The Grassroots Women’s International Academy (GWIA) is an international transfer mechanism created by grassroots women’s international networks to transfer and upscale their good practices. GWIA provides a structure for peer learning to identify the success elements of grassroots practices around the globe and to enter them into mainstream channels. GWIA is about redefining governance and development roles and reframing the use of knowledge and resources from the perspective of what works on the ground.

GWIA provides opportunities to grassroots innovators especially women, who do not get opportunities to share their initiatives. It is through working with these women that great best practices have been identified. Funds were sourced through a strategy of linking to events like big international meetings. Best practices are taught through workshops. Partner dialogues increases exchange and it up streams the learning of GWIA. It also brings other partners like United Nations, donor countries, national leaders, local government officials, and NGOs into the GWIA sessions. The ten GWIA’s held so far, have contributed to a powerful exchange and transfer of best practices, all over the globe as well as between groups in the same region who were isolated from each other.