Our Herstory

WomenStrong International grew out of the Millennium Cities Initiative, a project of Columbia University’s Earth Institute designed to help move 11 sub-Saharan cities closer to eradicating extreme poverty and achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

Over more than a decade, we saw women in these communities rely on their own creativity, perseverance, and grit to provide for their families; these women became our go-to source of knowledge of what works, to obtain the health care they needed, see their daughters thrive in school, earn a decent living, live free of violence, and build a more just and prosperous world.

WomenStrong was co-created with our brilliant leaders in Ghana and Kenya and their respective organizations, and we expanded our geographic and cultural focus to include our founding partner organizations in India, Haiti, and the United States.

Today, WomenStrong’s community of partners has grown to include 19 current partners across 17 countries, from Asia, across the sub-Saharan region, to the Americas. These highly capable women-led organizations receive funding, capacity strengthening, and enhanced visibility, and they come together in our WomenStrong Learning Lab, to develop, test, sharpen, and amplify their solutions in the same areas of learning, to help women and girls meet their most basic needs – for health, education, violence prevention, and economic security and opportunity.

Visit our digital report to learn more about WomenStrong’s journey.