Eastern Africa
Initiatives
Expanding Community Rights over Natural Resources
This initiative recognizes that to improve the well-being of poor and marginalized people they must have secure access to assets, well-defined and respected rights, and full participation in shaping the decisions that affect them.
What We Fund
We support policy reforms that favor access for women and other poor and marginalized groups to land; strengthening institutions whose support is necessary to implement reform; increasing participation of underrepresented groups in decisionmaking; and helping to create the critical mass of professionals and analysis needed to promote long-term transformations.
Our work focuses on supporting civil society to remain vigilant in its participation in the national land policy implementation process to ensure that its aspirations as documented in the policy are implemented. We support programs that use the following approaches:
- Research and development
- Advocacy
- Pilot experiments to test innovative aspects of the land policies
- Training on progressive aspects of the land policy
- Institutional strengthening of civil society organizations
- Communication to shift public discourse
Expanding Livelihood Opportunities for Poor Households
This initiative supports sustainable models for livelihood development that combine the provision of financial products with a range of development services—such as business and market linkages—to help poor people manage their productive activities, increase incomes, accumulate assets, increase resilience and move out of poverty.
What We Fund
We support development of appropriate financial products and delivery systems for the agriculture sector. We also support development of value chains to link poor communities to markets, and new collective forms of organization that would help them reduce transaction costs and improve bargaining power in marketing produce and procuring production inputs.
In addition, we fund programs that address key constraints and barriers that women and youth face as they endeavor to access economic opportunities, using several approaches:
- Research and development of new financial products, tools and mechanisms for increasing access to markets for poor rural communities
- Building livelihood support institutions by strengthening national and regional networks and building the capacity of service providers
- Developing policy recommendations and supporting the implementation of agriculture and trade-related policies that address smallholder barriers to market participation
- Global and regional networking and advocacy
Protecting Women's Rights
Women constitute more than 55 percent of the population in Eastern Africa. As a social group women are marginalized, vulnerable, underrepresented and generally disempowered throughout East African society.
Our women's rights work in the region builds on 25 years of grant making. Significant strides have been made in this work at the family, society, state and market levels. The successes are owed to a vibrant women's rights movement in Eastern Africa, reinforced by other civil society movements that have established alliances among women from a range of backgrounds and generations.
What We Fund
We will continue to support the consolidation of the gains made, and strengthen networks and social movements of women and men that support gender equality, while ensuring that women's organizations remain sustainable.
Our grant making to advance women's rights focuses on the following:
- Developing resources to support strategic advocacy
- Building capacity of national, regional and global groups
- Cultivating men as allies
- Supporting national and regional networks to provide training
- Promoting research and shared knowledge
- Ensuring UN and regional instruments and mandates address local issues
- Strengthening programs that focus on economic opportunities and address gender bias, early marriage and sexuality issues
Strengthening Civil Society and Philanthropy
Our civil society work supports collaboration with organized secular and religious groups including community-based organizations; nongovernmental organizations; religious organizations and their spiritual and developmental arms; nonprofit organizations in the private sector such as foundations and trusts, think tanks and trade unions.
Partnerships and social movements that bring together youth groups and women's organizations are a priority.
What We Fund
We support programs that use the following approaches to work toward a coherent and vibrant civil society:
- Research
- Cross-sector coordination
- Advocacy
- Movement building
- NGO accountability and peer review mechanisms
- Capacity building and technical assistance
Advancing Public Service Media
This initiative focuses on developing content and strengthening the independent role of public media. We seek to preserve its ability to adhere to standards of truthfulness, impartiality and public accountability in espousing popular values and public virtues.
What We Fund
Our work prioritizes innovation and diversity aiming to transform small/alternative media into a critical and cohesive voice of civil society. We also promote the public media sphere as a platform to give voice and visibility to the marginalized, and to add diverse perspectives to everyday struggles.
We support work that uses the following approaches to contribute to media reform:
- Content development
- Improving infrastructure and training
- Building sites of public engagement
- Research
To Apply for a Grant
Follow these steps:
- Review the Initiatives most relevant to your work.
- Read our Grant Application Guide, which describes our grant-making process.
- If you determine that your work aligns with our priorities, submit a Grant Inquiry. (While we welcome submissions, please keep in mind that our funds are limited in relation to the large number of worthwhile inquiries we receive. In a typical year, less than 1 percent of unsolicited inquiries result in a grant.)
Please Note:
It is important that you use our grant inquiry form—and refrain from contacting program officers directly. Given the volume of inquiries we receive, this allows us to log, track and respond quickly to your application.
Fellowships
The vast majority of foundation grants go to organizations. Historically, we have provided a very limited number of fellowship opportunities for individuals, including the Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program (IFP).
Unfortunately, IFP is no longer accepting applications. The final cohort of fellows has been selected.
The foundation does not have any other active regional fellowship opportunities at this time.
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