AWC’s strategic direction is to enhance policy through development focusing on its collaboration with its constituency, which includes the media, government ,and bodies involved in gender issues. The emphasis is on an integrated approach using lobbying and advocacy, content creation, capacity building, research, and networking.

Specifically, the organisation writes feature stories in English and Kiswahili which are published in the mainstream media locally and internationally. These stories are also published in English online, on the AWC website - where they are divided into searchable categories including agriculture & technology, AIDS, health, women & development, women's empowerment, the environment, and education. AWC also produces conference newspapers, which highlight the voices of African women. In line with its goal of helping mainstream media do its job better, "AWC Features periodically produces materials that show concern on how the media covered certain issues and how they can be viewed through a gender lens; and how stories on gender issues can be interesting and provocative."

The project has developed a training manual for reporting HIV/AIDS from a gender perspective. It has used the manual to train journalists - especially women journalists: "when women were discouraged from reporting assignments in what was then referred to as 'hard news' covering parliament, courts, economics, or policy analysis, AWC took the lead to train a few women in these areas."

AWC promotes use of the Internet for research and selling stories. AWC's own research includes work in Kenya on the need to link home-based care with hospitals. To read about AWC's additional research projects, visit the AWC website.

AWC has been involved in advocacy and lobbying in an attempt to influence policy and legislation or rules and regulations on gender issues. For example, as part of Media Encounter, AWC worked to create opportunities for interested journalists to immerse themselves in issues of concern to Kenyan communities and to discuss these issues with the communities themselves. AWC claims to have introduced “bang-style” journalism both in the Kenyan media and also in Eastern African region in collaboration with Tanzania Media Women’s Association (TAMWA) and the Ugandan Media Women’s Association (UMWA). As part of this approach, members of the media rally around an issue in order to effect policy change.

Gender, Women, HIV/AIDS.

The organisation claims that its work on HIV/AIDS vaccine research and on how volunteers in vaccine research trials are treated was instrumental in the development of a memorandum of understanding between British and Kenyan scientists. Further, in AWC's words, "The various training we have done has empowered journalists on how to communicate these issues. The training manual is now being used in our training institution."