Threats to progress on gender equality, LGBTQI+ diversity and women’s rights are gaining traction. Across the world and in global, national and local spaces, anti-rights actors are working collectively to undermine and restrict the rights of women and LGBTQI+ people.

‘Norm-spoiling’ refers to an agenda that seeks to undermine the legitimacy of gender equality and women’s rights norms. Such activities are sustained by an increasingly professionalised network of actors disseminating anti-rights narratives within UN systems and working to change human rights discourse.

This ODI Briefing note explores the what, who and how of 'norm-spoiling', as well as the successful counter-strategies being employed by feminist organisations to resist these efforts. It outlines what is known about the well-coordinated tactics eroding rights-based norms at the international level, and what can be done protect women's and LGBTQ+ rights, which have been hard-won through decades of feminist organising.

Report by the Overseas Development Institute