IWRAW/Feminist Leadership The IWRAW AP team began its engagement with the OXFAM Mekong Inclusion project in late 2020, which led to the specific engagement of the Environmental Justice (EJ) programme with the regional women’s rights network and eventually the Mekong Regional Water Governance programme. In May 2021, IWRAW AP’s EJ programme participated in the Inclusion Project Phase I, through a presentation to some ofthe indigenous women and communities with which the Regional Water Governance programme works, during the Gender Equality, Disability and Social Inclusion (GEDSI) Consultation and Feminism in Water Governance Webinar organised by OXFAM and JASS SEA. During IWRAW AP's Global South Women's Forum 2021, with the theme ‘Global South feminist visions of environmental justice’, the OXFAM Mekong Regional Water Governance programme co-hosted a session with the Asia Indigenous People's Pact (AIPP) during which Indigenous women shared their inspiring stories from Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam about their challenges in protecting their nature, society, and culture as they work towards a sustainable future for the region. These different engagements continued to inspire meetings for future collaboration. On review of project documents and analysis from the programme, IWRAW AP’s EJ programme has identified ways to contribute to the GEDSI strategy through support and activities for Feminist Leadership in Water Governance.

As the Inclusion project moves into Phase II, the support provided by IWRAW AP will build on the already established GEDSI strategy towards ensuring the inclusion of women, people living with disabilities, youth and Indigenous people in water resource governance and renewable energy development in the Mekong region. Women are often absent from water governance strategies and policymaking spaces as well as water technologyindustries.1 Acknowledging the role of capitalism in the exclusion and discrimination of women from water governance systems and structures that impact their lives and livelihoods2, our approach will aim to enhance their agency and hence leadership in their respective communities. Capitalist systems and structures of power, as well as patriarchal and cultural and social norms, have also affected/influenced these women's participation in terms of their ability to share their Indigenous knowledge and other life skills and solutions in discussions, especially those towards food security and poverty. Our activities will aim to give women a space to share and articulate their key concerns, demands and solutions to the ongoing issues as they pertain to water governance, in addition to specific cultural and social norms and practices which impede women's voices, accessibility and control over resources, inclusion in decision-making processes and their feminism. As it relates to decision making, some activities will serve to build women's capacityand knowledge on gender and intersectional approaches to inspire and support their goal towards feminist leadership in their communities and to confront and tackle patriarchal water governance institutions.

The project will focus on the following changes to happen, we will apply a number of intervention strategies, namely:

1. Capacity strengthening:

○ WROs, CSOs, feminists, activists and others acting in solidarity will take an inclusive, intersectional approach which aims to leave no one behind. IWRAW AP has a strong commitment to supporting intersectional feminist movement building as a lever for social change. We do this by creating safe spaces for women and marginalised groups to come together and formulate shared advocacy agendas based on their lived realities and rights claims. Through this project, IWRAW AP will galvanise Indigenous women’s groups representing specific marginalised communities i.e. women with disabilities, young women and those operating in an extremely repressive environment, to come together and share their understandings of feminist visions of environmental justice. For example, engagement between marginalised communities from different contexts will be established - indigenous women and women living with disabilities, and LGBTIQ people. One of our activities will be delivered on the human rights of Indigenous women with disabilities.

2. Knowledge creation
○ The dialogues embarked on through our activities will deepen understanding among the project partners, civil society, governments and private-sector actors of different approaches to the problem identified. We aim to shift the narrative to centre the knowledge and lived realities of these women engaging in the project, highlighting the limitations of conventional approaches while offering alternatives. The learnings from our activities will be extended to civil society organisations, activists, academics, duty bearers and other interested parties through publiccommunications which highlight issues of water governance in the Mekong and promote progressive approaches.

3. Movement Building/Transboundary Cooperation
○ Through national, regional and international engagement, the project partners along with IWRAW AP, OXFAM and others will identify points of connection across movements, building solidarity and drawing from the expertise of peers in othercountries and in other movements. Activities will include networking and learning exchange among project partners and IWRAW AP’s EJpartners working on empowering women towards feminist leadership and will explore the possibility of hosting a regional (Asia) engagement to discuss gender and intersectionality as itrelates to water governance. The output of this intervention strategy will be alliances, movements and multi-stakeholder platforms uniting women and WROs and other key actors, in the capacity to advocate for their human rights. This strategy will also allow affected communities to present compelling cases for the cultural, livelihood <(>&<)>amp; ecological value of rivers.

4. Amplification of marginalised voices
○ Through tools, knowledge resources, and capacity strengthening, as well as through engagementin regional- and global-level forums such as the CEDAW space, IWRAW AP will ensure that partnersare given the opportunity to share their narratives with decision-makers, broadening the understanding of the issues that they faceand their rights claims. And beyond building capacity, we will maintain lines of communication with partners to provide support andhelp to develop their knowledge and confidence at their own pace, enabling them to engage with the broader community and to step forward as women leaders who are confident and well qualified beyond cultural norms do not only represent themselves but also other women within and beyond their communities, highlighting a diversity of struggles.

5. Evidence-based advocacy with duty bearers
○ The CEDAWCommittee and other treaty bodies, along with national-, regional- and international-level public institutions, and the privatesector, will hear from individual women as well as women’s rights organisations who can elaborate on their country's context, thepractical impact of intersecting forms of discrimination and state failures to uphold the rights of marginalised groups of women and their recommendations for moving forward.