Celebrating those who have helped make the organization what it is today – and those who will help shape its future!

This year marks some significant milestones for WEDO. Not only are we celebrating our 20th anniversary, we are preparing for the anniversary summit of the 1992 Earth Summit (UNCED), Rio+20 in 2012. Having emerged to specifically influence those historic negotiations, WEDO helped ensure women’s perspectives and gender equality positions were secured in two key final documents of that conference, Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration. Twenty years later, and with another conference ahead, we at WEDO are celebrating the work and individuals who got us here – and looking forward together as we move along the Road to Rio 2012!

Over the next year we invite you to join us as we look back– this page will serve as an archive for WEDO’s 20 years of advocacy. We will be updating old publications, unearthing old photos, and paying tribute to our founders and other great women leaders.

Revisit our Publications:
WEDO has been a source of information and motivation leading to changes in how women’s rights, participation, leadership, and role in the environment are understood. To celebrate this work, each month we will highlight a past WEDO publication in a post called “In Our Library”.

Spread the Word:
Follow our updates throughout the year on Facebook and Twitter, and join in the conversation! Tweet a quote or share a memory, and remember to use the #WEDO20 hashtag!

Share Your Stories:
Calling all those who have been involved with WEDO to share your stories/photos/memories over the past 20 years! Email us at WEDO20@wedo.org. We’d love to hear from you!

Donate:
Support WEDO on the Road to Rio and beyond! WEDO 20+ is about looking ahead and ensuring, as an organization, WEDO can build upon the foundation laid over the past 20 years and continue to advocate for women’s rights and promote women’s leadership in all spheres. Donate $20, $200, $2000, and help us get to $20,000 by 2012!

Explore WEDO's History

From our Archives (1992) Giving Women an Equal Say!

Celebrating Wangari Maathai’s Legacy at Rio+20

RIO DE JANEIRO (JUNE 22) — “The road is long and the battles many… For me it is a journey and I continue to pursue it wherever fate leads me…I learned to rise from the ashes of disappointment and look to the road yet ahead.” – Wangari Maathai

Women’s rights advocates at the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development remember Wangari Maathai’s wise words as we have faced another uphill battle to …

WEDO Launches New Historical Publication at Rio+20

Celebrating Momentum and Milestones: A WEDO History of Women’s Organizing Toward a Healthy and Peaceful Planet

RIO DE JANEIRO (JUNE 20) – “What if we, as women, use this opportunity of the UN Conference on Environment and Development to be the change we want to see in the world?” This was the question women activists posed to themselves in the early 1990s, according to WEDO founding member Thais Corral of Brazil. “This …

Happy International Women’s Day!

Happy International Women’s Day! Click here to download our full IWD 2012 e-mail blast.

This year, on International Women’s Day, WEDO is proud to celebrate 20 years of advancing women’s rights in sustainable development. We honor women’s leadership and the incredible, undeniable power of women’s organizing and action. We are also calling for action. As many of you know, this year, world leaders will come together in Rio de Janeiro, to participate in an Earth Summit, with hopes and plans for securing a sustainable future. Click here to find out how you can join us and share your views on the Future YOU Want– for women, for all people around the world, and for our planet.

Women on the forefront at the Earth Summit ’92 in Rio.

A personal journey by Irene Dankelman, Former WEDO Board Chair

Thinking of about 20 years ago, I really feel privileged to have been part of the movement that shaped a gender perspective into sustainable development. In the early 1990s I was working with the United Nations Development Fund for Women, UNIFEM, in New York as their gender-environment advisor, preparing for the upcoming United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro. On …

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