Funders, Networks, & Allies

The African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) is “a grantmaking foundation that supports local, national and regional women’s organisations working towards the empowerment of African women and the promotion and realisation of their rights .By specialising in grant-making and focused, tailored movement-building programmes, we work to strengthen and support the work of African women’s organisations.By amplifying and celebrating African women’s voices and achievements, AWDF supports efforts that combat harmful stereotypes, and promote African women as active agents of change.” Information about their grantmaking and other work is available on their website.

Comic Relief is a charity based in the UK “with a vision of a just world, free from poverty… We aim to entertain, engage and accelerate change. We will do this by being a creative agency for social change.” Comic Relief’s Power Up strategy prioritises women and girls having the power to identify their needs, organise around solutions and strategies, and collectively make decisions on how to move forward.

Foundation for a Just Society (FJS) “advances the rights of women, girls, and LGBTQI people and promotes gender and racial justice by ensuring those most affected by injustice have the resources they need to cultivate the leadership and solutions that transform our world.” Learn more about what they fund on their website.

The Global Fund is a partnership designed to accelerate the end of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria as epidemics. As an international organization, the Global Fund mobilizes and invests more than US$4 billion a year to support programs run by local experts in more than 100 countries. In partnership with governments, civil society, technical agencies, the private sector and people affected by the diseases

Hivos is a humanist organization that strives for a free, fair and sustainable world. Hivos seeks new and creative solutions to persistent global problems; solutions created by people taking their lives into their own hands. Hivos has a global office in the Hague, The Netherlands and provides support to civil society organisations working in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia.

The Other Foundation is an African trust dedicated to advancing human rights in Southern Africa, with a particular focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people. Their primary purpose is to expand resources available to defend and advance the rights and well-being of LGBTI people in the Southern African region. They do this by working both as a grant-maker and a fundraiser.

“UHAI – EASHRI are philanthropic activists in a region where our identities as LGBTIQ+ people and as sex workers are criminalised through punitive laws, where governments actively shut down spaces for movement organising to end discrimination in access to services and healthcare, where societal and public opinion upholds exclusion from families, exclusion from faith communities and denial of basic rights such as access to dignified livelihoods, access to fair hearing and justice by law enforcement.”

Urgent Action Fund-Africa (UAF-Africa) is part of the Urgent Action Fund global consortium. They work to support African Womn’s Human Rights Defenders, their organisations, collectives and movements to take actions that sustain their work and themselves before, during and after urgent situations. They provide rapid response grants.

“The Women’s Peace & Humanitarian Fund is an innovative partnership empowering local women to be a force for crisis response and lasting peace.
We galvanize support from across the globe to support the efforts of women working on the frontlines of the world’s most intractable conflicts. From Jordan to Burundi, the Solomon Islands to Colombia, we aim to amplify the voices of women and support their vital work to prevent conflict, respond to crises, and accelerate peace in their communities.””

They provide funding including urgent or rapid response funding to sex workers’ rights projects and related civil society groups in specific contexts of conflict and crisis worldwide.”

XOESE, the Francophone Women’s Fund, is “a feminist foundation of public utility that aims to financially and technically support the implementation of initiatives of women’s organizations in French-speaking countries of the Global South. It was created on September 1st, 2015 and is based in Lomé, Togo.” Their website includes a list of sites with relevant information for activists in Francophone Africa.