August 5–8, 2026 | Windhoek, Namibia

About The Weavers Forum

Across Africa, women support economies through land cultivation, informal and formal work, and the often-unseen labour of social reproduction. However, they remain mostly excluded from macroeconomic decision-making and global financial governance. The Biennial Weavers Forum addresses this contradiction by establishing a Pan-African feminist political economy space that prioritises African epistemologies, movement knowledge, and creative practice in shaping economic futures.

The convening is more than a conference: it is a sanctuary for collective imagination, disruption, and movement-building. Over four days, we will challenge dominant economic paradigms; expose how macroeconomic frameworks reproduce gendered, racialized, and stratified harms; and co-create feminist, care-oriented, decolonial, and ecologically sustainable alternatives. Through dialogue, creative experimentation, and strategic alignment, the convening aims to shift from “gender inclusion” at the margins to the structural transformation of economic governance itself.

The 2026 edition will be held in Windhoek, Namibia, and is co-convened by The African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), Nawi Afrifem Collective, and Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA), working with a Curatorial Council that oversees the ideological, political, and methodological grounding of the space.

Overall Theme

Towards African Feminist Economies of Care, Justice & Collective Sovereignty

We invite contributions that illuminate, contest, and reimagine how economic systems in Africa are organised, from household and community economies to national, regional, and global financial architecture and economic governance. Submissions should take seriously feminist political economy, decolonial and postcolonial feminist thought, and the lived realities of African communities as starting points for analysis and action.

We welcome submissions in three broad streams:

1. Thought pieces, research papers, and & policy briefs

Academic, activist, and policy-oriented work that advances African feminist macroeconomic analysis or proposes concrete alternatives. This includes but is not limited to:

• Feminist macro-level economic frameworks and methodologies
• Debt Justice: Debt and Austerity
• Feminist perspectives on tax reforms
• Trade, industrial policy, and regional integration
• Feminist budgeting, public services, and social protection
• Labour, informal economies and the future of work
• Care economies and social reproduction
• Land, extractives, and natural resource governance
• Climate finance, just transitions, and ecological justice
• Feminist data, indicators, and metrics of well-being
• Movement funding and feminist resource mobilisation
• Food sovereignty/Seed justice

We strongly encourage work that bridges scholarship, policy, and organising practice, including co-authored pieces between researchers and movements.

2. Sessions

Proposals for highly participatory sessions rooted in organising practice, political education, and collective strategy, such as:

• Scholar–practitioner roundtables
• Policy co-labs
• Skill-shares on feminist macro popular education, storytelling, media, and narrative strategies

These sessions should foreground learning across regions, generations, identities, and sectors, and be designed to generate shared agendas and concrete follow-up pathways.

3. Creative & Cultural Works

We recognise art and culture as core methods of economic thinking and world-building. We therefore invite:

• Murals, visual art, and installations
• Short films, animations, and video essays
• Sound pieces, music, podcasts, and soundscapes
• Poetry, spoken word, performance, and theatre
• Comics, graphic essays, and other experimental formats

Works may explore the themes mentioned in section 1. Selected works will be featured throughout the convening and/or in a Living Archive Studio, contributing to an evolving public digital repository.

4. Who is Eligible to Submit?

• African feminist and women’s rights organisations and movements
• Grassroots organisers, community leaders, and movement strategists
• Heterodox and feminist (political) economists, as well as legal and policy specialists
• Artists, cultural practitioners, and narrators
• Journalists, narrative designers, and media professionals
• Public-sector reformers who are aligned with feminist political economy.

Submissions are particularly encouraged from youth-led organisations and young individuals, as well as collectives (registered and unregistered)  operating in underrepresented languages and regions.

5. Submission Guidelines

Paper Proposals

• Abstract length: 300–400 words
• Include:

Title

Author(s) name(s), affiliation(s) and country/countries

Stream and key theme(s)

Core question(s), methodology/approach, and anticipated contribution

Up to 5 keywords

• Bio: Up to 150 words per author, including activist/organising affiliations.
• Full papers (6,000–8,000 words) will be requested from selected authors ahead of the convening to enable rich discussion and potential inclusion in post-convening outputs, i.e, journal

Movement Session Proposals

• Session description: 400–500 words
• Include: Session title and stream
• Facilitator(s) and co-organisers (names, affiliations, countries)
• Objectives and core political questions
• Proposed format and participatory methods (e.g., fishbowl, popular education tools, gallery walks)
• Expected outcomes
• Accessibility considerations and language(s) of facilitation

We encourage proposals that include young activists, organisers with lived experience of the issues, and cross-country teams.

Creative & Cultural Work Proposals

Audio Visual piece or Concept note: 250–300 words describing:

• Medium and format
• The key idea or story
• How it connects to the convening theme
• Technical needs (space, equipment, permissions, etc.)

Portfolio/sample:

• 1–3 links or low-resolution files (where available) of previous or proposed work.

Where works are language-based (spoken word, theatre, film), please indicate the language(s) and whether subtitles, translations, or transcripts are available or can be developed.

Interested parties are invited to submit their Expression of Interest via email to femnetprog@gmail.com, clearly indicating the subject line: “Call for Papers – The Weavers Forum.”

6. Languages & Participation Format

We welcome submissions in English, French, Arabic, and Portuguese, and are open to African languages. Please indicate the language of your submission and the preferred language of presentation.

The convening will be primarily in-person in Windhoek, Namibia, with limited possibilities for hybrid participation depending on technical and resource capacities. Preference will be given to in-person presenters whose work most directly benefits from embodied, collective exchange. Successful applicants may be supported to travel, where applicable.