Call for LOIs: Addressing areas of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in sub-Saharan Africa

Deadline: 13-May-24

Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and other funding partners are inviting applications to submit Letters of Interest(LOIs) for addressing neglected areas of sexual and reproductive health and rights in sub-Saharan Africa (ANSRHRA).

ANSRHRA is an initiative to fund up to eight implementation research teams (IRTs) in the first cohort of projects (anticipated to be funded in the fall of 2024) and up to eight additional IRTs anticipated to be funded in the second cohort (to be funded in the fall of 2026). IRTs will develop and implement sustainable, equitable, evidence-based, scalable and gender-transformative interventions in areas of SRHR for underserved, including women and girls, in sub-Saharan Africa. For the purposes of this funding opportunity, neglected areas of SRHR include improving access to family planning and contraceptive services, expanding access to safe abortion care where legally permitted and post-abortion care, upholding SRHR rights and ensuring access to services for adolescents, including comprehensive sexuality education, preventing sexual- and gender-based violence (SGBV) and improving services for people experiencing SGBV, and strengthening advocacy for SRHR.

Aims and Objectives

• The Initiative’s overall aim is to support greater realization of neglected SRHR by underserved populations, including women and girls, in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Aligned with the intermediate outcomes of the ANSRHRA’s logic model, the specific objectives are to:
  • increase capacity to collaboratively generate evidence on the implementation of gender transformative SRHR interventions
  • increase availability and mobilization of evidence on the implementation of gender-transformative SRHR interventions
  • increase demand by decision-makers for evidence on gender-transformative SRHR interventions
  • strengthen the use of evidence to advocate for promotion of SRHR, especially among underserved populations, including women and girls, and organizations that serve them
  • strengthen the use of evidence to hold communities, governments and other key stakeholders accountable for promotion of SRHR, especially among underserved populations, including women and girls, and organizations that serve them.

Funding Information

• An anticipated total of CAD29.9 million will support the ANSRHRA Initiative, with anticipated approximately CAD19.1 million available to fund up to 16 implementation-research projects over two cycles.
• The total amount available for this anticipatory first cohort of letters of interest is up to CAD750,000 to fund up to 15 IRTs with proposal-development grants of CAD50,000 each for a duration of 3 months.
• Successful applicants will be invited to submit full proposals for the second stage of this call, where approximately CAD9.6 million is anticipated to be available to fund a first cohort of up to eight full proposals of up to CAD1.2 million each, over a period of 36 months.
• A second call for letters of interest and full proposals is anticipated in 2026.

Priority Research Areas

• The five priority areas for the ANSRHRA Initiative are:
  • Improving access to family planning and contraceptive services for those who want to delay or prevent pregnancy could prevent 67 million unintended pregnancies and avoid 35 million induced abortions across the globe. Contraception that is both appropriate and accessible not only reduces risks related to sexually transmitted infections and unplanned or unwanted pregnancies, but also contributes to expanded education opportunities and choice for women and girls and expanded economic development. Access to contraception is complicated by market-based measures as well as climate and humanitarian-related disasters, where underserved populations, and particularly women and girls, often face increased direct and indirect consequences from lack of access to contraceptive services.
  • Expanding access to safe abortion care where legally permitted and post-abortion care (APAC) is an essential component of SRH services. Comprehensive APAC services include accessible and accurate health information, abortion management and post-abortion care, discussing and providing contraceptive care, combined with legislative protection for all those seeking and providing abortion related care where legally permitted. Alongside the scaling-up of contraceptive services, expanding access to safe APAC care where legally permitted remains necessary.
  • Upholding SRHR rights and ensuring access to services for adolescents is critical to meeting global health, economic and sustainability goals. Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) programs empower children and young people to secure their health, wellbeing and dignity, develop respectful social and sexual relationships, consider how their choices affect their own wellbeing and that of others, and understand and ensure the protection of their rights throughout their lives. Global systematic reviews have shown that successful CSE programs improve knowledge and self-esteem among adolescents, lead to more inclusive gender and social norms, delay sexual initiation, and contribute to the prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections. There are many lessons to be drawn from successful CSE programs implemented across sub-Saharan Africa; however, centering the voices and needs of adolescents and their caregivers, including older, often women, caregivers, remains an important area for improvement across most initiatives. While comprehensive sexuality education in school is essential for raising awareness among adolescents, equally important is developing ways to reach out-of-school youth with this information.
  • Preventing sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and improving services for people experiencing SGBV is critical to empowering underserved populations, and particularly women and girls, to exercise their self-determination and autonomy related to their SRHR and all aspects of their lives. The intersections between SGBV and SRHR requires integrated, multi-sectoral prevention approaches across the life course that address root causes, while providing accessible, appropriate care to people of all age groups experiencing violence. While SGBV exists across all sectors of society, some populations face higher risks. Women and girls living in fragile states and conflict settings face heightened risks of SGBV and are underserved by existing programs. The experiences of people who live with lifelong consequences of SGBV, including traumatic brain injuries and cognitive and mental health concerns, and its intersections with SRHR remain largely unexamined areas of research. Policy and legislative responses to SGBV are also important mechanisms to address underlying causes of SGBV, such as inclusive political participation and gender-responsive programming and service delivery
  • Strengthening advocacy for SRHR requires comprehensive approaches that cross public, political, health, economic and legislative spheres. Neglected areas of SRHR suffer from an underlying lack of political commitment, inadequate resources, persistent gender-based stigma and discrimination, and an unwillingness to openly and comprehensively address issues related to sexuality. Stigma around sexual and reproductive rights remains a root driver for unmet needs. There is an important opportunity to advocate for the inclusion of SRHR generally, as well as in both the response to and prevention of climate and humanitarian crises, highlighting the intersections between SRHR, SGBV, harmful social norms and practices, climate change and social and political unrest
• This Initiative has a dual focus on advocacy as a priority area for implementation research as well as an expected outcome across all areas of SRHR. Implementation-research projects implementing, evaluating, adapting and scaling evidence-based, community-informed SRHR advocacy initiatives would therefore be eligible for funding. This is intended to generate and translate evidence on gender-transformative advocacy interventions as well as address the lack of evidence on how to effectively link and translate advocacy initiatives to build system sustainability and accountability across all areas of SRHR.

Eligibility Criteria

• Eligibility criteria must be met in full for LOIs to be considered for this competition.
• At the LOI stage, IRTs must consist of:
  • a principal applicant who is a sub-Saharan Africa-based researcher (citizen or permanent resident of an African country) with a position in an institution based in an eligible country
  • a co-principal applicant who is a senior member of a civil society organization led by and/or prioritizing underserved populations, including women and girls, who has been active in supporting priority areas of SRHR based in the same country as the principal applicant’s institution
  • a co-principal applicant who is an independent researcher based at a Canadian institution
  • a co-applicant who is a relevant local-, district- or national-level decision-maker, based in the same country as the principal applicant’s institution
• A principal applicant is a researcher who is a citizen or permanent resident of a sub-Saharan African country, and who is based at an eligible institution and residing in an eligible country where the research will take place. Women and other under-represented people are strongly encouraged to apply. The principal applicant’s institution must:
  • have legal corporate registration, independent legal status and have the ability to receive and administer funds,
  • be based in an eligible country in sub-Saharan Africa and be eligible to conduct or coordinate independent research in study countries, and
  • have a corporate policy to allow researchers to publish without institutional restrictions in the international academic literature.
• The principal applicant will be the team lead and will work in close collaboration with the IRT, including but not limited to:
  • a co-principal applicant who is a senior member of a civil society organization led by and/or prioritizing underserved populations, and particularly women and girls, who has been active in supporting priority areas of SRHR for a minimum of 3 years. The civil society organization must be based and active in the same country as the principal applicant’s institution. The senior member must have within their responsibility and authority to support the identification of research questions, implementation and uptake of results at the appropriate level. Eligible civil society organizations include non-governmental organizations, cooperatives, unions, civil society organizations, non-profit foundations or divisions of for-profit organizations. Eligible civil society organizations must:
    • have legal corporate registration, independent legal status and have the ability to receive and administer funds,
    • be based in an eligible country in sub-Saharan Africa, and
    • have a corporate policy to allow members and partnered researchers to publish without institutional restrictions in international academic literature.
  • Women and other under-represented people are strongly encouraged to apply. Co-applicant civil society organizations share intellectual responsibility for and ownership of the data generated as well as of the knowledge and outputs produced as part of implementation-research projects.
  • a co-principal applicant who is an independent researcher based in Canada and affiliated with a Canadian post-secondary institution and/or its affiliated institutions or an individual affiliated with an Indigenous non-governmental organization in Canada with a research and/or knowledge translation mandate.
  • Women and other under-represented people are strongly encouraged to apply. The Canadian based co-principal applicant’s institution must:
    • be a Canadian post-secondary institution and/or its affiliated institutions (including hospitals, research institutes and other non-profit organizations with a mandate for health research and/or knowledge translation) or an Indigenous non-governmental organization in Canada with a research and/or knowledge-translation mandate
    • have legal corporate registration in Canada, be allowed to contract in its own right and name, and will be responsible for managing grant funds in Canada
    • have a corporate policy to allow researchers to publish without institutional restrictions in the international academic literature
  • a decision-maker co-applicant at the local, district or national level in the same country as the principal applicant’s organization in a country where the research will take place. Decision-makers must have within their responsibility and authority to support the identification of research questions, implementation of research (where appropriate) and uptake of results at the appropriate level. If the decision-maker is not from a government entity, teams need to justify how the chosen decision-maker co-applicant has the ability to support the research, act to implement the research findings, and influence relevant levels of government. Women and other underrepresented people in decision making positions are strongly encouraged to apply.
• For applications involving Indigenous communities, the IRT must include at least one member who self identifies as Indigenous or provide evidence of having meaningful and culturally safe involvement with Indigenous people in an Indigenous health research environment. This team member could be the African based principal applicant, co-principal applicant who is a senior member of a civil society organization, Canadian-based co-principal applicant or could be an additional Indigenous co-principal applicant who is an Indigenous community member or leader, Indigenous Elder or Indigenous Knowledge Keeper. The IRT must submit an attachment describing how they meet this requirement.
• An earlier call for proposals for HPROs was issued in 2023 under this Initiative. Organizations who were successful in their submission to be the HPRO for either West and Central Africa or East and Southern Africa are not eligible to apply for this call for letters of interest for IRTs.
• Applications that do not meet the eligibility criteria outlined above will be withdrawn from the competition.

For more information, visit IDRC.