by Mariana Botero Boada, guest of the FAWCO delegation at CSW70
I attended CSW70 as a women’s rights advocate from Colombia and as a human rights strategist working with AGO, a nonprofit that supports civil society and movement building. These spaces are powerful, not only because of the diversity of voices, but because they create rare opportunities to connect across regions and experiences. They also made something clear: there is often a gap between where conversations happen and where change actually takes place.
One of the moments that stayed with me most was a closed-door conversation on the global backlash against reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights. It felt different from the formal sessions. People spoke more openly, more directly. And something that had felt diffuse became easier to name.
What I heard in that room was precise and shared: the pushback we are seeing against reproductive rights is not random or isolated. It is coordinated, transnational and strategic. It advances not only through laws and institutions, but through how issues are framed, through narratives that shape what people believe is at stake and whose perspectives are centered. That kind of clarity is what these global spaces make possible. When people working on the ground come together, especially in trusted settings, patterns become visible. What looks local starts to reveal itself as part of something larger.
I noticed the same pattern across other sessions. The most grounded insights consistently came from those closest to the work. No matter the topic, the conversation kept returning to lived realities: how issues are actually experienced, how they are understood at the community level, and whether the conditions for change exist in practice.
As someone from Colombia, I have seen how grassroots organizations operate. They are close to the problem. They understand the context. They build trust over time and adapt constantly to complex, shifting realities. Their work is not abstract. It is practical, relational, and often carried forward with very limited resources. At AGO, we have tried to take that seriously, not just in what we say, but in how we show up. Programs like Daybreaker Network were built by and for local organizers, because we believe the people closest to the work are also the best placed to design the solutions. Investing in that, really investing, means trusting communities to lead and building the infrastructure to support them over time. That is also what CSW made me feel most clearly: gratitude for these spaces, and a deeper sense of urgency about what happens beyond them. The question is what we do with it when we leave.
Leaving CSW, I am holding both truths at once. We need these global spaces. And we need to invest much more deeply in the people and organizations closest to the work. Because that is where change is already happening.
Editor’s note: Mariana joined the FAWCO delegation as a guest for CSW70.