Stepping Up Global Organizing Amidst Deepening Authoritarianism
With roll-backs of basic protections happening faster than we can count against a backdrop of climate chaos and militarism, we turn to our social movement partners for political clarity and guidance. While those of us in the US might feel a pull to turn inward, focusing our energies on putting out the fires on our doorsteps, this moment presents an opportunity for us to connect more deeply with the rest of the world. The scenario currently unfolding is part of a global trend of rising authoritarianism – with an estimated nearly 3/4 of the global population living under authoritarian governments – fueled by the failures of neoliberal policies and multiple intersecting crises confronting the planet. The challenges we are up against are global in nature and will only be addressed at their roots when we unite across borders.
In times of heightened crisis such as these, social movements show us a powerful way forward, ramping up mutual aid to meet the basic needs of their communities while mobilizing globally to build the power necessary for system-wide change. From militarized urban communities to the frontiers of extractivism in the Amazon, they are forging connections that link together their futures – and ours. In an era of tightening borders, they are demonstrating the power of internationalism, solidarity, and global organizing as a praxis of hope. The following are several key interlinked processes unfolding this year that we are honored to accompany, and that give us hope.
Advancing the Global Food Sovereignty Movement
In early 2007, at the 10-year mark of the global food sovereignty movement and with a world food price crisis looming, movements of food producers from across the globe and allies like Grassroots International gathered in Mali for the Nyéléni Global Food Sovereignty Forum. With the goal of charting a collective path forward toward realizing the food sovereignty political project, the significance of Nyéléni 2007 for food systems transformation cannot be overstated. Its outputs, which included an updated definition and framework for food sovereignty and action plans by region, have been instrumental in formulating new policies from the local to global levels, building regional food sovereignty alliances, and galvanizing a highly diverse global movement that extends well beyond its original peasant base.
Much more than a single event, Nyéléni has been a process spanning more than two decades. The latest milestone of this process is the 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum scheduled for this fall in South Asia, with two years of participatory consultations by region feeding into it. This iteration of Nyéléni is explicitly focused on systemic change, in reflection of the evolution of the food sovereignty movement and the demands of the present moment. In addition to organizing by region via the consultations, the forum builds upon critical organizing by sector. This includes global assemblies of La Via Campesina and World March of Women in 2023 and the World Forum of Fisher Peoples in 2024 and recent efforts by the World Alliance of Mobile Indigenous Peoples to strengthen global organizing by pastoralist movements, among others. Nyéléni’s organizers have also worked tirelessly to bring in new actors to further expand the movement. Despite challenges of funding and logistics, the next Nyéléni is slated to be just as if not more impactful than the first, and it comes at a moment when it couldn’t be more needed.
Mass Mobilizing for Climate Justice
When it was announced that COP30, the 30th convening of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, would be hosted by Brazil in its Amazon region in November 2025, Brazilian social movements and the global movements they are part of, wasted no time in mobilizing. Since 2023, they have been building toward the Cúpula dos Povos Rumo a COP30, the People’s Summit Toward COP30, as a process of convergence among diverse movements united in their demand for climate justice, among other related efforts. Parallel spaces like these are part of a long tradition of organizing within and between people’s movements.
COP30 comes at a time when climate chaos is an ever-present reality across the world and the corporate capture of the COP process has been laid bare in recent years, sparking mounting pressure for a radical departure from the status quo. It also comes as the US has pulled out of the Paris Agreement once again ( ironically announced at the height of the California wildfires), in a blow to global coordination on climate policy. Just as the timing of this 30th COP is significant, so too is its location. Home to some of the world’s most diverse ecosystems, Brazil is a site of major contestation between agribusiness and other corporate interests and large popular movements, with the government attempting to walk a line between the two.
Movements see COP30, in the belly of the agroindustrial beast, as a strategic leverage point in the struggle against false solutions and for real people-led solutions coming from impacted communities. This is why many of our partners in Brazil and at the global level are putting their energy behind the summit and related forms of organizing, from participatory action research on sea level rise led by fisher movements to a global convening of people affected by dams that will feed into the Summit. With the People’s Summit happening on the back of Nyéléni this fall and many of the same movements involved, the two processes have been melding and building upon each other in deeply strategic and exciting ways.
Global Feminist Organizing
Both the food sovereignty and climate justice movements are increasingly applying a feminist lens to their organizing and analysis, undoubtedly influenced by the ongoing engagement of our global movement partner World March of Women (WMW) in these spaces. Among the many contributions of WMW, together with allies, has been the articulation of feminist economies for the sustainability of life as a framework that turns capitalist economics on its head by centering care and the sustenance of life. By highlighting areas such as invisibilized labor and the body as a form of territory, feminist economies are strengthening the theory and practice of other transformative frameworks such as food sovereignty.
Feminist economies, along with defense of the commons, ending violence against women, and peace and demilitarization, are the main themes of the 6th International Action of World March of Women, another key process transpiring this year. Occurring every five years, this year’s International Action will launch on March 8, International Women’s Day, and run through October with a wide variety of coordinated actions across regions. Activities include a Feminist Peace Boat connecting three continents over three days; a youth camp; a week of action against transnational corporations; actions in solidarity with Palestine; and more. As a key actor in both the COP30 mobilizations and the Nyéléni process since its inception, WMW has intentionally organized its International Action in a way that feeds into and strengthens both processes.
A related process happening over the course of this year is preparation for the first in-person convening of the International Feminist Organizing School (IFOS). The in-person IFOS is being planned for 2026 in Kenya following several years of organizing by WMW and its allies. Initially conceived in response to rising authoritarianism globally and the anti-feminist backlash associated with it, IFOS has played a critically important role in bringing together diverse feminist movements across the world for shared learning, analysis, strategizing, and organizing.
Solidarity with Palestine
In each of the processes mentioned above, solidarity with Palestine has been a consistent theme, particularly over the course of Israel’s fast-motion genocide of Palestinians in Gaza since the fall of 2023. In many senses, this period has served as a test for humanity. As Palestinian movements courageously work to save lives and stay on their land, movements are taking a stand together across borders. From grassroots feminist movements to students to environmental justice movements, solidarity for Palestinian liberation has been growing around the world, demonstrating the power of intersectionality.
In this moment of fragile ceasefire, with threats by the US president to take over and “own” Gaza and with intensifying violence in the West Bank, we are honored to be part of an international groundswell of solidarity to rise to the challenge.
Moving Forward
With the already nefarious foreign relations of the US government going from bad to worse as we write, and global power structures overall being so antithetical to the needs of the people and the planet, it is up to the global majority to learn how to support each other and build together across borders. Thankfully there are powerful global movements leading the way and offering us countless opportunities to contribute with our voices, resources, minds, and hearts.
Grassroots International is honored to accompany these and other critical movement building processes, and we are committed to stretching ourselves in new ways to meet the demands of this historic moment. We understand that building strong, independent movement support infrastructure is more important than ever to weather the global lurch to the right we are witnessing, and that this will require donors and funders engaging in a completely different way. In the coming months, we are excited to launch a new publication and toolkit to support these efforts, as part of our ongoing praxis of Solidarity Philanthropy.
Even in these bleak times, another world is on the horizon, and social movements are laying the groundwork to get us there. Let’s join them.
