The WNC acts as a bridge between women and government and ensures that women’s voices are heard by policy makers and are heard in public debate. The remit of the WNC is to ‘ensure that, by all possible means, the informed opinion of women is made known to Government’.

Some of the ways we do this include:

• Engaging with our partners (around 500 women’s organisations and organisations that represent women, as well as individual experts), feeding their views into government policy making;
  
• We inform partners when government departments hold consultations and coordinate a response;
  
• We hold events around the UK to ensure we hear from as many women as possible and aim to recruit partners that are representative of their area.
  
• We facilitate meetings between women’s organisations and Government Ministers and officials;
  
• Partners are sent quarterly newsletters and regular emails on relevant issues and campaigns. We also produce the ‘WNC’s Partners Directory’ listing all partners. 
  
• The WNC offers opportunities for partners to help decide its priorities by participating in the bi-annual WNC conference.

We are always keen to recruit new partners and we target those in under-represented sectors and regions.

If you would like to become a WNC Partner please click on the Join WNC page.

Outreach and WNC Partners 

Any women's group can apply to become a WNC partner. Women can also become individual partners if they have particular expertise, such as research in women's studies, or women who are equality officers at the local government level.  

What the WNC does for partners

The role of the WNC is to present the views of women to government. As such, the WNC offers opportunities for partners to input and help shape the messages conveyed by the Commission to government. Partners also help to identify ‘experts’ in a variety of important fields, and can have better access to become involved with regional or local consultations and keep their members up to date about government initiatives. Quarterly newsletters are sent to partners, as are a range of other interesting and useful information on developments both from within government and from our partners and the wider sector. Visits to the WNC website also provide useful information about what is happening in the UK on women’s issues and gender mainstreaming. 

If you are interested in becoming a WNC partner, please complete the application form and return it to us.
 

Here you will find guidance notes for completing our partnership application form and our Principles of partnership.

We also have compiled a complete list of our partner organisations in our Partners Directory which is set out alphabetically, by region or by interest.