Tag: impact

In June 2013, a 3 member team from AWDF – Rose Buabeng, Anglophone Programme Officer; Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, Communications Specialist, Solange Kuadjo, Programme Assistant – visited 19 grantee partners, and 3 potential grantee partners in 7 Nigerian States (Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan, Ilorin, Nasawara, Ile Ife, Kwara). Chika Oduah, a multi-media journalist who took many of the lovely images you will see below, accompanied the AWDF team on this monitoring visit.
One of the advantages of being on monitoring visits is that you get to see directly the impact of the work being done by grantee partners. An unexpected and always pleasant surprise is the positive feedback you get directly when you are doing a good job.

Below are some of the comments our grantee partners said about the work of the AWDF:

“I am happy to see women trying to touch the lives of other women. I am so glad and encourage you to continue. I know what touching lives mean and the effort and resources that goes into it.”
Ms Ndudi Bowei, Executive Director, The International Center for Environmental Health & Development

“AWDF is supporting a lot of women on the African continent, I am happy for AWDF and praying that they will get more money to continue funding women’s organizations.”
Ms Lucy Attah, Executive Director, Women and Children of Hope Foundation

“I thank God for the people who supported AWDF. It is a wonderful women’s organisation. No matter the quality of one’s application and the standard of the organisation, they still have patience for everybody. Please keep it up. I know this project will take FARDEM to a higher level”

Ms. Rose Nwaogwugwu, Executive Director, The Family Resources Development Motivators

“With AWDF even if you don’t ask, they know you are there so we don’t need to let them down; we thank them for all the support through the years. They are really a women-focused organization and are always there for women”
Ms Funmi Doherty, Executive Director, Society for Women and AIDS Africa Nigeria

“The partnership between GADA and AWDF has boosted the organization’s morale. We have always resorted to AWDF in times of need and they don’t disappoint. The partnership has also helped GADA leverage more funding and other opportunities. I wish GADA and AWDF partnership never ends”
Ms Ada Agina-Ude, Executive Director, Gender and Development Association – GADA).

“AWDF has always supported Ajegunle’s women in politics and leadership project. The women here who are now active in politics owe AWDF and those who support them a great gratitude. They are now very vocal and demanding their rights from political party leaders and others in various leadership positions. The International Workshop on Resource Mobilisation has also been very useful to me. Thanks AWDF”
Ms Funmi Adeniyi, Senior Programme Manager, Ajegunle Community Project

By Rose Buabeng with Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah

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.

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.

In 2012, the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) received a total of 905 grant applications from 35 Africancountries. A total of 187 organisations from 32 African countries were awarded grants of $2,176,500 in the following thematic areas: Women’s Human Rights, Economic Empowerment and Livelihoods, Governance, Peace and Security, Reproductive Health and Rights, HIV/AIDS, and Arts, Culture and Sports.

The highest percentage of grants awarded (34.3%) was in the area of Women’s Human Rights. In this thematic area AWDF prioritized funding work that addresses issues of gender based violence and access to justice including issues of forced marriages, female genital mutilation and domestic violence. Other priorities included building young women’s leadership, movement building, the promotion and protection of women’s rights including land and property rights, and adult literacy for women. Our grantee partners working in this area utilized a variety of methodologies to meet their objectives including training paralegals, setting up monitoring committees, establishing gender clubs, implementing referral mechanisms and enhancing access to justice. Grantee partners also utilized sports, drama, radio, information vans and community/market place campaigns as a tool to disseminate information on Women’s Human Rights.

The breakdown of grants disbursed in other thematic areas were as follows:

Economic Empowerment and Livelihoods – 21%

HIV and AIDS – 19%

Governance, Peace and Security – 13.9%

Reproductive Health and Rights – 6%

Arts, Culture and Sports – 5%

Please click AWDF Activity Report 2011 to download.

Please click 2011 Audited Accounts to download AWDF’s audited accounts report for 2011.

Women of Substance is about the energy and commitment that African Women put into shaping Africa through their local, national and regional initiatives. In this abbreviated version of a 42 minute documentary produced by the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF(, grantee organisations speak about the critical work and transformatory impact of AWDF’s funding and capacity building support in their lives for the past ten years.

Feminist activists featured include President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, Margaret Dongo of Zimbabwe, Angela Dwamena-Aboagye of Ghana, the founders of AWDF (Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi, Joana Foster, Dr Hilda Tadria), Theo Sowa of Ghana/UK, Patricia Babiiha of Uganda, Siphiwe Hhlope of Swaziland and Prudence Mabele of South Africa.

To watch the abbreviated version of ‘Women of Substance’ please click here