Category: News

On International Women’s Day we reflect on the current moment  facing feminist movements across the continent and  outline three key approaches shaping our work with partners across the continent. 

 

We are living through a moment of profound global upheaval. Across continents, societies are grappling with intersecting crises: genocides and violent conflicts and humanitarian catastrophes, deepening economic inequality, climate shocks, democratic backsliding, and the increasingly coordinated efforts of anti-rights actors to roll back hard-won gains for gender justice. Recent escalation in the SWANA region further exacerbates suffering and inequality amid polarised geopolitics.  

In Africa, these global dynamics intersect with complex regional realities. Conflicts in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and northern Mozambique are displacing millions. From Algeria to Tanzania, increased authoritarianism leads to shrinking civic space and increased restrictions on civil society. From Uganda to Ghana, anti-rights actors are weaponising the legal system to make homophobia institutional. Severe droughts in East Africa and repeated cyclones and floods in Southern Africa are having a devastating humanitarian impact. Everywhere, these crises expose girls, women and gender-diverse people to systemic sexual violence and economic precarity and expose social and gender justice activists to increased surveillance and repression.

For us at the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF), marking International Women’s Day in such a context is not a vain ritual. It is an act of recognition, remembrance, and profound respect. Today, we honour the women, girls and gender-diverse people who bear the brunt of the polycrisis. We pay tribute to the feminist pioneers who paved the way through decades of resistance. We celebrate the organisers who put their lives and freedoms at risk to shape gender-just futures for generations to come.

25 years  of  service to the movement

We feel honoured to have journeyed alongside these changemakers for over 25 years. Since 2000, we have awarded over USD 100 million in grants to more than 1,500 organisations and movements advancing gender justice across Africa. Beyond funding, we have contributed to strengthening feminist knowledge, convening spaces for movement dialogue and solidarity, and amplifying African feminist voices in global debates on development, philanthropy and social justice. 

In 2025 alone, we awarded over USD 12 million in grants to partners who challenged discriminatory laws, defended bodily autonomy, fostered women’s leadership and political participation, created new spaces for collective power and political participation, and forged cross-border solidarity that redefines power itself. In Zimbabwe, for example, feminist activists are pushing for stronger legal protections and expanding leadership opportunities for women and girls through advocacy and mentorship. In Chad, feminists are mobilising communities to promote women’s leadership, combat gender-based violence, and create new spaces for feminist dialogue. In the Gambia, we continue to support movements fighting against repeated efforts to decriminalise female genital mutilation. These few examples represent a glimpse of a vibrant and determined feminist ecosystem across Africa.

Harsh realities are forcing impossible choices

This year, we particularly commend African feminist activists, organisations and movements for the extraordinary ways they are responding to multiplying disruptions in a rapidly shifting funding landscape. Across the globe, Official Development Assistance is declining or being redirected (ODA to Africa faced 16-28% cuts in 2025 according to the OECD). Meanwhile, philanthropic funding for gender justice remains a small fraction of overall giving. AWID’s ‘Where is the Money?’ report (2025) revealed stark precarity: 28% of feminist organisations had no budget secured for 2025, 46% had none beyond 2026, and 64% could operate for less than 6 months without external funding. Most grants they received remained short-term, project-tied, and restrictive. Such funding models cannot match the scale or urgency of the work feminist movements are undertaking. 

Yet even under these pressures, feminist movements continue to organise with remarkable creativity and determination. Many are holding the line, ensuring protection, resilience and survival in the face of repression and crisis. Others are making strategic shifts, moving from reactive programmatic responses to collective and proactive approaches that tackle the root causes of inequality. Across movements, we are also witnessing the recognition of care as infrastructure: organisations are centering wellbeing, collective healing and sustainable organising as essential components of long-term feminist power. African feminist movements are not merely weathering the storm of crisis. In many ways, they are a storm in their own right: a powerful force for change reshaping the political, social and economic futures of their communities.  

Yet harsh realities force impossible choices. With limited resources, AWDF partners are having to choose between delivering essential services and advocating for laws and policies, between health and education programmes, or between office rent and staff insurance. Sometimes, funding cuts take away the choice altogether, with the closing of programmes targeting sexual and reproductive health and rights and LBTQI rights, and other issues perceived as contentious.

Defend, Disrupt, Define: How AWDF is meeting the moment

AWDF itself has had to make some difficult decisions in anticipation of funding cuts. We decided to prioritise funding to community-based and marginalised groups, over larger-scale and regional groups. We decided to prioritise grantmaking over some of our other flagship knowledge-building or solidarity-building programmes, and to channel our non-grantmaking programming through the work of the African Feminist Forum. Most critically, we choose depth over scale: resourcing fewer movements more impactfully, because true power builds from strong roots.

We are deepening, not contracting, our work through the bold 3D framework which will guide how AWDF will implement its Lemlem strategy in the next few years. Through our grantmaking, movement-strengthening and thought leadership work, we plan to resource and accompany our partners to:

• Defend hard-won gains, by resourcing and nurturing feminist movements to sustain their impact, to protect and secure human rights, to oppose the backsliding of feminist wins, and sustain the core infrastructure of African feminist movements. This includes expanding resources for feminist groups in underfunded linguistic and geographic contexts, including Portuguese-speaking countries, and strengthening support for feminist responses in crisis and conflict settings.

• Disrupt oppressive ecosystems, by challenging and transforming the narratives, behaviours and practices that hinder feminist movement’s impact, safety and sustainability, thus creating a healthier and more supportive environment for gender justice in Africa. Because disruption cannot happen in isolation, AWDF is working alongside other feminist funds including through the Leading From the South consortium, the pan-African Komboa alliance to counter the anti-backlash, and the Feminist Response Fund, and renewing its partnership with the Equality Fund. At a time when competition for shrinking resources is intensifying, choosing collaboration and solidarity is itself a powerful act of disruption.
• Define visionary futures, by catalysing and supporting innovative, long-term initiatives and providing spaces and opportunities for movements to think beyond resistance and lay the grounds for the feminist realities we want to see in the future. The African Feminist Forum is one of the key spaces for co-creating these futures through strategy sessions and knowledge archives, and we look forward to collectively articulating the feminist futures we want to build when we meet in Namibia in August 2026.

As AWDF Chief Executive Officer, Françoise Moudouthe affirms, “With this 3D framework, AWDF turns crisis into an opportunity to resource African feminists not just to survive, but to lead the long-term transformation we all need. This strategic evolution, shaped by movement wisdom, makes us more impactful, even as we are made to operate at a smaller scale.”

A call to the donor community

In this moment of adversity, we extend deep gratitude to funding partners who have stepped forward with top-up funding, additional flexibility and decreased restrictions. We call on all funders who care about gender justice to fund more and ease the bureaucratic restrictions and risk-averse approaches that hamstring our collective impact. Gender justice can only be achieved if the movements that champion it are provided the space to thrive and innovate, not asked to survive on fragmented, short-term and risk-averse funding models.

As Nana Zulu, AWDF’s Director of Programmes, reminds us, “feminist organising thrives when funding prioritises people, care, safety and collective resilience, and when philanthropy stands firmly with feminist movements even when it appears risky or unpopular. As a feminist fund rooted in African feminist movements, AWDF is committed to deepening long-term support, centering trust over control and adapting to the evolving realities of feminist movements across the continent.”

Especially when funding through women’s and feminist funds, donors should provide multi-year and flexible funding that allows us to resource our partners strategically, not pass on excessive requirements and restrictions. This moment requires supporting programmes, but also to invest in movements’ safety, resilience, healing and infrastructure. It requires philanthropy to stand firmly against anti-rights forces, not shy away from funding politically inconvenient issues.

This is not a call to charity. It is a reminder of our collective responsibility.

On this International Women’s Day 2026, we call on governments, philanthropy and the international development community society to match the courage, urgency and imagination that African feminist movements demonstrate every day. The future of gender justice will be shaped not only by those who resist injustice, but by those who choose to resource that resistance.

 

AFF is a regional political platform that brings together African feminists from the continent and the diaspora to strategise, connect movements, and advance feminist visions for justice and liberation. The forum’s registration is now open and we are calling on African feminists organising in Africa and the diaspora to participate. The registration fee is USD 300. This provides access to the full Forum programme and shared convening spaces but does not include accommodation or travel. The contribution supports the collective hosting of the Forum and enables broader participation.

Following the encouraging response to the Forum announcement, the dates have been updated to allow us to better prepare and welcome participants into a thoughtful and well held space. We appreciate your flexibility and apologise for the inconvenience caused. The African Feminist Forum will now take place from 10 to 12 August 2026 in Windhoek, Namibia.

To hold a politically grounded and collectively safe space, participation follows an application and verification process grounded in shared feminist values.

Who can apply: 

The African Feminist Forum is open to and invites African feminists in Africa and the diaspora in all their diversities. Feminists are expected to apply in individual capacity and not as affiliates/partners of a feminist/gender justice organisation. This ensures that we guard against institutional agenda-setting or the professionalisation of feminist agendas and encourages bottom-up movement-building as a political strategy to inspire collective action.

You do not need to have attended a previous AFF or hold a formal organisational role. Young, emerging and frontline feminists, including those identifying as LBTQI+ and Indigenous, are strongly encouraged to apply.

How to apply: 

To commence an application to attend AFF 2026, submit your application through a form on Canapii. Your submission will be reviewed and a response provided within two weeks of submission. Submitting an application does not guarantee participation, and all participants, including sponsored participants, will be subjected to the same review process.

Following the assessment process, selected applicants will receive registration instructions, payment details and will sign a feminist undertaking and code of conduct.

Click here to access the AFF registration platform.

After almost 20years of dedicated service, Beatrice Boakye-Yiadom, our Programmes Manager-Resourcing Movements, retires today. Throughout her time at the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF), Beatrice has played an integral role in shaping and delivering our grantmaking initiatives, building strong relationships with partners like you and advancing our mission to resource, strengthen and uphold women’s rights organisations and feminist movements across Africa. Her passion, leadership and commitment have left a lasting impact on our work and the feminist movements that we serve.

While we will greatly miss Beatrice’s presence on our team, we are excited to celebrate this new chapter in her life and express our deep gratitude for her legacy, which will continue to live on in the work we do and in the strong relationships she has nurtured with our partners, donors and other feminist actors.

“Looking back, the Programme Manager role at AWDF has been far more than a job for me; it has been a vocation and a place of deep purpose. AWDF has shaped my professional life, my values, and my understanding of what feminist resourcing can achieve when it is grounded in trust, solidarity, and accountability to African women and girls.”
Beatrice Boakye Yiadom

While we will greatly miss Beatrice’s presence on our team, we are excited to celebrate this new chapter in her life and express our deep gratitude for her legacy, which will continue to live on in the work we do and in the strong relationships she has nurtured with our partners, donors and other feminist actors.

“After nearly two decades at AWDF, Beatrice has never wavered in her commitment to leading with care. She has taught me, most of us, to welcome change and uncertainty with a calm spirit and a smiling face – in life, and at work. This is a lesson I will never forget. She will certainly be missed.”
Françoise Moudouthe, CEO AWDF

We wish Beatrice the very best and we look forward to celebrating whatever new passions and interests she will be pursuing. We will be reaching out to many of you to gather your thoughts, memories and well wishes for Beatrice, which will be compiled into a special send-off to honour her incredible journey with us.

During this transition period, Lana Razafimanantsoa will provide interim leadership for the Program Manager, Resourcing role. She can be reached at Lana@awdf.org. We welcome any questions or conversations you would like to have regarding this transition. Please do not hesitate to reach out to our Director of Programmes, Nana Zulu, at nanazulu@awdf.org

In alignment with the  African Women’s Development Fund commitment to flourishing, we have identified  key pathways for movement accompaniment and invite African feminist consultants to support us.

We are calling  on you to apply for one or more of the following assignments. Each requires a distinct thematic expertise, facilitation modality and level of engagement.

1. Collective care as Political Strategy: A two day workshop shifting care from individual burden to radical, systemic organizational practice, framing wellbeing as a primary defense against backlash.

2. Digital security and Collective Safety: A four- day in-person training building practical digital security and data protection skills; developing organizational Digital Security Protocols and Cyber Harassment Response Plans.

3. Crisis Response and Preparedness training: A  four-day Feminist crisis response and communication preparedness for organisation facing political, digital or reputational threats.

4. The Research and Advocacy Teach-In: A five-day in person retreat designed as a strategic forge where feminist research meets political action. Here, we will equip partners to transform their lived evidence into the narratives and power required to shape to collective futures. Feminists operating in French and Portuguese speaking contexts.

5. Peer Learning Exchange Programme: Six-month online journey monthly facilitated peer learning circles feminist governance, resource mobilisation, digital security collective care and advocacy.

6. Resilience building Accompaniment: Six -month online programme. A cyclical journey of learning covering advocacy  in hostile spaces collective care and developing organisational Resilience Action Plans.

7. Integrated resource directory and Toolkit: a living and accessible ecosystem of practical tools, contextual knowledge and peer connections designed to strengthen the operational resilience and strategic response capacity of French and Portuguese speaking women’s rights movements.

Application Process

Interested practitioners should submit

1. Technical Expression of Interest ( detailing methodology and pathway(s) for movement accompaniment).

2. Financial Proposal

Send you applications to Consultants@awdf.org by 20th March, 2026.

For more details, find out more in the Terms of Reference.

Today, 6th February, the world over pauses to commemorate International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and affirm one absolute principle: FGM is a harmful cultural practice unacceptable everywhere.

Yet, as global attention turns to ending the practice, apivotal battle is unfolding in The Gambia, where the Supreme Court is hearing arguments that could reverse the country’s 2015 ban on FGM and strip women and girls of their legal protection from FGM.The urgency of this moment is underscored by recent reports of the death of two babies after undergoing FGM in Banjul and Basse after undergoing FGM. These deaths reveal the stark and immediate cost of FGM’s continuance, particularly on girls.

Understanding the origins of this backlash in The Gambia is crucial. FGM has been a historic practice in The Gambia and most countries in Africa. It reportedly continued even after the ban in 2015, its persistence contested by feminists, women’s rights activists and survivors. However, its persistence has been contested by feminists, women’s rights activists and survivors. In August 2023, The Gambia made progress, three women were convicted for subjecting eight infant girls to FGM, the first prosecution since criminalisation in 2015. For feminists, survivors, and women’s rights defenders, this moment confirmed that decades of advocacy had translated into real accountability.

Almost immediately, an organised backlash emerged. Pro-FGM religious leaders paid the fines imposed on those convicted and launched public campaigns framing the ban as foreign-imposed, uncultural, and unislamic. The Supreme Islamic Council issued a fatwa claiming FGM is religiously required.

In 2024, a National Assembly Member introduced legislation to repeal the ban entirely, framing it as defending “religious norms” and threatening other protective laws, including child marriage prohibitions. Although Parliament upheld the ban following intensive advocacy, pro-FGM campaigners have advanced their challenge to the judiciary, arguing that criminalising FGM violates constitutional rights to religious and cultural freedom in The Gambia.

The scale and severity of FGM is stark. According to the 2019-2020 Gambia Demographic and Health Survey, approximately 73% of women aged 15-49 have undergone FGM, the overwhelming majority before the age of five. Crucially:

• 73% of affected women underwent procedures involving cutting and removal of flesh (WHO Type II).
• 17% were subjected to more severe forms involving stitching or narrowing of the vaginal opening (Type III).
• Nearly all women and girls affected live with the most invasive and harmful forms of FGM.

FGM in The Gambia is not only a social norm, it is actively defended and rationalised, making the legal protection of girls all the more essential.

What is at Stake in the Supreme Court

If The Gambia’s Supreme Court reverses the ban, the consequences will be immediate and far-reaching:

For girls: Legal protection vanishes. FGM becomes legitimised as a “religious and cultural right” rather than recognised as the harmful practice it is. Girls lose the one safeguard that could prevent them from being subjected to the practice.

For the state: Prosecutorial power disappears, law enforcement loses the ability to prevent, investigate, and prosecute FGM.

For other protections: Child marriage laws and other safeguards become vulnerable to similar “religious and cultural freedom” challenges. If patriarchal control can successfully cloak itself in religious language to override bodily autonomy here, it will be attempted everywhere.

For the region: This sets a dangerous precedent across Africa, undermines international standards, and emboldens anti-rights movements continent-wide. This could call to task similar contentions and challenges across national and regional protective treaties and laws.

An Observed Pattern We Cannot Ignore

Whilst The Gambia’s FGM crisis is urgent and specific, it reflects a broader, coordinated anti-rights backlash unfolding across the continent. We are witnessing systematic rollbacks: abortion access restricted and challenged LGBTQI+ rights criminalised, domestic violence protections undermined, women’s political participation resisted.

The playbook is consistent, frame women’s rights as “foreign imposed ideals”, mobilise religious authority, claim that protecting girls violates freedoms, then litigate whilst harm continues.

On this International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, Gambian feminists and women’s rights advocates are on the frontlines of this fight, and they need sustained solidarity:

• Flexible, long-term funding for legal defence, survivor services, and sustained organising
• Amplification with Gambian feminist experiences and expertise centred
• Accountability from governments and international bodies to uphold regional standards
• Long-term commitment that recognises this as ongoing resistance

When feminists in The Gambia fight for bodily autonomy, they fight for all of us. AWDF stands with Gambian feminists and women’s rights advocates defending the law. We call for sustained, resource-backed international solidarity, not just today, but in the long-term commitment that movement work requires.

Download the full explainer on The Gambia’s FGM crisis, including comprehensive data, legal timeline, and support mechanisms.

 

Are you experienced in leading the design and implementation of a monitoring, evaluation and learning strategy, ensuring that the evidence learning and reflection strengthen feminist grant making; accountability to movements doors and stakeholders and strategic decision-making?

Are you experienced in working to drive internal and external learning, impact documentation and contribute to thought leadership grounded in rigorous evidence and grant making experience?

Are you ready to lead a dynamic team providing technical MEL expertise, programme leadership, strategic operational leadership and people and relationship management?

Then the African Women’s Development Fund has an exciting opportunity for you. Learn more about the Programme Manger – Impact and Learning role HERE.

Job Summary

The Programme Manager- Impact and Learning leads organisational learning, evidence generation and feminist impact leadership. The Manager will work to champion a culture of reflection and accountability that stregthens internal practice and amplifies AWDF’s influence across the philanthropic ecosystem . The Manager will work to drive internal and external learning, impact documentation and contribute to thought leadership grounded in rigorous evidence and grant making experience.

Reporting to the Director of Programmes, the Programme Manager –  Impact & Learning leads the design and implementation of AWDF’s Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Strategy, ensuring that evidence, learning and reflections strengthen feminist grantmaking ; accountability to movements, donors and stakeholders; and strategic decision-making. The role combines technical MEL expertise, programme leadership and relationship management. The role also plays a management role providing strategic operational leadership to the impact and learning functional area.

Please follow this link to apply for the position

Applications must reach AWDF  no later than 20 February 2026.

In line with AWDF’s Mission, qualified African women and gender-diverse persons are encouraged to apply.

 

 

 

 

Are you interested in leading and contributing to Impact and Learning work in a pan-African feminist fund. This opportunity may just be right one for you. Application submissions have been extended to  23 January  2026. Read more about the position HERE.

As a Pan-African feminist fund, the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) resources, strengthens and upholds women’s rights and feminist organisations and movements across Africa to make gender justice a reality for all on our continent and worldwide. Through its grantmaking, programatic and advocacy work, , AWDF has supported work that has led to changes in law and policy, social norms, narrative, and movement-building for gender justice.

Role overview

We seek an Impact and Learning (I&L) Specialist on a consultancy basis to support the management of external end of project evaluations and impact documentation processes including data, story collection and dissemination. The Specialist will work alongside two I & L Officers and work collaboratively in support to the programs team and wider AWDF team. The role will report to the Director of Programmes.

Scope of Work 

The successful candidate will;

• Lead and manage baseline, midline and enplane evaluations including drafting terms of reference, overseeing consultants and ensuring methodological rigor.
• Coordinate evaluation logistics, sampling, data collection, quality checks and analysis and ensure that evaluations generate clear and actionable insights for programing.
• Facilitate collaborative interpretation of evaluation findings with stakeholder including grantees.
• Support the documentation of impact stories, case studies, lessons learned and best practices.
• Lead the production of learning briefs, synthesis papers and presentations for dissemination to partners, donors, internal teams and the board.
• Lead the development and updating of monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) frameworks including theories of change, results frameworks, indicators and MEL plans.
• Lead the design and refining of data collection tools, and methodologies and protocols to ensure high quality and consistent data.
• Coordinate the development of MEL guidelines and instruments for internal and external stakeholders
• Support the development of the AWDF MEL framework to track the implementation of the strategic plan, Lemlem.
• Support project close out and documentation processes including data repository.
• Contribute  MEL expertise for the development of project proposals and internal and external reporting requirements (board, donor, project reports, etc.)

Application Process

Interested applicants can find out more details about the job and  submit their cover letter and application not later than Friday 23 January 2026 HERE.

 

 

In line with the global 16 Days of Activism Campaign, AWDF  co-created and hosted  a virtual event on 3rd December 2025 on Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence (TFSV). AWDF leveraged of the 16 Days OF aCTIVISM Campaign to raise awareness on TFSV and amplify the voices of the most affected: women, girls, gender-diverse persons, survivors and actors working to address TFSV.

AWDF sough to amplify voices of partners and increase visibility for our work on TFSV and advocate for a feminist approach to ending it. The event Brough together women’s rights and feminist organisations and activists,  donors, and other actors working to address TFSV. 

Missed the event here are some key insights shared during the convening

In 2024 women girls and gender diverse people bore the brunt of the often mentioned polycrisis.  In Africa armed conflict instability , climate change and economic hardships intensified and anti-gender and anti-rights ideologies ad movements grew bolder- all while the world reeled from live images of genocide and incessant tales of curtailed rights around the world.  African women, girls, and gender diverse people were affected in tangible ways as were the feminist movements that work to champion their rights . The world felt as it  were only inches away from falling apart…

At AWDF we kept going and continued to implement our ten year strategic framework Lemlem.

We are thrilled to share with you our annual report for 2024 which highlights significant milestones over the year

We invite you to read the stories, data and highlights  that showcase our work. Download the report  HERE.