The aid cuts of 2025 and 2026 dominate the news, yet a group of funders remains committed to feminist movements in francophone West Africa. Many of them are women’s funds or regional intermediaries. RFLD’s 2026 data report, Funding Feminist Movements in Francophone West Africa, lists the main ones and the opportunities that organisations can access in French. This article summarises them for organisations looking for support and for funders looking for partners.
African women’s funds
The African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF), based in Accra, has granted US$80.2 million since 2001 to 1,614 organisations in 52 countries. In 2022 alone, it granted US$11.29 million, including 155 unrestricted grants of US$5,000 (AWDF, n.d., 2024).
The Urgent Action Fund Africa has made more than 5,200 grants across all 54 African countries. It offers rapid response grants of up to US$12,000, grants of US$5,000 for defenders and advocacy grants of US$20,000, and it accepts applications in five languages, including French (Urgent Action Fund-Africa, n.d.).
The Initiative Sankofa d’Afrique de l’Ouest (ISDAO) granted US$2.5 million in 129 grants in 2023. Fifty-five per cent went to francophone countries, and 77% were renewals of earlier grants (ISDAO, 2024).
Francophone and bilateral channels
France’s Support Fund for Feminist Organisations (FSOF), run by the foreign ministry and AFD, approved €194 million in 2020 to 2023 for more than 1,400 organisations, and €60 million in 2024, with 65% for Africa (AFD, 2025a, 2026). Calls are published through AFD and French embassies, and amounts vary by call. Its future envelopes are uncertain.
The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie fund “La Francophonie avec Elles” offers grants of €15,000 to €100,000, covering up to 80% of costs for up to 36 months. It has supported more than 300 initiatives in 34 countries (CPCCAF, 2025).
Global feminist funds
The Equality Fund in Canada has received CAD 300 million from the Canadian government for 2019 to 2035. It granted about CAD 61 million to 40 funds between 2020 and 2025, 91% of it as core funding (ImpactMapper, 2026). The Global Fund for Women has granted US$263 million to more than 5,800 organisations in 180 countries since its creation. Mama Cash had an income of €23.9 million in 2025 and made 70 grants in Africa and West Asia across 26 countries (Mama Cash, 2026).
RFLD and the West African Feminist Fund
RFLD is both a network of 1,143 member organisations and a grant-maker. Between June and September 2026, it awarded 17 grants worth US$322,100 in eight countries, fourteen of them for work in francophone West Africa. Through the West African Feminist Fund and the sub-grants it manages for partners, it offers sub-grants and direct grants to member organisations, paired with organisational strengthening through the RFLD Suite. The full list of 2026 grantees is published on the RFLD sub-grantees page.
What these funders share
These funders share features that matter for the region. They accept small organisations, and several work in French. Most offer some core or flexible funding. AWID’s survey confirms that women’s and feminist funds are the most important source of money for feminist organisations: 55% of organisations receive funding from them, compared with 19% from bilateral donors (Morena et al., 2025).
Their combined resources, however, remain modest compared with the scale of bilateral aid that has been lost. The constraint is the volume of money that reaches strong organisations in a form they can use. Mama Cash, for example, could fund only about 3% of eligible applicants in 2016 to 2018 (Lever et al., 2020).
Advice for organisations
Check eligibility and deadlines with each funder before applying, as conditions change often. Prepare a short organisational profile in French and English, with your registration documents and a recent budget. RFLD publishes calls for proposals and opportunities on its tenders and grants page.
A checklist for funders
Annex D of RFLD’s report proposes a short checklist for funders who want to know whether their funding is accessible to francophone West Africa. It asks whether calls, application forms and reporting templates are available in French, and whether applicants can be interviewed in French. It asks whether grants are small enough for organisations with budgets under US$30,000, and whether part of each grant is core funding.
Other questions concern duration and eligibility. Do grants last at least three years, and are renewals possible? Can informal or unregistered groups apply through a fiscal host or an intermediary? Have legal and security risks been assessed for each country? The last question is about data: does the funder publish how much of its gender funding reaches francophone West Africa?
Funders who answer no to most of these questions are unlikely to reach the organisations described in this article, however generous their budgets. The checklist offers a simple way to start a conversation with boards and programme teams.
Key figures
- US$80.2 million: granted by AWDF since 2001.
- 5 languages: accepted by the Urgent Action Fund Africa, including French.
- 55%: the share of ISDAO’s 2023 grants that went to francophone countries.
- 91%: the share of the Equality Fund’s grants to funds given as core funding.
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 of the report, download the English edition or the French edition. Sources cited in this article are listed in full in the report.
