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Call for Concept Notes: Scaling Care Innovations in Africa

Deadline: 23-Jun-23

In partnership with Global Affairs Canada (GAC), IDRC invites concept notes to advance gender equality through the promotion of policy and program innovations that foster the recognition, reduction, and redistribution of women’s unpaid care work in sub-Saharan Africa.

Part of the five-year Scaling Care Innovations in Africa initiative (hereafter referred to as Scaling Care Innovations), the goal is to harness locally generated data and evidence to guide care policies and interventions to improve lives and livelihoods of marginalized women and girls.

Objectives and Programming scope
  • Scaling Care Innovations seeks to respond to the challenges and gaps identified above through a focus on policy and program innovations related to the “3R” strategy for addressing unpaid care work, namely, recognizing the value of care at policy, community, household levels; reducing the drudgery and time spent on unpaid care work; and redistributing the responsibility and cost equitably within households and beyond.
Goal
  • The goal is to improve the lives and livelihoods of marginalized women and girls in SSA. The initiative builds on Canada’s feminist approach to addressing unpaid and paid care work and harnesses IDRC’s thought leadership in promoting gender-transformative development outcomes and its pioneering work on scaling positive impact.
Funding scope and Duration
  • Scaling Care Innovations will award grants to institutions on a competitive basis.
  • There will be two sizes of funding available through this call, recognizing that opportunities to contribute to knowledge and action exist in different contexts, at different scales, and could be led by and involve various combinations of actors.
  • Project budgets related to scaling program innovations to reduce and redistribute unpaid care work will be up to CA$1.25 million. They expect to fund 10-12 projects under this category.
  • Project budgets related to scaling policy innovations to recognize women’s unpaid care work will be up to CA$300,000. They expect to fund 8-10 projects under this category.
  • Projects should be scheduled to be completed within a timeframe of no less than 18 months and not exceeding 36 months, including all research activities and final reporting.
  • IDRC reserves the right to fund additional proposals from this call if/when more funding becomes available.
  • IDRC is under no obligation to issue any funds prior to the applicant returning a fully executed Grant Agreement to IDRC.
  • All grants are subject to sufficient funds being made available to IDRC by the Parliament of Canada or under a donor partnership agreement with a particular external funder.
  • IDRC reserves the right to cancel this call for concept notes at any time without prior notice and/or to not issue any grants under this process.
Eligibility Criteria
  • The following eligibility criteria apply:
    • Diverse coalitions and equitable partnerships: Recognizing that scaling impact requires a concerted effort that brings on board multiple stakeholders, the initiative will require successful applicants to form coalitions involving research organizations, government and/or private sector entities, civil society organizations and other key implementing partners that are essential to link research to action.  Active engagement of women’s rights organizations through project co-design is essential to ensure the relevance of the proposed work and its sustainability. Funded proposals are expected to demonstrate effective and equitable partnerships that include shared participation and responsibility in research design, implementation and research uptake, and that ensure mutual accountability among participants for progress, outputs and outcomes.
    • One partner must be designated as the lead institution. The lead institution should submit the application to IDRC on behalf of the coalition. The lead institution will sign the grant agreement with IDRC and as such be responsible for receiving and administering the funds and ensuring that all grant conditions are met. All other partners will be third party organizations and IDRC will not enter into an agreement with them.
    • Lead organizations must have independent legal status (or “legal personality”) and be capable of contracting in their own right and name, receiving and administering funds, and have authority to direct proposed project activities. Lead organizations must be able to demonstrate legal status through written documentation. Legal status will only be reviewed if and when applicants are shortlisted following evaluation.
    • Local leadership: The lead organization(s) must be based in sub-Saharan Africa and have the capacity to administer and transfer foreign funds. Other collaborating partners may include organizations from within the region; national, regional or international offices of multilateral organizations or international NGOs or other organizations from outside the region.  However, they cannot be the lead. Further, the work needs to be carried out in one or more eligible countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
    • An organization may participate in more than one concept note, yet an individual principal investigator may only lead on one project.
    • United Nations agencies and CGIAR centres are not eligible to be a lead organization.
    • Applications from individual persons will not be accepted.
    • Only proposals that meet the eligibility criteria above will be considered.
    • IDRC reserves the right to rescind its selection of a project if it is deemed that the information provided in the application is false or misleading.

For more information, visit International Development Research Centre.