The African Women’s Development Fund calls application for Main Grants 2020. The African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) is a grantmaking foundation that supports local, national, and regional women’s organizations working towards the empowerment of African women and the promotion and realisation of their rights. By specializing in grantmaking and focused tailored movement-building programmes, AWDF works to strengthen and support the work of African women’s organizations.

Thematic Areas 

• Economic Security & Justice
• Body & Health Rights
• Leadership, Participation & Peace
• Post COVID-19 response & Advocacy

AWDF encourages applications for work that is led by and supports the leadership and concerns of women facing multiple discriminations (women with diverse abilities; women living with HIV and AIDS, young women, LBTQ communities, women sex workers, women in the rural areas and marginalised women in urban areas.

Who can apply?

• Women-led, with a majority of women staff and board/
• A stated commitment to supporting women and/or advancing women’s rights/ gender equality in their mission/vision.
• Organisations registered in any African country and working at the local, national, subregional or regional African levels. (Note that AWDF is not able to transfer funds to organisations based in Sudan, South Sudan or Somalia.
• However, AWDF is able to support organisations based in other African countries that are implementing initiatives in these countries).

Types of Grants 

• AWDF will award grants to organisations working to advance progress in the thematic areas specified above. AWDF accepts requests for project funding however encourages applicants to incorporate adequate budget to cover core operating costs.
• AWDF also awards capacity-building grants that focus on advancing organisational growth and development – for example, strategic planning, developing fundraising and communications strategies, strengthening organisational governance systems and human resources management.

Consideration for Funding

• Campaigns to advance specific women’s rights agendas, law and policy change.
• Training to build core social change and activist skills.
• Action-research and knowledge production.
• Alliance and movement-building activities.
• Interventions to change public attitudes on key women’s rights issues.
• Services to advance women’s rights (including legal aid, violence support services,  counselling and free medical services for HIV, cancers and other women’s health concerns).
• Income generation activities that include a focus on increasing women’s understanding of their rights and/or building their social and political leadership.

For more details on the call for proposals, click here

Useful links

• Application Guidelines
• Budget Template Main Grants-2020
• Financial Management Assessment Form-2020
• Main-Grants-Application-Form