So far there has been little contact between the women's museums worldwide. Nevertheless, the fertile partnership between the women's museums "Henriette Bathily" in Gorée/Senegal and the Women's Museum in Merano has shown how important the mutual exchange is for the quality of the museum work.

The idea of the first international women's museums congress was raised surprisingly for the first time by a man. When the Australian museum manager Pauline Cockrill was on a world tour to visit the various women’s museums, she heard about a partner women’s museum in Senegal while visiting the Women’s Museum of Merano.

Subsequently she travelled to Goreé and was introduced to the Senegalese Minister of Culture by the ladies-in-charge of the Senegalese women’s museum. The Minister of Culture became very enthusiastic about the idea of a lively network of women’s museums and proposed an international congress of women in Dakar.

Although this idea could finally not be realized in Senegal, Astrid Schönweger the curator and the director of the Women’s Museum in Merano Sigrid Prader, both famously engaged network women, continued to foster the dream of a convention where women’s museums from all around the world would come together - promisingly for a unique possibility of a worldwide network. Astrid Schönweger took over the scientific direction.

Additionally, to celebrate in 2008 its 20th anniversary the museum put its attention on making the congress a “self-referral” birthday gift.
The managers of the women’s museum of Merano found other co-promoters for this first international congress in Claudia von Lutterotti and Paolo Ferigo from ide4. Together with them they compiled an internet platform which can support not only the congress but also a worldwide collaboration between women's museums and similar initiatives.

The partner museum in Senegal immediately was as keen as mustard and supported the realization of the congress from afar.

For the local organization team could be won Michaela Kargruber for sponsoring and general organization as well as Anita Rossi and Ruth Gamper for media work. The convention was prepared for one year by this team.

Together with Sigrid Prader and Claudia Lutterotti, Astrid Schönweger built up the contacts to the other museums. The target was of bringing together women’s museums from all five continents on this congress.