Women human rights defenders in francophone West Africa face threats from many directions. Some are harassed online for speaking about violence or sexual rights. Others are threatened in their communities. Many carry the emotional weight of supporting survivors with no support for themselves. RFLD’s 2026 data report, Funding Feminist Movements in Francophone West Africa, shows that protection of defenders is one of the areas where small, targeted grants make a difference.
Four grants for defenders’ safety
Of the 27 grants RFLD awarded between June and September 2026, four address the safety of women defenders, online and offline. They combine psychosocial support with digital resilience. Together they show what a protection portfolio can look like on a modest budget.
EAH Bien Être, working in Benin and Mali, provides psychosocial support and trains peer helpers for 60 women defenders, with a grant of US$17,639.29 under the SEA-T programme. Burnout and trauma are common among women who accompany survivors of violence or work in hostile environments. Peer-helper training creates a network of trusted people who can support colleagues long after the grant ends.
Association BIOWA, working in Benin and Senegal, builds digital resilience for 50 women defenders facing online harassment, also with a SEA-T grant. Online attacks against women defenders often target their private lives, and they can lead to offline violence. Training in account security and in documenting attacks helps defenders stay online without being silenced.
Digital rights grants
Three further grants support digital rights more broadly. JERESTAURE in Benin received US$42,000, the largest single grant in RFLD’s 2026 portfolio, for the digital resilience and collective protection of civic actors facing online threats. EAH Bien Être received US$25,000 for digital democracy and digital rights knowledge. JAIE in Togo received US$25,000 for digital rights training and advocacy for young people and women in Lomé.
These grants reflect a shift in the threats defenders face. As more advocacy moves online, so do attacks. Organisations need skills and tools that most of them could not afford before.
Why protection is underfunded
Protection of defenders is rarely a priority for large donors, who prefer to fund visible programmes with measurable outputs. Psychosocial support, in particular, is hard to report in numbers. Yet without it, experienced leaders leave the movement, and organisations lose the knowledge and networks they have built over years.
The context makes protection more urgent. Five of the eight countries covered by RFLD’s report are rated repressed by the CIVICUS Monitor. In Guinea, activists have been missing since 2024.
Flexible funding reaches those at risk
The evaluation of the Equality Fund, published in September 2026, found that flexible funding reached partners that mainstream donors often miss, including unregistered groups and those working on criminalised issues (ImpactMapper, 2026). The Urgent Action Fund Africa offers grants of US$5,000 for defenders and rapid response grants of up to US$12,000, in five languages including French. Funds of this kind can act within days, which matters when a defender is threatened.
RFLD’s report asks donors to assess the legal and security risks that their grantees face in each country, and to adapt reporting requirements to protect them. Publishing the names and photos of defenders working on sensitive issues can put them in danger. RFLD itself never publishes names or photos of defenders at risk without their written consent.
The regional and continental dimension
RFLD holds observer status with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (No. 553) and raises the situation of women defenders before the Commission and its Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders. At the 89th ordinary session in Dakar in October 2026, RFLD facilitates a panel on the theme “Defending without being exposed”. Learn more on the 89th session page.
Protection is also a question of solidarity. Peer networks across borders allow defenders who must leave their country to find support elsewhere in the region. RFLD’s offices in Accra, Dakar and Porto-Novo, and its liaison office in Banjul, give defenders points of contact across West Africa.
What donors can do
Donors who want to protect women defenders can include psychosocial support and digital security in every grant, and accept that these costs are part of doing human rights work. They can also support documentation, so that threats and attacks are recorded and can be raised before national courts and African human rights mechanisms.
Key figures
- 4 of 17: RFLD’s 2026 grants focused on the safety of women defenders.
- 60: women defenders receiving psychosocial support and peer-helper training through EAH Bien Être.
- 50: women defenders trained in digital resilience through Association BIOWA.
- US$42,000: RFLD’s largest 2026 grant, for the collective protection of civic actors facing online threats.
About the report
This article draws on RFLD’s data report Funding Feminist Movements in Francophone West Africa: 2026 Data (RFLD/DR/2026/03), published on 4 October 2026. Read the summary, download the English edition or the French edition. Sources cited in this article are listed in full in the data report.
