Deadline: 13-May-22
The Open Society Foundations (OSF) Africa is inviting organizations to support innovative interventions with effective strategies that respond to the broader deep-seated political, justice and socio-economic roadblocks to open society in Africa.
In addition to the tools of grant making, research and advocacy, they seek to seize new opportunities and deploy novel tools such as arts and culture, technology, strategic litigation and impact investment to address open society challenges.
OSF-Africa seeks to advance similar priorities on the continent, rooted in and framed from an African perspective to meet present-day, interconnected challenges to open society.
Strategic Goals
- Expression and participation: Amplify people’s voices, through conscious organising to express themselves and participate in public life, challenge and disrupt the exercise of unchecked power and hold public and private bodies to account;
- Security and Rights: Promote a rights-based approach to security sector governance and accountability and respond to existing and emerging security challenges;
- Accountability and Justice: Promote accountable, just and inclusive democracies governed by law in which rights are promoted and protected;
- Opportunity and Equity: Support progressive economic and social norms, policies and practices that create opportunity and promote equality and rights.
Specific Themes
OSF seeks proposals covering the following specific themes:
- Expression and Participation:
- Resisting the capture of democratic processes and institutions
- Resisting the capture of electoral processes and institutions
- Promoting access to information, digital rights and independent media
- Promoting arts and culture
- Supporting human rights defenders (HRDs)
- Security and Rights:
- Supporting civilian oversight of and an accountable security sector
- Supporting narrative change around insecurity and terrorism
- Advancing the security and safety for women and girls and sexual and gender minorities, including in conflict areas
- Accountability and Justice:
- Promoting institutional transformation and renewal
- Strengthening national, regional and continental human rights and legal accountability mechanisms
- Challenging corporate power as relates to capture
- Supporting and strengthening broad-based intersectional human rights and accountability movements
- Opportunity and Equity:
- Supporting access to justice and the rights of the marginalized
- Addressing inequality through policies and practice
- Supporting enablers and catalytic economic reforms
- Working towards fair global climate governance and justice
- Women’s Rights:
- Strengthening intersectional feminist knowledge production and uptake
- Supporting intersectional feminist movements
- Strengthening the field to anchor the work of the other pillars
- Positioning African women’s rights globally
- Special Initiatives:
- Re-invigorating pan-African civil society: decolonizing academia and research
- Advancing African influence globally
Eligible Countries
OSF-Africa’s priority countries are Angola, Cameroon, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Eswatini, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Eligibility Criteria
OSF-Africa primarily awards grants to African organizations. OSF-Africa may provide funding to Africa-based international organizations committed to African leadership, voice and agency on exception. OSF-Africa can grant to public institutions as well as sub-regional and continental organizations. They may support work undertaken by unregistered movements and/or individuals. Interested organizations must submit, in PDF format, a completed application proposal and budget (in English, French or Portuguese) and other documents stipulated in the application form. Applications not submitted with all relevant documentation may be delayed.
For more information, visit https://www.osiwa.org/call-for-proposals/