The African Women’s Development Fund was established in June 2000 as an Africa-wide philanthropic, grant-making initiative to support the realisation and fulfilment of African women’s rights through the funding of autonomous women’s organisations. To achieve this, AWDF supports African women’s organisations leading the charge for women’s rights and gender equality in Africa by: mobilising and advocating for increased and improved financial resources to support gender equality initiatives led by African women (through resource mobilisation and philanthropic advocacy); funding organisations that work towards the promotion of women’s rights and gender equality (through grantmaking); strengthening African women’s rights and feminist organisations and leaders (through capacity building and technical support); supporting African feminists as they learn from each other’s work and build solidarity (through knowledge- and movement-building); and amplifying the voices of, and changing the narrative around African women and feminists (through communications). AWDF is currently in the process of developing a new strategic framework to guide its work in the next decade.

We are committed to improving and deepening our work to change the narrative around African women’s agency, to expand public understanding of what gender justice means for Africa, to amplify the voices of African feminists, and to provide the best possible representation of the work and impact of AWDF’s team and grantee partners. Building on the recommendations of a Communications Audit undertaken in 2018, AWDF is now recruiting a consultant (or teams of consultants) to act as a Communications Accelerator – a communications strategist and expert who can assist the team in ensuring our communications strategy, brand and voice, contents, practices and competencies are aligned with our new strategic vision.

The Communications Accelerator’s work will run concurrently with, and feed into AWDF’s overall strategic planning process. The Communications Accelerator will help keep momentum and move from talk to action on ideas that have been raised in the past, bring in fresh ideas, help identify and fill key competency gaps, and review progress. The role is about supporting the Communications team to transform, not tweak, their approach and work for improved impact. The approach will be participatory with activities that encourage ownership.

This assignment will last 6 months, and will ideally start around mid-February 2022. We envisage that 60 to 75 working days will be necessary to complete the assignment.

The deadline for submission of proposals is 15 February 2022.

For more details about the consultancy, the preferred profile of the consultants, and how to apply,

please download the full Terms of Reference here.

In line with AWDF’s mission, qualified and interested women from Africa or from African descent are encouraged to apply.