Our Strategic Priorities
Seven interconnected pillars of feminist action — from grassroots organising to global policy advocacy across Kenya's Coast region.
Feminist Leadership & Development
COSWA positions women and girls not as beneficiaries, but as agents of change and leaders in shaping inclusive, gender-just societies. The organisation invests in building the knowledge, skills, education, and confidence of women and adolescent girls to engage in civic processes, influence decision-making, and hold institutions accountable.
Recognising that education is the single strongest predictor of a girl's life outcomes, COSWA also addresses the structural barriers of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, school-related GBV, period poverty, and household poverty that drive girls out of school and out of the public sphere.
GBV Prevention & Access to Justice
Gender-based violence remains the most persistent threat to women and girls across the Coast region — manifesting as intimate partner violence, sexual violence, femicide, harmful traditional practices including child marriage and female genital cutting, trafficking and modern slavery, online and tech-facilitated violence, and state-perpetrated violence.
COSWA addresses GBV through a comprehensive prevention–response–justice continuum, working simultaneously with survivors, communities, faith and traditional leaders, and justice actors — contributing to reducing GBV prevalence while strengthening the systems that protect women and girls when violence occurs.
Sexual & Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) Justice
COSWA advances the Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights and mental wellbeing of women and girls in all their diversity — recognising access to safe and legal abortion and bodily autonomy as a fundamental right, and mental health as inseparable from physical health.
Programming integrates the full continuum of women's and girls' health needs across the life-cycle. Particular attention is given to adolescent girls and young women, women living with HIV, women with disabilities, women in informal economies, and women with children — populations that face the steepest barriers to quality, dignified care.
Economic Empowerment & Livelihoods
COSWA recognises economic exclusion as a key driver of women's vulnerability and a primary pathway to dignity and resilience. This programming focuses on strengthening livelihoods, economic agency, asset ownership, and financial resilience among vulnerable women and girls — particularly those in informal economies, those exiting situations of violence or exploitation, and those caring for dependent children.
By combining individual livelihoods support with group-based finance and structural advocacy on land and asset rights, COSWA contributes to dignity, self-reliance, and long-term economic justice.
Climate Justice & Natural Resource Governance
COSWA recognises that climate change is not only an environmental issue — it is a gender, health, and equity issue. Women and girls at the Coast face the harshest impacts of climate shocks: drought in Kilifi, Lamu, and Tana River; flooding along the Tana basin; sea-level rise affecting Kwale and the Mombasa coastline; food and water insecurity; and climate-induced displacement.
This programming integrates the intersection of climate vulnerability, women's rights, and humanitarian preparedness — supporting women's leadership in climate action and strengthening community-level resilience across drought-prone and flood-affected coastal communities.
Movement Building & Alliance Strengthening
COSWA plays a strategic role in strengthening grassroots women's movements and the broader feminist civil society ecosystem at the Coast. The organisation invests in the leadership and institutional capacity of community-based women's groups — with deliberate attention to disability inclusion, age inclusion, and the meaningful participation of women too often left at the margins.
Through coalition building, alliance facilitation, peer learning, and tailored capacity strengthening, COSWA contributes to a more coordinated, resilient, intersectional, and accessible women's movement across Coast Kenya.
Research, Documentation & Policy Influence
COSWA places evidence at the centre of its programming, conducting community-led, participatory research that captures the realities of vulnerable women, generates actionable insights, and translates evidence into advocacy.
Through strategic partnerships with academic institutions, regional networks, and global platforms — including the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), Beijing+30, the International AIDS Society, the Africa Sex Workers Alliance, and the Maputo Protocol monitoring mechanisms — COSWA influences policies at county, national, and global levels.
Ready to support feminist justice in Coast Kenya?
97% of every donation funds these strategic priorities directly.