The conversations with eighteen outstanding women leaders that follow elucidate women’s visions, their perspectives on coalition building and leadership, and fundamental questions on how to challenge power and accountability.1 In their own words, these women talk about leadership and particularly women’s practice of that leadership for social change. To support women’s leadership, they point to the need for:
- Building an enabling environment for the articulation of women’s visions of development and rights at a global level
- Supporting coalition building within the women’s movement and across women’s organizations as well as coalitions between the women’s movement and other social change movements
- Challenging power structures and resource control in the political, economic and social arenas and in all types of organizations that keep women and women’s interests out
- Supporting the emergence and sustenance of women leaders at all levels for a transformative social change agenda
- Building accountability mechanisms across institutional arenas for women’s interests