From Washington DC: Sore feet and MDG3 Vigils.

My feet hurt. I arrived Washington DC Wednesday April 30th for this year’s Women’s Funding Network annual conference and the Council of Foundations Philanthropy summit. I have walked miles around the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Crystal City where the WFN’s conference took place. I walked even more miles at the gigantic Gaylord Convention Center where the COF Summit was held. Up escalators, down escalators, through workshop rooms, coffee shops for quick networking meetings, I have walked and walked for the past nine days. The COF summit ended yesterday, but I had to do some walking afterwards because I needed to get a T. Mobile recharge card, and unlike Accra or Lagos, where phone cards are poked at you every minute if you get caught in traffic, here in Washington you have to walk and walk to get one. I did get a phone card for $25, and by the time I had spent five minutes on the phone with Gertude, our Finance Manager to talk through our MDG3 proposal budget, the card ran out. So I had to do some more walking to get another one. I don’t want to have to do yet more walking over the next few days so to make sure, I got a $50 recharge card. So my feet hurt.

I have missed only two Women’s Funding Network conferences since I started attending in 1999. The WFN meetings always precede the Council of Foundations conference, so I of course usually stay behind for the COF as well. This year’s WFN conference featured, among many other great attractions, the great Wangari Maathai, 2004 Nobel Laureate. She gave the closing address at a lunch plenary, and I was asked to introduce her. As always she gave a great performance, and was worth whatever hoops WFN had to jump through to get her there.

This year, the COF decided to do something different. Instead of the annual conference, they decided to convene a summit, a much larger gathering of philanthropists (those who have money) philanthropoids (those who manage and help spend the money) philanthroprenuers (my coinage, those who have created an alarmingly unwieldy support service industry for philanthropists and philanthropic organisations), as well as a range of selected grantee partners. The result of the experiment was a huge gathering of up to 3,000 participants from across the world.

For me the two meetings were an opportunity to catch up with old friends and colleagues, make new friends, and continue to promote AWDF’s great work. After one week of intense meetings, I have been able to develop partnerships and collaborations with a variety of partners which range from large financial investments in AWDF’s grantmaking and programs to arranging peer learning exchanges to co-convening strategic meetings. So yes, I can ignore my sore feet because it has been worth it, and I am pleased that the African women we serve will benefit from these efforts.

People often tell me that it must be fun travelling around the world for work, getting to meet different people and see other places. I am sure it sounds very exciting and glamorous, and I do enjoy my work, but it can be very difficult. For me the hardest part of it all is leaving my two young children behind, and having to track them via phone calls and email. I also have to follow what is happening with my husband’s Governorship election petition case in Ekiti State, Nigeria, which has dragged on for over a year now, and is now generating a lot of tension and violence in the State because the ruling party is afraid the elections might be overturned since evidence of rigging and voter manipulation has been revealed in court. I fear for his safety and that of his associates.

Personal concerns aside, wherever I am in the world, I have to stay connected to the office. For the past week I have been working with Sarah, our Director of Programs, on the Millennium Development Goal Fund application, known as the MDG3 Fund which was recently launched by the Dutch government. It is an opportunity to inject a significant amount of money into women’s rights work across the world. However, the application process has been pretty intense. Several other international Women’s Funds here were also frantically finalising their MDG3 proposals. When I told a colleague that I had gone to bed at 3am because of the work I was doing on the proposal she said ‘me too, and I haven’t finished!’ Poor Sarah must have done at least eight drafts of the proposal. Well done Grace our Admin Manager, Gertrude, our Finance Manager, Zee, our Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Rissi our Program Officer/Executive Assistant, and all the other staff members who worked on the submission. I am very pleased with our teamwork at AWDF, and I am sure we have put together an impressive proposal. We hope the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs agrees with us!

I am proud of myself for having done this – it is my first attempt at blogging! Of course I love writing, but there is the big problem- time. I don’t promise to be able to write every day, but I will write as often as I can. I have to set an example for the other AWDF colleagues! We have this joke at AWDF, the young women (35 and under) call themselves ‘New School’ then there is the ‘Youngish School’ which would be about 35-40, and the rest of us are ‘Old School’. Well, ‘New School’ and ‘Youngish school’, I have started blogging, where are you?

Till next time.

Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi
Executive Director, AWDF