Individual
A midwife receives legal & clinical rights training.
New
Strategic Plan 2023-2028
RFLD transforms African women from
Beneficiaries to Leaders
We are training midwives who become mayors, protecting defenders who change laws, and building a generation that demands justice.
Vetted & Verified for Funding
NGOsource Equivalency Determination (ED) Certified
Our Methodology
How We Drive Systemic Change
Leadership
She becomes a community advocate and educator.
Power
She joins the town council to demand resources.
Systemic Change
National health policies change to serve millions.
Our Operational Ecosystem
More Than a Donor: Building the Architecture of Change
RFLD does not work in isolation. We function as a strategic intermediary, channeling resources from global partners directly to the frontlines of feminist action. By combining sub-granting with rigorous capacity strengthening, we ensure that local organizations are not just funded, but sustainable.
Partner with our networkSub-Granting Mechanism
We direct core and project funding to grassroots (CBOs), national, and regional organizations often overlooked by large donors. Our sub-grants are designed to be flexible, supporting operational costs and rapid response initiatives, ensuring money reaches the communities where it is needed most.
Capacity Strengthening
Funding is only effective when managed well. We provide intensive technical assistance in financial management, compliance, M&E, and proposal writing. This empowers our partners to pass strict audits, scale their operations, and eventually secure direct funding from major international donors.
Network Building
We connect isolated organizations into powerful coalitions. By facilitating cross-border knowledge exchange and regional convenings, we help local leaders share best practices, form alliances, and amplify their collective voice at the African Union and UN levels.
Advocacy & Research
Our advocacy is data-driven. We fund and conduct community-led research to generate evidence on GBV, SRHR, and economic exclusion. This data is then used to lobby governments for policy reform, moving from anecdotal evidence to irrefutable fact in legislative chambers.
Strategic Pillars 2023-2028
Strategic Pillar 1
Championing Health, Bodily Autonomy & Freedom from Violence
We are committed to a future where African women possess absolute sovereignty over their bodies. For RFLD, this means a holistic ecosystem that integrates Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) with an aggressive defense against all forms of gender-based violence.
The Converging Crises
Bodily autonomy is besieged by violence and systemic neglect. Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and sexual violence remain endemic, often occurring with impunity. Millions of girls are subjected to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and forced into Child Marriage, practices that physically and legally strip them of agency. Economic desperation fuels sex trafficking networks that exploit the most vulnerable. Simultaneously, widespread sexual harassment in workplaces and schools creates hostile environments that limit women's potential. These issues are compounded by barriers to safe abortion, maternal health, and the stigma surrounding family planning.
Our Holistic Strategy
RFLD implements a "Total Defense" strategy. To End FGM and Child Marriage, we engage custodians of culture—traditional chiefs and religious leaders—to publicly abandon these practices and enforce by-laws. To End Sex Trafficking and Sexual Violence, we strengthen legal frameworks for prosecution while providing survivors with comprehensive medical, legal, and psychosocial support. We establish "Zero Tolerance" zones to eradicate sexual harassment in institutions. This violence prevention work is inextricably linked to our health mandate: ensuring access to safe abortion, reducing maternal mortality, and destigmatizing family planning.
Key Interventions & Outcomes
- Community Vigilance: Establishing 300+ surveillance units to detect and intervene in cases of FGM, child marriage, and trafficking before they occur.
- Legal Aid & Justice: Providing pro-bono legal representation to survivors of GBV, sexual violence, and harassment.
- Comprehensive Care: Integrating post-rape care, safe abortion services (where legal), and trauma counseling.
- Menstrual Health: Fighting period poverty through distribution of kits and sanitation infrastructure in schools.
- Obstetric Fistula: Funding repair surgeries and social reintegration programs for marginalized women.
- Disability Rights: Ensuring SRHR clinics are physically accessible and staff are trained in inclusive care.
- Mental Health: Integrating psychosocial support into all GBV response mechanisms.
- Adolescent SRHR: Creating youth-friendly spaces that respect privacy and agency.
End FGM
End Child Marriage
Stop Sex Trafficking
End GBV
Safe Abortion
Maternal Health
Disability Rights
Menstrual Justice
Strategic Pillar 2
Protecting Women Who Defend Rights
When women speak truth to power, they often face violence. RFLD provides the shield. We are building the continent's most robust safety net for Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs).
The Context of Risk
Civic space in Africa is shrinking. Governments are utilizing digital surveillance, restrictive NGO laws, and direct intimidation to silence dissent. Women defenders face a "double burden": they are attacked for their activism and for defying traditional gender roles. Threats range from online harassment and doxxing to physical assault, arbitrary arrest, and sexual violence. Too often, WHRDs are forced to choose between their safety and their mission. RFLD refuses to accept this choice.
Comprehensive Protection Strategy
Our protection mechanism is holistic, addressing physical, digital, and psychosocial security. We do not just react to threats; we build resilience. This involves creating "Circles of Protection"—networks of lawyers, journalists, and safe houses ready to mobilize instantly when a defender is threatened. We also focus heavily on digital hygiene, recognizing that modern repression often begins with a hacked phone or a tracked location.
Key Interventions & Outcomes
- Rapid Response Fund: A dedicated emergency fund capable of deploying resources within 24 hours for relocation, medical care, or bail.
- Legal Defense Network: A pro-bono coalition of 50+ lawyers across 15 countries specifically trained to defend WHRDs against trumped-up charges.
- Online Violence: Specialized legal and tech support for victims of doxxing, cyberstalking, and non-consensual image distribution.
- Psychosocial Security: Retreats and trauma therapy to prevent burnout and sustain the movement.
- Strategic Litigation: challenging restrictive laws that limit freedom of assembly and association.
- Exile Support: Creating safe corridors and relocation support for defenders forced to flee their home countries.
- Physical Security: Grants for upgrading office security (cameras, walls) and personal security training.
Safety for Activists
Legal Defense
Journalist Protection
Cyber Security
Wellbeing
Strategic Litigation
Strategic Pillar 3
Securing Financial Independence
Poverty is a form of violence. We fight for land rights, equal pay, and access to capital so women are not just surviving, but owning their future and their assets.
Economic Justice as a Foundation
Economic dependency is the primary reason women remain in abusive relationships and lack political voice. In many African nations, women produce 70% of the food but own less than 10% of the land. They are concentrated in the informal sector, lacking social security, fair wages, or legal protections. Inheritance laws often dispossess widows, leaving them destitute. RFLD believes that economic justice is not just about microfinance; it is about macro-level structural reform.
Our Strategy
We move beyond traditional "livelihood training" (like soap making or sewing) to tackle the structural barriers to wealth. Our focus is on asset ownership—specifically land and housing—and formalization of women's labor. We work with paralegals to secure land titles for women, challenge discriminatory inheritance practices in court, and lobby for national budgets that recognize the unpaid care work women perform.
Key Interventions & Outcomes
- Land Rights Clinics: Mobile legal clinics that help widows and rural women process land titles and resolve inheritance disputes.
- Market Access Cooperatives: Organizing 50,000 women farmers into cooperatives to negotiate better prices and access fertilizer subsidies.
- Unpaid Care Work: Advocacy for state-funded childcare and social protection for informal workers.
- Climate Resilience: Providing women farmers with drought-resistant seeds and climate-smart agricultural tech.
- Digital Financial Inclusion: Training women on mobile banking, credit access, and e-commerce platforms.
- Cross-Border Trade: Monitoring border posts to prevent harassment and extortion of women traders.
- STEM Education: Coding bootcamps and scholarships for girls in non-traditional fields.
Land Rights
Equal Pay
Entrepreneurship
Financial Literacy
Climate Justice
Digital Economy
Strategic Pillar 4
Training Women to Lead Policy Change
Representation matters. We move women from the sidelines of governance to the center of decision-making power, training the next generation of Presidents, MPs, and Mayors.
The Deficit of Power
Despite high rates of voting, African women remain woefully underrepresented in executive and legislative bodies. Political parties are often "boys' clubs" that marginalize women candidates, relegating them to "women's wings" without real power. Violence during election cycles specifically targets women candidates to deter their participation. Furthermore, when women do get elected, they often lack the technical support and networks needed to push through feminist legislation.
Our Strategy
RFLD is building a pipeline of feminist leadership. We identify potential leaders at the community level—school board members, market leaders, nurses—and provide them with the "hard skills" of governance: public speaking, campaign fundraising, legislative drafting, and media strategy. We also work on the system itself, lobbying for gender quotas, safer polling stations, and campaign finance reform to level the playing field.
Key Interventions & Outcomes
- The "Candidate Academy": An intensive 6-month fellowship for first-time women candidates.
- Parliamentary Technical Support: Providing research and drafting assistance to sitting female MPs.
- VAW-E Monitoring: Specialized hotlines and monitoring systems to track Violence Against Women in Elections.
- Gender Budgeting: Training MPs to analyze national budgets for gender equity impacts.
- Intergenerational Mentoring: Pairing young aspirants with retired female politicians for guidance.
- Media Advocacy: Training journalists to avoid sexist tropes and coverage bias against women candidates.
- Local Governance: Focusing resources on winning winnable local council seats as a stepping stone.
Political Leadership
Social Accountability
Policy Reform
Electoral Justice
Gender Budgeting
Local Governance
Financial Roadmap
Investment Required to Execute This Plan
To move from pilot success to continental impact, RFLD requires a Total 3-Year Investment of $15 Million. Below is the breakdown of our current capacity versus the critical funding gap needed to scale.
Pillar 1: Bodily Autonomy
Current Annual:
$500K
Required Budget:
$4M
Funding Gap
$3.5M
Pillar 2: Safety & Civic Space
Current Annual:
$500K
Required Budget:
$3M
Funding Gap
$2.5M
Pillar 3: Economic Justice
Current Annual:
$500K
Required Budget:
$5M
Funding Gap
$4.5M
Pillar 4: Political Power
Current Annual:
$500K
Required Budget:
$3M
Funding Gap
$2.5M
View Detailed Budget Breakdown in Investment Prospectus
Links strategic vision to funding ask. Demonstrates financial planning.
Leadership in Action
Not just administrators, but activists. Here is how our team is driving tangible change across Africa.
Strategic Influence
Mobilizing Global Support
AGUEH Dossi Sekonnou Gloria didn't just found RFLD; she elevated it to the continental stage. By securing Observer Status with the African Union ACHPR, she ensured that grassroots women's voices are heard.
Africa Director
Financial Stewardship
Architect of Integrity
Managing funds across 30+ countries requires a vision for transparency. Major Gogo Ashifie brings 15 years of experience managing portfolios, building RFLD's "audit-ready" financial infrastructure.
Regional Finance Lead
Policy Innovation
Research into Resilience
Prof. DOHOU Pascal designs the manuals that communities use to prevent conflict. By advising ministries on decentralization, he ensures that RFLD's programs are politically actionable.
Director of Programs
Campaign Strategy
Frontlines of Civic Space
From coordinating campaigns to end FGM to protecting shrinking civic spaces, GBENAGNON John turns strategy into movement, designing interventions that are aggressive against injustice.
Strategy Director
Pan-African Impact
Our impact is defined by both breadth and depth. We maintain a vigilant Pan-African network across 54 nations to monitor continental trends.
- Benin
- Burkina Faso
- Cameroon
- CAR
- Chad
- Congo
- Côte d'Ivoire
- DRC
- Gabon
- Gambia
- Ghana
- Nigeria
- Senegal
- Sierra Leone
- Togo
- Benin
- Burkina Faso
- Nigeria
Join the Movement
Justice Can't Wait.
Justice Can't Wait.
Act Now.
Our 2023-2028 Strategic Plan is a roadmap for liberation. Don't just read about change—fund the women making it happen.