Two Decades of Change.
The Battles Won, the Work Remaining.

Founded with a specific mandate: to ensure that US foreign policy and international development programs take seriously the economic and physical security of women and girls worldwide. At the time, gender-based violence was largely invisible in US foreign assistance programming.

Launched an advocacy campaign making the connection between women's land rights, agricultural productivity, and food security. Published research showing that women grow 60–80% of food in developing countries yet own less than 20% of the land — a figure that entered mainstream international development discourse.

When then-Senator Joe Biden introduced IVAWA for the first time, Women Thrive Worldwide was at the table as a co-lead of the advocacy coalition. The organisation coordinated over 100 US NGOs behind the legislation and developed the policy arguments that shaped congressional testimony and media strategy.

The IVAWA advocacy campaign — coordinated by Women Thrive Worldwide and its partners — brought UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The hearing drew unprecedented media attention and public awareness to legislation that had struggled to break through. Her closing line — "A life free of violence is a human right" — became the rallying cry of the campaign.

President Obama issued an executive order establishing the US Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence Globally — achieving the core policy objective of the IVAWA campaign through executive action after the legislation stalled in Congress. Women Thrive Worldwide's five years of sustained advocacy had produced a tangible policy outcome, even without the legislative victory.

President Ritu Sharma published Teach a Woman to Fish: Overcoming Poverty Around the Globe, providing a comprehensive policy and evidence-based framework for women-centred economic development. The book brought Women Thrive's research and advocacy work to a broader audience and was cited in congressional debates on international development funding.

Marked 20 years of advocacy with a global convening of partner organisations representing frontline women's rights advocates from 100+ countries. The anniversary retrospective documented measurable policy changes driven by the coalition — from the VAWA reauthorizations to the GBV Strategy to land tenure reforms in multiple countries.