Created in 1990, WiLDAF/FeDDAF is a network which goal is to promote and strengthen strategies that link law and development for the emergence of a culture for the exercise and respect of women’s rights in Africa. It is the only pan-African regional network dedicated to the promotion of women’s rights as an integral part of development.

It brings together 500 organizations and 1200 individuals who, spread in 27 countries, are sharing the aims of the network and fighting for their fulfillment at local, national and regional levels.

The headquarters of WiLDAF/FeDDAF at regional level are located in Harare where the Secretariat ensures the coordination at the continental level. But, in order to serve better the increasing number of members and to keep an excellent communication among them, sub-regional coordination were created in West, Eastern and Southern Africa. The sub regional office in West Africa is located in Lomé, Togo.

At African regional level

Since 1990, WiLDAF/FeDDAF implemented a wide range of activities. Training and technical assistance in law is a first series of activities which allowed members to implement, in return, training programs for women in their own countries.

WiLDAF/FeDDAF initiated and published a bulletin, the WiLDAF News, in English, French and Portuguese. Among other publications, it published a training handbook for the advocacy for women’s rights groups, leaflets with simplified information on women’s rights and development issues, posters which can be used for training and education tools.

WiLDAF/FeDDAF has set up an Emergency Response System to face the violation of women’s rights, organized campaigns focussed on issues like violence against women and girls, the problems of women in armed conflicts and the impact of structural adjustment programs on women.

WiLDAF/FeDDAF organized many seminars in Africa to prepare the Vienna and Beijing Conferences in 1993 and 1995 and the consultation between NGOs leading to the African meeting of evaluation of the implementation of the Beijing Platform held in Addis-Ababa in November 1999. After these activities, African women made themselves heard and obtained that their views be incorporated in the different declarations and platforms which were adopted.

At the West-African sub-regional level

The sub-regional coordination of WiLDAF/FeDDAF West Africa was created in April 1997. It actually covers 8 countries were formal national networks are functional: [Benin], [Burkina Faso], [Ghana], [Guinea-Conakry], [Mali], [Nigeria], [Senegal] and [Togo]. It is also trying to spread to Cote d’Ivoire, the Gambia, Liberia, Niger and Sierra Leone where WiLDAF/FeDDAF already has an important number of members.