Urgent Action Fund-Africa (UAF-Africa) is a feminist, pan African, rapid response Fund committed to transforming power relations through resourcing African feminists and Womn[1] Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) and their formations, as an act of solidarity. We are a part of the ecosystem of feminist and womn’s rights movements in Africa and globally. In character, we are bold and courageous, proactive, and responsive, creative, and rigorous, curious, alert, and agile, imaginative, and grounded, consistent, and reliable.

UAF-Africa innovatively operates as a virtual organisation with strategic presence across the five African sub-regions. This strategy seeks to help expand the Fund’s reach and imprint to ensure a wider and deeper presence across, and an understanding, of the continent.

Background

Environment and climate injustices are widespread across Africa impacting womn who bear the brunt in terms of land grabbing, deforestation, extractives, climate, and water injustices. Land is the major livelihood for womn yet it is being contended for by the multinationals who exploit minerals stripping the land of its potentials to provide needed livelihood, polluting available water and driving womn to further distances in search of water where they get abused in the process. UAF- Africa recognises that for womn, the impact of deforestation means inability to engage in small scale sustenance farming closer to their homes as well as  having to walk longer distances for firewood and to access clean water sources. Womn make up 47% of the agricultural labour force in Africa and yet they are not considered as key decision makers or influencers of the issues that impact the sector.

Despite efforts made by the UN to develop the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a guiding framework for governments and businesses to reclaim the environment, most countries are not on tract to meet these goals by 2030 which would further impact Africa. Climate change is inherently intertwined with social and economic injustice and according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report of 2018, more than 2 billion people will experience food insecurity, water shortages, severe drought, and rising sea level if global warming reaches 2 degrees centigrade. Due to the intersection of neoliberal capitalism and patriarchy, issues of deforestation, droughts and other natural catastrophes work to pose significant governance challenges at the international, national, and local levels where decisions affect the distribution of environmental and climate costs and often perpetuate, rather than alleviate, environmental injustices which impacts the marginalized.

UAF-Africa’s approach to environmental and climate Justice uses a feminist lens that interrogates the root causes of the environmental challenges with the aim of analyzing existing power structures and their impact on womn. Environmental issues such as lack of access to water, land grabbing, dangerous gas emissions, oil spillages, gas flaring, deforestation, droughts, flooding and all identifiable environment and climate issues have a disproportionate impact on womn. UAF-Africa partners with WHRDs, feminist groups, and movements to challenge environmental injustices meted on the womn, advocate for the participation of womn in decision making spaces, and dismantling of power structures that perpetuate gender inequalities.

Objective

The objective for this call for proposals is to invite eligible environmental feminists, womn rights organisations, collectives, groups, and movements who are passionate and knowledgeable to challenge the injustice meted on womn in land grabbing, deforestation, extractives, and water. We aim to support transformative, catalytic, and bold initiatives that address a shift in power dynamics for systemic change that is inclusive and transformative.  With intentionality to focus on environmental womn human rights defenders and organisations operating at grassroots, it is an objective of this call to amplify their voices and allow for the building and strengthening of movements which elevate their contributions to the womns rights movement. The highlighted areas below serve as a guide for the grant applications with emphasis on innovative, strategic, and real- life situations captured succinctly to enact change:

1. Land, extractives, deforestation, and water injustices targeted at womn:  We will support initiatives that seek to expose injustices in land grabbing by the extractive industries for mining purposes, and denial of womn’s access, control, and ownership of land. Initiatives that seek to tackle deforestation that impedes biodiversity and water injustice in terms of access and use of water by womn will also be considered.
2. Sustaining of Womn Human rights Defenders: We will support the wellbeing, safety, and security of womn human rights defenders facing resistance and backlash while formally or informally challenging current environmental and climate injustices, and the status quo.
3. Policy and legislative advocacy: We will support feminist organisations across Africa that identify policies to leverage on its benefits for womn to thrive such as decarbonisation, curbing temperature rise to 1.5 degree centigrade by 2050, campaigns on loss and damage, just climate transition, biodiversity, land grabbing, deforestation, extractives and climate related issues.
4. Womn participation and agency: We will support Advocacy for inclusion of womn in decision-making and strategy development on environment and climate justice, specifically, challenges such as land grabbing, extractives’, deforestation, water contamination, air pollution and access to water.
5. Research and documentation: We will support research and knowledge generation on community or indigenous womn affected by environmental degradation and climate change, womn’s interaction with land, flooding, and pollution with the intention of transforming womn’s lived realities.

UAF-Africa will provide Rapid Response Grants of up to USD 10,000, and Advocacy and Alliance Building Grants of up to USD 15,000 to support the above mentioned interventions implemented in  Rainforest zones across Africa, listed below.

Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo (Congo Brazzaville), Cameroon, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Liberia, Ethiopia, Zambia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Angola, Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan, Togo.

How to Apply

The Call for Proposals is open from 4^th October 2023 and applications will be accepted on a rolling basis from feminist, womn’s rights and climate justice defenders, collectives, cooperatives, groups, organisations, and movements working in the countries mentioned above.

To apply, kindly access the Rapid Response or Advocacy and Alliance Building application forms on our website at: www.uaf-africa.org/apply-for-a-grant. Once completed, email your application to proposals@uaf-africa.org. If you need further information on this Call for Proposals, please contact UAF-Africa by sending an email to proposals@uaf-africa.org with the subject line: Environmental and Climate Justice – Rainforests.