RFPs: Global Learning Hub for the Women’s Voice and Leadership Learning Partnership

Deadline: 24-Jun-25

The International Development Research Centre is seeking applications to address systemic barriers and make it easier for women, girls and LGBTQI+ communities to live and thrive in dignity and peace, they advocate for changes in laws, policies, and societal and cultural norms.

The Women’s Voice and Leadership Learning Partnership seeks to accompany the renewed Women’s Voice and Leadership (WVL) program, a flagship initiative of Global Affairs Canada (GAC), to provide sustainable resources and programming to women’s rights organizations (WROs), groups representing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and gender non-conforming (LGBTQI+) communities and their movements.

The Learning Partnership will support a learning agenda to enhance the efforts and impacts of the renewed Women’s Voice and Leadership (WVL) program to improve human rights and gender equality. It will complement the renewed WVL geographic projects with peer-to-peer learning and knowledge sharing, capacity-strengthening support to WROs, LGBTQI+ groups and movements and contribute to building the evidence around what works and does not work in terms of funding to support feminist and gender equality movements globally.

The Learning Partnership centres around three pillars focused on knowledge exchange, evidence gathering and capacity strengthening for feminist monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning:

• Peer-to-peer learning and knowledge translation to share lessons and evidence emerging from the renewed WVL program implementation;
• Building and gathering the evidenceto deepen learning, evidence and synthesis of lessons from the renewed WVL partners’ efforts to improve human rights and gender equality; and
• Capacity bridging for partner organizations to bolster feminist MEAL and other organizational needs.

Objectives

• Proposals for the Global Learning Hub should align at a minimum with three main objectives:
  • Co-design and implement a Learning Agenda:
    • Includes activities such as:
      • Co-develop a learning agenda to outline learning objectives and decide on key learning questions of relevance and interest to renewed WVL partners, based on extensive consultations and engagements with them.
      • Implement learning activities in multiple forms/formats, including innovative approaches, with a view to enable responsive adjustments during project implementation. Wherever possible, promote capacity bridging based on existing strengths among renewed WVL partners.
  • Knowledge translation and dissemination:
    • Includes activities such as:
      • Review and synthesize WVL partners’ documentation (reports, stories of impact, briefs) to generate practical insights that can improve their practices and online/offline strategies.
      • Create and circulate toolkits, guides and manuals to support renewed WVL partners to be institutionally more resilient and sustainable.
  • Facilitate a community of practice:
    • Includes activities such as:
      • Create and facilitate a community of practice for the renewed WVL projects and their networks to enable the projects to share information, learn from each other’s experiences and potentially facilitate collaboration between projects as appropriate on priority topics, including a focus on feminist MEAL. Note that the community of practice will not be open to organizations outside of the renewed WVL program.
      • Feed and stimulate participation on the digital learning platform, which will be a restricted part of the Learning Partnership (to come). This space will serve as a centralized platform for knowledge management and collaboration across the program. It should not only be seen as a repository for key documentation exchange but aim to stimulate dialogue and exchange.

Scope

• This call for proposals seeks to recruit the host organization (or consortium of organizations) for the Global Learning Hub. The Global Learning Hub will be responsible for facilitating a global community of practice for peer-to-peer learning and knowledge sharing among WROs, LGBTQI+ groups and their networks.
• The Global Learning Hub will then support the partners in co-implementing the learning agenda and have the following elements:
  • Learning agenda co-design: Co-create a common set of questions, hypotheses or theories of change, and a workplan for generating, sharing and disseminating lessons learning on what works in partners’ efforts to strengthen human rights and gender equality;
  • Knowledge dissemination: Administer an online portal for virtual exchanges between partners, and share resources publicly on lessons learned and results; and
  • Community of practice: Action learning activities and peer-to-peer exchanges with partners to capture and share lessons in answer to learning agenda questions; track results with qualitative indicators, provide opportunities to reflect and do sensemaking; and help renewed WVL partners exchange and adjust strategies and approaches over the four-year period.

Funding Information

• The Global Knowledge Hub recipient will receive a maximum of CAD1.2 million to cover its activities over the 48-month period. This includes costs associated with the one in-person global convening.
• Duration: The expected start date will be September 2025, with a planned project closure in September 2029. Project duration is fixed at 4 years/48 months.

Eligibility Criteria

• This call is meant for women’s rights and feminist organizations, or consortia of organizations, that:
  • Are primarily governed, led and directed in the Global South
  • Ensure that women and/or gender-diverse people make up a majority of the organization’s staff and board or oversight committee;
  • Have the promotion of the rights of women, youth, girls and gender-diverse people as their primary mission — and not only as the focus of some programs;
  • Can demonstrate that the Learning Agenda would build on existing work and is already integrated in existing feminist movements;
  • Can demonstrate sound experience in adult, peer-to-peer learning and facilitation approaches to bring diverse people together to learn, think and act collectively;
  • Can demonstrate sound experience leading adaptive, participatory methodologies to strengthen programming and advocacy to advance gender equality and empower women and girls;
  • Strong facilitation skills and track record in conducting training and workshops;
  • Experience in applying feminist MEAL practices, with an interest in demonstrating benefits of feminist or gender-transformative approaches;
  • Have the logistical, financial and institutional capacity to manage a collaborative project of this nature and scale;
  • Are able to perform services in English, French and Spanish, at a minimum.

For more information, visit IDRC/CRDI.