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Three months ago, a women-led organisation in our ecosystem closed its doors. For eight years, its founder had built a girls' education programme in rural Malawi. They had reached more than 3,000 girls, trained 50 educators, and built trusted partnerships with local schools. When their main funder withdrew, they had 90 days of runway.
She called me two weeks before the end. She was not asking for emergency funding. She already knew how unlikely that would be. Instead, she asked a quieter question: “Who should I hand my learnings to? Who will hold what we built?”
I did not have an answer then. I still don't.
On International Women's Day on 8 March, the global conversation focused on rights, justice, and action for women and girls. Legal protections and policy reforms matter deeply. But there is another injustice that receives far less attention: What actually disappears when women-led organisations collapse, and how rarely we measure the loss.
Through our work at the Alliance for Women and Girls (AFWAG), a network of nearly 300 grassroots organisations across 23 African countries, I see a pattern that challenges a common narrative.
Women leaders are not failing. The systems around them are. When an organisation closes – as so many are under the weight of donor funding cuts – the loss extends far beyond a single programme.
The leader in Malawi was not only running a project. She was informally advising three organisations in her region on governance. She hosted quarterly peer sessions where leaders shared strategies and challenges. Two organisations had adapted her financial systems to stabilise their own operations.
When she closed, that support disappeared. The peer network dissolved. Years of institutional knowledge and practical learning were lost. Several organisations lost a critical source of stability. None of this appears in any monitoring framework.
“Knowledge lives in relationships, trust, and lived experience”
Grassroots women leaders hold a particular kind of knowledge. It is built through years of experimentation, adaptation and deep community engagement.
A leader in Zimbabwe learns how to advance gender work in highly conservative contexts. A leader in Kenya develops financial models that survive repeated funding shocks. A leader in Senegal navigates local power structures to influence policy without triggering resistance.
This knowledge lives in relationships, trust, and lived experience. When organisations close, it often disappears with them. Yet, two years later, the sector may fund a new pilot to “test” approaches that local leaders had already refined and lost.
Peer networks are another invisible asset. Leaders rely on them during funding crises, moments of burnout, or difficult strategic decisions. These relationships take years to build. When one organisation closes, others lose a trusted advisor, a sounding board, or a source of practical solutions. Knowledge flows slow down. Isolation increases.
Over time, it is not just organisations we lose, it is the connective tissue that makes movements durable.
The development sector unintentionally contributes to this fragility. We fund programmes and measure outputs. We celebrate resilience. But we invest far less in the less visible work that keeps organisations stable beyond individual grants: governance, leadership continuity, financial planning, peer learning, and shared infrastructure.
At the community level, the consequences are even deeper. That organisation in Malawi spent eight years earning trust. Families who would not discuss menstruation or contraception with outsiders trusted their educators. Girls who had left school returned because the programme felt safe and reliable.
Building that trust took years. Losing it took 90 days.
What institutional knowledge would disappear if this organisation closed? How many peer relationships does it anchor? How many other organisations depend on it for informal support? When a grantee exits, what fragments, and who is left more isolated?
When another organisation eventually arrives to work in that district, they will be starting from zero. Communities learn that programmes come and go, that commitments are temporary, and that external support cannot be relied upon. That erosion of trust is not just operational loss. It is a system failure.
If we are serious about justice for women and girls, then justice must include building systems that do not collapse around the very leaders delivering change. This is not about creating new programmes. It is about strengthening what already works.
We need to start measuring ecosystem health alongside programme outputs. What institutional knowledge would disappear if this organisation closed? How many peer relationships does it anchor? How many other organisations depend on it for informal support? When a grantee exits, what fragments, and who is left more isolated?
Funding approaches also need to reflect how change actually happens. A meaningful portion of gender equity investments should support what we think of as the connective tissue: peer convenings, knowledge platforms, leadership support, and shared learning infrastructure.
These are not overheads. They are the conditions that allow organisations to survive long enough for their impact to compound.
Every grant should strengthen organisational resilience alongside programme delivery through governance support, financial planning, and access to peer networks. Without this, we continue to fund impact while neglecting the stability that makes impact possible.
Learning, testing, adjusting
I say this as someone working inside the same system I am describing. AFWAG also operates within short funding cycles. We are learning, testing, and adjusting as we go. This year, we are facilitating cross-border knowledge exchanges among leaders and compiling practitioner-built resources so that learning does not disappear when individual organisations face disruption.
The real measure of progress will be whether we build systems strong enough that women leaders do not have to carry that weight alone, systems where their knowledge endures, their organisations remain stable, and the communities they serve are not left starting over every few years.
On International Women's Day, we are often asked to celebrate women leaders for their resilience. But resilience should not be the sector's primary expectation.
The real measure of progress will be whether we build systems strong enough that women leaders do not have to carry that weight alone, systems where their knowledge endures, their organisations remain stable, and the communities they serve are not left starting over every few years.
I think often about the leader in Malawi and the question she asked. Who will hold what we built?
Justice begins when that question no longer needs to be asked, when years of learning do not disappear overnight, when community trust survives beyond a single grant cycle, and when the relationships that sustain movements are treated as essential infrastructure, not invisible labour.
That is what it will take to ensure that progress for women and girls is not only achieved, but sustained.
