Connecting, contesting, and consolidating
Think tank: Institute of Development Studies
Author(s): Tessa Lewin; Priya Raghavan; Chung-Ah Baek
March 28, 2025
This report from UK think tank the Institute of Development Studies reviews the three Cs for resisting the rollback of women’s rights and LGBTQI+ rights.
This briefing is based on a rapid scoping review of anti-rollback actors and activities post-2015, in 14 countries: Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Africa, and Türkiye. Our review included organisations, movements, groups, and projects active since 2015 that focus on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI), sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), gender-based violence, and women’s public participation.
Key messages:
Policymakers can support anti-rollback actors and actions through the 3 Cs: Connecting: connections across spaces and levels are central to anti-rollback strategies. Rollback occurs alongside other retrogressive projects, and counter-rollback efforts must be intersectional.
Contesting: rollback is rooted in retrogressive framings of gender, kinship/family, community, belonging, national identity, and security. Both the discourses and mechanisms of rollback must be contested.
Consolidating: resisting rollback entails strengthening existing rights and justice frameworks, ensuring enforcement and accountability, and nurturing vibrant feminist and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and more (LGBTQI+) movements. Sustainable, resilient, and effective counter-rollback efforts need multiple entry points.
