Series S7 - Misc. Articles, Conferences, etc.

The Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA), a national alliance of forty Canadian women's organizations, was founded in 1999 to monitor the Canadian government's implementation of human rights commitments to women, such as those adopted at UN women's conference throughout the last few decades of the 20th century. FAFIA pooled resources and expertise to develop and disseminate new knowledge about women's human rights in an international context. Furthermore, FAFIA disseminated knowledge about the Canadian government's action (or rather, inaction) on their commitments within international agreements. FAFIA played a role in coordinating NGO participation at the Beijing +5 Conference, a follow-up to the Fourth UN World Conference on Women which took place in Beijing, China in 1995. FAFIA also played a role in the development of the Beijing +5 Platform for Action, and other important documents related to Beijing Conference follow-up. Additionally, the organization benefited from a close working relationship with numerous federal government departments, most importantly with Status of Women Canada, but also with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Human Resources Development Canada, and Heritage Canada. FAFIA sought to develop new tools for integrating gender-based analysis in policy-making, such as Integrated Feminist Analysis and Monitoring Mechanisms, which expanded gender-based analysis to include considerations of race, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, age, geographic location, First Nation status, and income. While FAFIA still exists today, the records held at University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections are primarily related to the first five years of their work (1999-2004).