and members in those countries and also consequences for the membership. WECF will need to find additional funding for partners in these countries.