Africa Archives

GWWI West Africa Program: Training and Seed Grant Opportunity

The Global Women’s Water Initiative (GWWI), a joint venture of international organizations (A Single Drop, Crabgrass, and Women’s Earth Alliance) in partnership with WaterAid Ghana has launched the 2010 West Africa Program which “equips two-person teams of local African women leaders with technology training, introductory business skills, networking support, and seed funding to launch water service projects in their communities that have the potential to become income-generating.”

The 2010 program will be held in February 2010 in Accra, Ghana where participants will undergo a week-long training. In addition to the training, there are other phases of work to be carried out by the participants. It will begin with a Preparation Phase where selected participants have to “Gather information and map their communities’ needs related to water and sanitation” and “Take part in facilitated conference calls and web-based community forums, and accomplish pre-training assignments.” The Training Phase is where the participants will “learn proven and appropriate water technologies and introductory business skills to address the water challenges in their communities” and gain skills. At the end of the training, participants have to “create and commit to specific action plans for the year” and they will receive seed funding of US $1500 “to launch a water project addressing water access and quality.” The final phase is for follow-up and implementation where participants will receive technical support including project visits and trainings.

The program will support two women from West Africa and out of them one has to be from an established NGO and the other has to be a leader of the community with whom the NGO works. The program will opportunities for them to work closely and develop action plan for implementing an “an appropriate water technology project for their community.” The last date to submit nominations for the program is 30 October 2009. The nomination form is available online at the Women’s Earth Alliance website. For more information, visit this link.

US Grants to Seven Organizations in Africa to Prevent Malaria

USAID is providing $10.5 million as a grant to seven organizations across six countries in Africa for prevention and control of Malaria among communities most affected by it, especially children below five years and pregnant women. The grant has been provided through the the US President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), which is an interagency initiative led by the USAID with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The program seeks to partner with new and indigenous organizations which have earlier not worked with the US funding and will build their capacities “to undertake community-based malaria prevention and treatment activities and to build local ownership of malaria control for the long term.” The seven organizations from different countries benefiting from the grant are:

HealthRight International (HRI) – Kenya
Merlin – Kenya
Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) – Nets for Life – Ghana
Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) – Mozambique
Lutheran World Relief (LWR) – Mali
Catholic Medical Mission Board (CMMB) – Zambia
Medical Teams International (MTI) – Uganda

The program will work within the policy frameworks of the respective countries and grantee organizations will work closely with the relevant ministries, in-country partners and other donor organizations in the region.

Source
6 October 2009

Awards for Sanitation and Hygiene Achievements in Africa

AMCOW or the African Ministers’ Council on Water is organizing the AMCOW AfricaSan Awards 2009 for “recognizing sanitation and hygiene achievements in Africa.” It recognizes the outstanding achievements made by organizations and individuals in Africa in the area of hygiene and sanitation that “result in large-scale, sustainable behavior changes and tangible impacts.” The awards are part of the AfricaSan Movement, which is a regional initiative led by AMCOW that works to “place sanitation and hygiene at the top of the development agenda in Africa.

Following are the award categories announced under the AMCOW AfricaSan Awards:

– Leadership and Ministerial Award: to honor individuals or institutions who provided strong leadership to sanitation and/or hygiene improvement through policy and strategy development, advocacy, institutional arrangements, financing, coordination and capacity development. Nominees may include policy makers, leaders, and other personalities.

– Technical Innovation Award: to honor individuals and institutions who contributed to the improvement of technical solutions for sanitation services and products to make them affordable, reliable, and sustainable. Nominees may include individuals, communities and organizations such as training/research institutions, technical enterprises, etc.

– NGO/Civil Society Award: to honor individuals and institutions who supported and mobilized communities for the improvement of their sanitation and hygienic conditions. Nominees may include community/youth/women associations, NGOs, and non-profit organizations.

Nominations and self-nominations are accepted for the awards. Entries need to have the information about the nominee, the name and contact details and a short statement of no more than 500 words about the work and the justify the reason for nominating them. Winners will be announced in mod-October 2009 and they will be sponsored to attend the Second African Water Week to be held in South Africa from 9-13 November 2009. The last date to apply here is 9 October 2009. All nominations should be sent by email to [email protected]

733 Proposals for the African Diaspora Marketplace

The African Diaspora Marketplace (ADM) is a unique initiative of involving the African Diaspora community in the United States for the improvement of the economic conditions of the poor people in Africa. Recently, a lot of focus in the international development arena has been on remittances and the role of migrant workers for the upliftment of the poor in developing and least developed countries and many innovative programs have been launched in this context. The ADM believes that the African diaspora can make substantial contribution towards eradicating poverty and unemployment in the Sub-Saharan region through an enterprise-based approach. For this, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Western Union requested proposals this year under ADM from organizations which can effectively mobilize investments from the Diaspora community for small and medium enterprises in the African region that could further lead to improvement in the economic and living conditions of the poorest people. USAID has announced that it has received an overwhelming response for this call by receiving more than seven hundred proposals. Although each proposal is expected to be innovative addressing the issues, however funding will be limited to some 10-20 projects only. It will be a tough competition for the finalists. The funding is around US $50,000-100,000 which has to be leveraged with a matching grant from the investments mobilized from the Diaspora community. The marketplace is sponsored jointly the USAID and the Western Union. Since the project demands the role of migrant workers, the presence of Western Union is no surprise. The final grantees under this program will be announced in October 2009.

13 August 2009

Source

US Funding for Elections, Political Participation and Consensus Building for countries in Africa, the Near East, and South Asia

The US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor has issued the Request for Proposals under the “Elections, Political Participation and Consensus Building for countries in Africa, the Near East, and South Asia.” Only US-based nonprofits, research institutions and universities can apply for this grant opportunity. However, since the focus of this funding is on developing countries across Africa and Asia, which includes building the capacities of civil society organizations, local NGOs can propose partnerships to US-based organizations for jointly applying for this call for proposals.

Countries that are covered under this funding are:

Africa: Cote d’Ivoire, Central African Republic, Togo, and Uganda

Near East: Lebanon and Tunisia

South Asia: Afghanistan

Funding allocated for each country falls within the range of US $400,000 and $800,000 and covers activities such as building the capacities of local NGOs in human rights (using approaches such as radio in Central African Republic), civic education, public awareness campaign, media monitoring and other mechanism which promote democracy, human rights and civil society participation. The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor “supports innovative, “venture capital” programs that uphold democratic principles, support and strengthen democratic institutions, promote human rights, and build civil society in countries and regions of the world that are geo-strategically important to the United States. HRDF funds projects that have the potential to have an immediate impact leading to long-term sustainable reforms. Projects should have potential for continued funding beyond HRDF resources. HRDF projects must not duplicate or simply add to efforts by other entities.”

The deadline to submit proposals is 14 September 2009. All applicants have to be registered at the Grants.gov website through which the final application will be processed. For more information, visit this link. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/p/127829.htm

Countries that are covered under this funding are:

Africa: Cote d’Ivoire, Central African Republic, Togo, and Uganda

Near East: Lebanon and Tunisia

South Asia: Afghanistan

Envirofit International requesting Proposals from African NGOs

NGOs in Africa working on promoting sustainable enterprises can apply for the “Request for Proposals” launched by the Envirofit International “for projects centered on setting up innovative distribution and sales channels for disseminating Envirofit clean technology cookstoves into the African market.” There is availability of US $500,000 of funding for nearly seven NGOs selected under this competition. Each project is eligible to receive a grant between $50,000 and $100,000 per year. Under the project, Envirofit will be providing stoves based upon the local market pricing and will be delivered at a center point in a country. Products include biomass-burning stoves, charcoal burning stoves and accessory products. Carbon credit revenue sharing will also be provided wherever available.

The competition is open for NGOs in all the countries of Africa. However, seven target countries have been prioritized initially. These are South Africa, Uganda, Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.

Application forms have to be downloaded from the website and completed them and send them via email. The deadline for submitting applications is 30 August 2009 For more information, visit this link.

Applications invited for the $100,000 One Africa Award 2009

The One Africa Award is an opportunity for African NGOs working to make change in the lives of the communities through their interventions. The award is actually opened to individuals and advocacy groups along with NGOs in African countries working towards advancing one or more of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The award will honor the individuals and organizations working in this field across the continent. The winning individual, group or organization will be able to win a cash support of US $100,000 which can be used for further enhancing the interventions for achieving the desired results. The award will be given out at the international conference to be held in November 2009. In addition to the winner, four finalists will also be invited to share their lessons learned and best practices at the conference. The last date to apply for the award is 21 August 2009. For more information, visit this link.

Mama Cash

Mama Cash is the oldest international women’s fund established in the Netherlands in 1983 to support pioneering and innovative women’s initiatives around the world. The Fund has been providing funding to advance women and girls’ human rights in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Specifically, Mama Cash supports ambitious feminist and women’s rights organisations and initiatives led by and for women and girls.

Mama Cash also supports the human rights movements of trans people. We welcome applications from trans organisations that fulfill our eligibility criteria, regardless of the gender-identity of their members and leadership.

Organizations can request both general support and support for specific programmes, projects, or initiatives, but it encourages groups to apply for general support. Support is rendered both for single-year and multi-year to a maximum of three years. Each organisation or network may have only one grant per twelve-month period. Grants ranging from €5.000 to €50.000 per year can be requested from Mama Cash.

Mama Cash offers step-up support to help ambitious organisations and networks grow their capacities and take or make strategic opportunities to create fundamental change.

Mama Cash
P.O. Box 15686
Eerste Helmersstraat 17-III
1054 CX AMSTERDAM
The Netherlands
URL: http://www.mamacash.org