With global aid in freefall – up to an estimated $74.8 billion slashed in 2025 alone – and programs like USAID taking massive hits, it’s clear: we get behind locally-led interventions and grassroots organisations now more than ever.
FrontlineEndingFGM have released the step-by-step guide for donors and activists alike, determined to channel what once was an aid system reliant on institutions and constraints into an locally-led, autonomous, and crucially cost-effective approach.
This past March, at the 69th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69) in New York, Frontline Ending FGM launched Frontline Fight: How we are Eradicating FGM by Ayodeji Bello-Awodoyin. It’s not just a book – it’s a hands-on, no-fluff guide on what works for eradicating FGM.
Held at the Millennium Hilton, One UN Plaza, the launch drew a powerful audience of activists, donors, and changemakers from around the globe.
Built in collaboration with over 1, 000 frontline women, the handbook distills decades of grassroots experience into a practical guide on what works:
- Working with grassroots networks of survivors and activists
- Harness local media and radio to shift social attitudes and amplify influential voices
- Hit the road with Born Perfect Caravans – powerful community-led campaigns that challenge FGM at the frontlines
At the heart of the strategy is Frontline Ending FGM’s three-step solution – evidence-based, cost-efficient, and already achieving a 94% success rate in communities where it’s been implemented:
- Born Perfect Academies – Bringing together survivors, activists, and influential voices from each region for five days of direct training on the Tree of Life, Born Perfect Caravans, and local media blitzes ahead of campaign roll-out.
- Born Perfect Caravans – A mobile, high-impact outreach effort using a giant movie screen, local religious leaders, musicians, doctors, and journalists to bring anti-FGM education and storytelling directly to communities.
- Sustained Local Media Campaigns – Each Caravan sparks a three-year wave of end-FGM messaging through local radio and television, embedding new narratives and sustaining momentum.
In the middle of a funding crisis, Frontline Fight is an empowering motivator.
Frontline Ending FGM extends deep gratitude to the Wallace Global Fund, and other partners who have supported and elevated the voices of frontline women across Africa and beyond.
For more on the Born Perfect campaign and to explore the three-step model to ending FGM, visit: frontlineendingfgm.org.
