Category: News

Site visits are one of the numerous ways in which the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) keeps in touch with its diverse constituencies. These visits enable AWDF to interact directly with grantee partners, learn about issues of concern to women’s rights organisations, identify the developmental needs of grantee partners, assess the impact of grants provided, and offer technical assistance to the women’s rights organisations funded.

 

A bird’s eye view of the 2013 Nigeria site visit

 

In June 2013, a 3-member team from AWDF visited 19 grantee partners (and 3 potential grantee partners) who had received financial support between 2011 and 2013. The organisations visited worked in the following thematic areas:

 

Number of organisations	Thematic area of work
7	HIV and AIDS
6	Women’s Leadership, Governance and Political processes
2	Economic Empowerment and Livelihoods
4	Health and Reproductive Rights

 

Overall, AWDF’s grantee partners in Nigeria are creating significant change with relatively small amounts of money. Some of the change created has led to the creation of new policies at the level of state government. Family Resources Development Motivation (FARDEM) for example, successful lobbied for a gender equality law resulting in Imo State Community Administration Law No.1 of 2012.

 

The main challenges grantees spoke of were linked to a lack of resources, challenges with fundraising in an economic downturn, and the inability of non-governmental organisations to retain well trained staff. Many spoke of the need for consistent institutional support, something that many funders outside of AWDF are often reluctant to consider. Grantees also spoke of the difference AWDF’s resource mobilisation capacity building support had made to those organisations that had benefitted. Organisational outcomes included completed fundraising strategies, diversification of funding sources and more innovative and robust fundraising programmes.

Highlights of the visit included:

Towards Gender Parity in Politics and Governance

 

The women politicians being supported by Ajengunle Community Project (ACP), an AWDF grantee partner in Lagos sing:

ACP song

No longer men in front

And women at the back

Together we shall walk

Side by side

Side by side

 

‘2015’ came up several times during AWDF’s monitoring visit. That is the year when Nigeria next goes to the ballot box, and there is already considerable anxiety around the forthcoming elections. There are concerns around potential political and physical insecurity in the context of increased conflict in parts of the country, as well as numerous challenges affecting women’s political participation in the next general elections. The Ajengunle Community Project (ACP) has already started working with women politicians in the Lagos and Delta States with the goal of increasing the number of women politicians in public office. Towards this goal, ACP has trained 20 advocates in their target states who are in turn reaching out to women involved in politics at various levels in the states. A key success has been changing the mind-set of women who previously supported partisan parties by mobilising other community women as voters, cooks and dancers for the benefit of male politicians.

 

Grace Bayo, participated in ACP’s training programme and stated:

 

I used to be quiet until I joined ACP. Politicians had reduced women to singing and dancing. I had become disappointed in politics until I came to ACP. I have learnt to demand my rights. Women are not elected into office or given [government] contracts. Now we negotiate with the men.

 

Women trained by ACP now want to play active roles within their parties, and have learnt the art of negotiating with the key figures within their chosen political parties to gain more substantive political office. Women like Alhaja Babs-Olurun Kemi Ndurat, a local government Chairperson of the ruling PDP, and a beneficiary of ACP’s training programme, has taken on the responsibility of mentoring younger women politicians.

Living Positively

 

Several of the projects visited (for example ‘Women and Children of Hope Foundation’, ‘Positive Action for Access Treatment’ and ‘Heal the land Initiative’) have been working for many years with some of the most vulnerable and marginalised people living with HIV/AIDS. They spoke to the AWDF team about some of their key learning points over the years, including the importance of ensuring that women living positively are “economically empowered”. This translates to having sustainable and adequate incomes, and being able to afford nutritious foods and supplements, which are essential for those on anti-retroviral medication. Grantee partners also reported that stigma is still very much an issue of concern for women living positively. Click here to listen to a member of a support group run by Women and Children of Hope Foundation in Lagos share her experience of dealing with stigma.

A third key concern related to ensuring the sustainability of their organisations and services. An important part of AWDF’s support to grantee partners includes organisational strengthening in multiple ways. Organisations like Heal the Land, who had benefited from initiatives such as AWDF’s resource mobilisation training (run in conjunction with Resource Alliance UK), reported that training had provided greater knowledge in fundraising, with some organisations reporting a more diversified approach to fundraising including elements such as reaching out to the corporate sector, implementing work place giving schemes and even starting small enterprises.

Watch a video of Jacinta Ine, Finance Manager of Heal the Land Initiative of Nigeria share her experiences of attending a resource mobilisation workshop organised by AWDF.

 

Reducing Maternal Mortality

 

The International Centre for Environmental Health and Development (ICEHD) has been working with the Ogun State Government towards reducing maternal mortality rates. Towards that goal, ICEDH has focused its efforts on training traditional birth attendants (TBAs) whose services are in high demand from women in the community because TBAs are more affordable than some other maternal health services. The traditional birth attendants AWDF spoke to said they often accepted whatever sums of money women were able to pay, and even provided services when clients had no money. However, they highlighted how a lack of money still affected women’s health choices as some women are reluctant to attend clinics because they have to pay for consultations; treatments, and medication – which sometimes include paying for services that are supposed to be offered for free.

 

ICEDH has worked with local hospitals to train TBAs on a broad range of topics including menstrual cycles, diagnosis and management of pregnancy, and dangerous signs and symptoms in pregnancy. TBAs are then provided with a certificate of training and a birth attendant kit filled with sanitary equipment. More importantly, the hospitals involved have built and continue to maintain relationships with the TBAs.

 

Grace Olubunmi Popoola, a traditional birth attendant shared,“I used to run away from the police, but now that I am certified, I am free to work. I also practice family planning. Before I would use Dettol, now I use Jik, cotton wool and forceps. I also use a surgical blade instead of an ordinary blade.”

Who would have thought that working with rubbish could become so exciting? 9 years ago, 5 Ethiopian women, Kiros Wolde-Giorghis, Embafrash Berehie, Legawork Ayle, Tsehay Haile and Mulatua Haileselassie decided that Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia needed cleaning up, and that they would help do that whilst giving women a means of making a living. The plan was simple: pay unemployed women to collect the plastic waste that littered the city of Addis, and ensure that this waste gets recycled. And that’s how SOS Addis was born. From its genesis, the cooperative has prioritized working with the most marginalised women in Addis Ababa including elderly women, and women living with HIV/AIDS. Most of the members of the cooperatives have low education levels, and as the organization has grown, they have hired young women to manage their administration.

 

The business of collecting rubbish is no easy task. A hefty 132,000 kilograms of plastic waste has been collected by members of SOS Addis and delivered to a recycling plant. As we all know, one person’s rubbish has the potential to become something a lot more precious, and to capitalize on this potential SOS Addis trained 34 of its members to re-use plastic waste bags.

 

A priority for the group was to stop people from using the plastic waste bags that have become so commonplace. Towards this goal, the group launched a campaign to ban the importation of these bags. Extensive media outreach was embarked on; an annual walk through the principal streets of Addis Ababa commenced; and a tree-planting programme was instituted to take place every 4 years. Numerous environmental awareness workshops and anti plastic pollution campaigns supported this effort to ban the importation of plastic bags. The result? The group has been successful. In Ethiopia today, government Proclamation Number 513 bans the importation and manufacturing of plastic waste bags. Elenatane Getachew Fikre, the Executive Director of SOS Addis, is adamant that this change in national policy is due to the advocacy efforts of her group.

It is clear that SOS Addis has made a significant difference to sanitation in the city of Addis Ababa, whilst impacting government policy at a national level. What is even more impressive is that the Ethiopian government has rolled out the model of plastic waste collection implemented by SOS Addis Ethiopia, and there are now 90 cooperatives throughout the nation’s capital working on plastic waste collection.

These are the kind of groups that the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) specializes in funding. To date, SOS Addis has received US$45,000 in grants from AWDF. This funding has been essential in supporting the organization in its efforts to create a cleaner environment in Addis Ababa, creating decent jobs for some of the most marginalized women and establishing a model that now benefits all of Ethiopia through Proclamation Number 513.

Make a difference to the lives of African women by supporting the work of the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF).

To donate via wire transfer from anywhere in Africa, please makes a deposit into AWDF’s account using the following information:

Account Name: AWDF/Fundraising

Account Number 064/1008737

Bank Name Barclays Bank Ghana Limited

Bank Address P O Box 2949

High Street Branch

Accra

Swift Code BARCGHAC

 

If you are in Ghana you can make a donation to us in Ghana cedis by making a deposit into our cedi account per the details below;

Account Name: AWDF/Fundraising

Account Number 048/1014077

Bank Name Barclays Bank Ghana Limited

Bank Address P O Box 2949

High Street Branch

Accra

Any time you make a donation into our bank account, kindly notify us by email at specialprogrammes@africlub.net/awdf to let us know the details of your donation in addition to whether you want your donation to support a specific aspect of our work. Most importantly, contacting us will give us the opportunity to thank you in person for supporting our work.

If you are in Ghana, you can also sign on to our direct debit payment system and make regular monthly contributions support the work of AWDF. Refer all enquiries on the direct debit to specialprogrammes@africlub.net/awdf.

Watch Dr Funmi Olonisakin, Executive Director of the African Leadership Centre (ALC) in Nairobi, Kenya speak about the paucity of leadership on the African continent, and how the ALC through its fellowship programme is developing training young Africans for leadership within their communities and in the continent.

Since 2010, the African Women’s Development Fund has supported the ALC with US$130,000 in grant making. This funding has included supporting African women participating in ALC’s peace, security and development fellowship programme, research on governance, peace and security as well as supporting the development of ALC’s ICT platform.

Theo Sowa, AWDF’s Chief Executive Officer participated in the 2013 Women Deliver conference held in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia between the 28th-30th of May 2013.

On Tuesday the 28th, she delivered ‘The Last Word’ for proceedings on the day which can be viewed below:

On Wednesday 29th May Theo Sowa facilitated a panel on ‘Developing Countries’ Strategies Towards Reaching the FP2020 Goals’ with Dr. Kesetebirhan Admasu, Minister of Health, Ethiopia; Matia Kasaija, Minister of State for Finance, Planning and Economic Development, Uganda; and Dr. Mojisola Odeku, Director, Nigerian Reproductive Health Initiative.

On Thursday 30th May, Theo Sowa was a resource person on a panel discussion focused on ‘The Development Agenda Through a Woman’s Lens’

Between the 27th of May-7th of June, a team of AWDF staff visited grantee partners, and potential grantee partners in Lagos, Ibadan, Ile-Ife, Ilorin and Abuja.

The images below represent a photo essay of some of the grantees and potential grantees visited. All photography by Chika Oduah.

 

In the last ten years the number of organisations seeking to raise funds in the South has grown rapidly. There has also been a dramatic increase in the numbers of civil society organisations whilst funding patterns have altered significantly. International donors have been decentralising funding decisions to their regional offices and increasingly funding via Southern governments. Private foundations and International NGOs have also decentralised, and there have been shifts in thematic and geographic focus for aid. Social enterprise, corporate social responsibility and private/public partnerships have all been on the rise. In some cases international NGOs are starting to compete for local funding with indigenous NGOs as they seek to expand beyond their crowded home markets. In all of the countries where this is happening there is a huge shortage of professionally trained and experienced fundraisers. Training which is available tends to be brief, not systematic or sustained, and of variable quality and appropriateness. The lack of professionalism in fundraising creates problems for NGO credibility.

Since 2008, AWDF has supported a minimum of 100 women leaders from grantee organisations across the continent to the International Workshop on Resource Mobilisation (IWRM) organised by the Resource Alliance UK and with administrative support from AWDF. The primary aim of the IWRM is to provide an opportunity for people who work in the not-for-profit organisations to receive training in practical fundraising skills and other aspects of resource mobilization such as writing grant proposals. It also focuses on helping delegates to diversify their funding base to become more sustainable and less reliant on donor grants.

This year AWDF will convene thirty (26) fundraisers from grantee organizations in Kampala in May in a practical workshop on the development of a resource mobilization strategy document. The development of this strategy document forms a critical part of grantees’ effort at mobilizing resources for their organizations. And as part of AWDF’s core mandate of ensuring sustainability of women’s right organisations, it is important that we put in place measures that will move grantees to the next level of developing funding strategies in support of their resource mobilization efforts especially after sponsoring these organizations to the IWRM and GIMPA courses.

In this workshop, AWDF will be targeting about twenty-six (26) fundraisers from grantee organizations who have been trained at the IWRM and GIMPA but have not been able to develop a resource mobilization strategy document. Participants will be drawn from organisations from grantee organisations who have participated in the IWRM or GIMPA courses.

Positive Action for Treatment Access, (PATA) has been an AWDF grantee since 2006. PATA works to ensure that every individual with an illness or disease, especially women and girls, have access to treatment, as well as equitable and humane care. AWDF’s most recent support to PATA has included funding a monthly radio programme addressing a range of issues on gender based violence on Eko 86.76Fm in Lagos.

On Saturday 25th May, PATA’s radio show dealt with the issue of rape, which included a lively phone in when the public called to share their thoughts, comments and questions around rape and sexual violence. The resource persons for this edition included Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, AWDF’s Communications Specialist, and Bose Ironsi, the Executive Director of Women’s Rights and Health Project in Nigeria. In conversation with Olabisi Omidire, the show’s hostess, the resource persons explained the definition of rape and clarified that rape is always about power and control. A myth which the resource people continuously rebuffed was the notion that the way a woman dresses could in some way lead to her being sexually assaulted.

As part of the radio programme, a short drama produced for PATA by Omololo Olubode was also aired. Click below to listen to the audio.

An Omololu Olubode drama produced by PATA

 

The African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) is a Pan-African grant making foundation based in Accra, Ghana. To date, AWDF has provided grant-making, capacity building and technical assistance to its network of over 1000 grantee partners in 42 African countries. In Nigeria, AWDF has supported 123 women’s rights and national organisations with over US$2.7 million in grant making. Grantee partners have included the following:

 

Project Alert on Violence Against Women – ‘Project Alert’ has been a grantee partner since 2003, and has benefited from US$177,800 in grant making. This has included supporting the building of ‘Sophia’s Place’, a shelter for women survivors of violence; capacity building support in fundraising and financial management for ‘Project Alert’ staff, as well as the delivery of a 6 month capacity building project on gender based violence for faith based organisations in Lagos State.

 

Ajegunle Community Project (ACP) – Since 2007, the Ajegunle Community Project has received US$77,500 in grant making. This funding has including supporting the training of women politicians, as well as professional development training for women seeking to take up leadership in public office. The Project Manager for ACP also benefited from attending a ‘Certificate Course in Resource Mobilisation’ organized by AWDF in conjunction with Resource Alliance (UK) and the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration. ACP credits this resource mobilization training for its current success in fundraising from the corporate sector.

 

Women Against Rape, Sexual Harassment and Sexual Exploitation (WARSHE) – WARSHE has received US$109,000 in grant making since 2003. The organisation provides psychosocial, financial and legal support to survivors of violence. A huge part of WARSHE’s work has involved educating young people about violence against women and young girls, as well the steps one can take if you have suffered from gender based violence.

 

Monitoring and evaluation visits are an essential part of AWDF’s work, and enables the organisation to engage directly with grantee partners, offer direct technical assistance, learn about key issues affecting grantees and women in the community, region or country, and is invaluable for tracking the success and impact of the work being done by African women’s organisations.

Demonstrate leadership, be inclusive, recognise the power vested in grantmakers, and build African narratives.

These were the 4 key themes that emerged from a meeting of social justice philanthropic organisations convened by Trust Africa in October, 2012.

Read the PDF of the full report by clicking the link below:

Final Report: Developing a collective framework and agenda to advance social justice philanthropy in Africa and the Arab region