African Women's Development Fund

As a pan-African feminist funder, the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) plays a critical and unique role within African feminist movements: to fund, strengthen, and elevate groups led by African feminists, women, girls, and gender-diverse people working toward gender justice and social transformation. Through a deepened movement-building and intersectional approach, AWDF is evolving who and how it resources, supports, and nurtures African feminist movements with an expansion of core funding and responsive accompaniment. AWDF will work to successfully implement priorities under its new strategic framework and strengthen the learning partnership between AWDF and the foundation’s Gender Equity and Governance Program. (Strategy: Global Reproductive Equity)

This grant to the African Women’s Development Fund will support the fund’s activities, including grantmaking to African women’s grassroots organizations, especially in the economic security and justice area of their work. During the grant term, the fund will also support a convening of feminist thinkers, feminist economists, grassroots activists, and women’s rights organizations. Anticipated outcomes of the meeting include advocacy tools and documentation to be shared with economic rights activists in Africa. The fund also provides capacity-building training workshops to activists on topics such as financial management, feminist leadership and governance, and results-based programming.