Deadline: 2-Jun-25
The Women for Women International (WfWI)-Iraq is seeking applications from grassroots, women-led, CSOs and WROs across all 19 governorates of Iraq and the KRI, to implement self-defined WPS plans, priorities, and goals, including institutional strengthening, core activities, programmatic work, and advocacy efforts.
Purpose and Desired Outcomes
- The overarching purpose of this RFA is to fund projects which support efforts to advance women’s rights, foster equality and promote women’s meaningful participation in decision-making processes at local and national levels—paving the way for a sustainable and inclusive peace. This RFA contains all instructions and templates necessary to submit an initial application to be considered for funding.
- Through this call for applications, WFWI-Iraq aims to provide flexible funding focused on enabling WROs and CSOs to define and deliver their self-defined priorities, that meet the identified needs of women and girls in the communities they serve. It will also focus on capacity sharing initiatives aimed at supporting WROs/CSOs to identify areas for growth and providing assistance to address them.
Thematic Areas
- Thematic areas for this RFA:
- Women Peace and Security (WPS) and Iraq National Action Plan (NAP): This may also include activities focused on preventing the rollback of women’s rights in Iraq, particularly efforts to counter backlash against women’s rights leaders and activists, ensuring their voices and contributions are protected and amplified. They welcome bids that enable environments for women’s meaningful participation and strengthened capacity to progress the Iraq and KRI National Action Plans and WPS goals. This may also include activities focused on preventing the rollback of women’s rights in Iraq, particularly efforts to counter backlash against women’s rights leaders and activists, ensuring their voices and contributions are protected and amplified. This may also include participation at the community, national and regional levels for example through the inclusion of bids that prioritise participation in networks, coalitions and movement building opportunities.
- Elections: In the context of the upcoming elections in Iraq, they welcome bids that include activities that focus on actively engaging and including women in decision-making processes, both as voters and candidates, as well as driving voter turnout, emphasizing the importance of participation in the elections. In this context they also welcome bids that incorporate mechanisms to respond to backlash for women engaging in electoral processes.
- Gender Based Violence (GBV): They welcome bids that seek to highlight and prevent gender-based violence including innovative approaches to support survivors of GBV, including conflict related sexual violence. Initiatives should consider engaging men and boys and stakeholders such as community police to play proactive roles in the prevention of GBV.
- Returns and Reintegration: They welcome bids that aim to support security for women, girls and female headed households returning and reintegrating into communities. This may include, for example, through women’s economic empowerment as a form of participation that drives women’s economic autonomy and security, to directly contribute to their meaningful participation in society and decision-making at all levels.
Community Participation and Involvement of Key Stakeholders
- Enhancing women’s participation in all forms of decision-making, as well as public and political life, is one of WfWI’s main objectives. Therefore, WfWI encourages applicants to take an active, inclusive, participatory approach with their target communities. This approach encourages sharing information and experiences and collaborating with project participants and partners (e.g. CSOs, WROs, Government institutions women’s groups and local leaders) to focus on addressing common problems and assuring collective ownership of the project. Community involvement is encouraged at every step of the process, from the development of project ideas and project design, reviews to the monitoring and evaluation of the project.
- Applicants are also encouraged to involve other key stakeholders in the project’s design, implementation, review, monitoring, and evaluation and to show how it is feeding into a wider body of work and desired outcomes.
Funding Information
- The maximum amount of funding available per applicant under this RFA is [IQD 57,500,000]. The budget must be prepared in Iraqi Dinar and be based on activities described in the application.
Duration
- The implementation period should cover a period of a maximum 8 months, with an estimated start-date of July 8th 2025. The project implementation end date should not exceed February 28th, 2026
Target Population
- Through this RFA, WfWI encourages applicants to work with the most marginalized women impacted by the conflict. Target populations could include refugees, internally displaced persons, and women in their home communities with little access to education and income generating opportunities. The targeted women could, for example, fall into the following categories:
- Women from minority groups.
- Women affected by conflict, displaced or returned to their places of origin after displacement.
- Marginalized women due to economic, social or other forms of exclusion.
- Women who are experiencing or survivors of domestic violence
- Women living in rural areas or urban informal settlements: Those in urban areas who face economic and social marginalization and have limited access to services.
- Elderly women: Older women who may face age-related vulnerabilities, lack of social support, and limited access to healthcare and economic opportunities.
- Female heads of households: Women who are the primary or sole providers for their families, including widows or single mothers, who may face unique economic and social challenges.
- Young women and adolescent girls: Particularly those who are at risk of early marriage, lack access to education, or are facing other age-specific vulnerabilities.
- Women with disabilities: Women who face additional barriers to participation due to physical, mental, or sensory disabilities, particularly in conflict-affected areas.
Eligibility Criteria
- In order to receive funding under this RFA, an organization must meet the following eligibility criteria:
- The organization’s vision, mission, and values must align with principles of inclusion and the advancement of WPS objectives in Iraq. The organization must be a national non-governmental organization officially registered with the government in Iraq or Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
- Priority will be given to women-led and women rights organizations.
- The organization must be able to demonstrate that it has received funding from an external source in the past two years and is receiving support from the community in which it is working.
- The organisation must demonstrate their capacity to manage grants or include in their proposal self-identified areas in which they require capacity strengthening support to be addressed during the delivery of this project.
- Upon receipt of the completed application materials, WfWI will screen applications to assess conformity with the eligibility criteria described above and will carry out further due diligence checks.
For more information, visit WfWI.