Deadline: 11-Sep-20
As part of its activities to support applied research for development in West Africa, IDRC proposes to continue the actions taken under the successful Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GrOW) initiative.
The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) will support locally grounded in-depth evaluative and action research on transformative approaches to the social norms and power dynamics that shape women’s choices and opportunities. The goal is to reduce and redistribute the domestic workload and unpaid care work through scalable innovations, technologies, practices, interventions, policies, and attitudes in West Africa.
Building on the recently launched GrOW East Africa initiative, GrOW West Africa will support applied, practical and in-depth research rooted in the local context of the target countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Senegal. Its objective is to contribute to the reconstruction of post-COVID-19 socio-economic systems in a way that promotes women’s empowerment and gender equality.
Thus, through the supported research, it will provide evidence-based data, practical tools, and relevant advice for decision-making. Through partnerships with stakeholders in the public and private sectors, it will seek to identify and facilitate the scaling of effective solutions to achieve women’s empowerment and gender equality through the reduction and redistribution of unpaid domestic and care work. GrOW West Africa is thus an addition to the GrOW East Africa initiative, which has a broader thematic scope.
Funding Information
- Duration: 24–36 months
- Budget: CA$500,000
Objectives
The objectives of GrOW West Africa are as follows:
- Deepen knowledge on ways to promote women’s empowerment by reducing obstacles to optimal participation in the labor market;
- Propose and test innovative solutions to reduce and redistribute the burden of unpaid domestic and care work to achieve a large-scale impact;
- Generate new and sound scientific evidence from research and evaluation of innovations, initiatives, policies or programs to reduce women’s unpaid domestic and care workload;
- Support and mobilize researchers and research institutions in the Global South to help them assume leadership roles in research and foster the sharing of experiences through multi-stakeholder dialogue at the national and international levels.
Thematic Areas
- Technology, innovation, and infrastructure that reduce and redistribute unpaid care work and domestic work.
- Childcare services for different categories of women and opportunities for scaling.
- Changing standards and public perception of unpaid care work and domestic work.
IDRC will support two types of research projects:
- Evaluative projects that assess current or past programs related to GrOW West Africa thematic priorities to generate evidence on effective approaches. These projects will have a budget of up to CA$500,000 and a duration of up to 24 months.
- Action research projects with key policy actors (government, private sector, or non-governmental actors) that test and/or scale solutions that address one or more of the GrOW West Africa priority themes. These projects will have a budget of up to CA$500,000 and a duration of up to 36 months.
Eligibility Criteria
- This call is open to research institutions, think tanks, and non-governmental organizations with strong research capacity based in one of the countries of focus and with legal corporate registration.
- Research consortia comprised of up to three institutional partners may apply, however one partner must be designated as the lead institution. Preference will be given to projects with multi-stakeholder and multi-disciplinary teams.
- UN, donor, and multi-lateral organizations are not eligible to apply.
- Countries of research focus: the proposed projects must be carried out only in one or more of the following West African countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Senegal.
For more information, visit https://www.idrc.ca/en/funding/call-proposals-growth-and-economic-opportunities-women-grow-west-africa