Global Fund for Women 2023 - 2026

During the reporting period (July 1, 2023-June 30, 2024) GFW awarded $14,602,927 million in 339 grants to 293 organizations in 73 countries (including $14,396,999 million of core program grants). With Sida funding in FY23-24, this included more than $1 million across 20 grants to 20 organizations. During the first year of the program Sidas core support was used for the implementation of Global Fund for Womens 2023-2026 strategic plan, helping to further grantmaking across all the strategic program areas (. The grantmaking was focused on Feminist Approaches to Anti-Corruption (16 grants) and the movement-led approach to Abortion Rights in Francophone West Africa (4 grants). The Feminist Anti-Corruption Learning Project continued to be further elaborated during the reporting period resulting in enhancing local feminist organizations' understanding of anti-corruption policies and practices while advancing grantmaking efforts. During a four-day meeting in Yerevan the Advisory Group (representing 7 local grantee partners from different ODA eligible countries focused on anti-corruption within their organizational strategies, along with one expert advisor) 21 grantees were selected (out of more than 5000 expressions of interest and 41 proposals) from 10 countries. Grants range from $30,000 to $50,000 for two years ($15,000 to 25,000 per year) and totalled $995,000. The grants include support to; Kenya: Investigative journalism and advocating for policy changes that address the impact of illicit financial flows and corruption on African women; Uruguay: Utilizing open data to improve public oversight and generate feminist data to influence anti-corruption policies in Latin America; Syria: Empowering Syrian women journalists to report safely on corruption and accountability, addressing the gender gap in journalism in Syria; and Guatemala: Creating the region's first feminist journalistic investigation unit, boosting feminist perspectives in investigative journalism. In addition to supporting work against corruption the project aims to gain crucial insights from the partners, that shall culminate in comprehensive guidelines and reflections to improve anti-corruption policies and practices. Over the course of the first year GFW have learned that one challenge has been to manage differing regional priorities, which poses a risk of fragmentation. This challenge is being mitigated by focusing on localized, proposal-based work tailored to each community's needs to ensure responsiveness while at the same time identifying recurring themes and approaches which over time, can develop into a more unified feminist anti-corruption agenda. Recurring themes identified so far has for example been economic exploitation, difficulties in accessing public services, and the role of investigative journalism in uncovering corruption that is affecting women in particular. Under the GFW movement led approach 12 organizations in Benin, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, and Guinea, for a total of $720,000 in grants selected by the committee through a participatory process. The twelve organizations were selected out of 64 proposal submissions (among 72 organizations that had been invited to apply). In preparation for the grant making cycle the movement committee met with abortion rights movement actors in the region to incorporate their feedback and lessons learned from the first round of participatory grantmaking. The awarded grants will resource these grassroots movement actors efforts to advance abortion rights, sexual and reproductive justice, and bodily autonomy in Cameroon, Guinea, Benin, and Ivory Coast. The majority of the groups who received funding are young and women-led, or have young women represented throughout all levels of their organization. They also serve historically marginalized communities in West and Central Africa including young women, women in rural areas far from the capital, internally displaced and refugee women, and ethnic minorities. The progress reached in terms of furthering methods and practices under both the anti-corruption project and the movement lead approach also feed into GFW strategic objective 2 focused on refining grant making practices and strategic objective 3 focused on raising money to support grass-root gender justice movements. GFW have further worked to enable more flexible and unrestricted funding to grassroots movement and have managed to raise USD 8.4 million in unrestricted funding during the reporting period. Sida's funds have also been used to strengthen the operational capacity of the Grants Management and Finance teams, enhancing their ability to manage complex grantmaking processes, support strategic financial oversight, and ensure the effective administration of fiscal sponsorship activities in alignment with organizational priorities. It also contributed to expand and strengthen the Artist Changemaker program, integrating Adolescent Girls Advisory Council members into its Advisory Council, providing grants to new cohorts, and developing participatory, replicable processes that align with Movement-Led Approaches to ensure meaningful and strategic support for artists driving social change.

The overall objective of the intervention is "A world where movements for gender justice have transformed power and privilege for a few into equity and equality for all", this through the following sub-objectives: 1. Find and fund emerging gender justice movements poised for impact by leveraging data and insights 2. Define and practice excellence in feminist grantmaking and support of gender justice movements - to maximize movement impact and minimize friction, burden, and competition. 3. Raise money in support of gender justice movements by building a community of support through relationships, including with feminist funds. 4. Promote gender justice by challenging the dominant narrative around philanthrophy and co-creating opportunities for feminist solidarity, joy, and movement victories. 5.Grow a values-based organizational culture that aligns with our vision so we can show up better for each other and our partners.