Promoting Women's Rights in Conflict/Post-Conflict Zones Grants

Guidelines  |  Grantee List

The OSI International Women's Program is committed to bringing global attention to gender-based violence in conflict and post-conflict situations. The program supports and builds capacity of national and regional women’s groups, human rights groups, and other relevant organizations in select countries to undertake advocacy, education, and outreach. The objective is to promote, protect, and guarantee women’s rights in conflict and post-conflict regions.

This initiative includes the following areas:

• Rights Protection Addressing Discrimination and Violence Against Women
  To demand and support critical initiatives that protect women from all levels of violence during conflict, within a country or in international fora, as well as violence-prevention measures.
• Engendering Transitional Justice
  To support mechanisms to ensure that women have access to justice, as well as reparations and compensation, and are engaged in post-conflict reconstruction.
• Legal and Judicial Reform
  To strengthen the voice of the women’s movement by supporting advocacy efforts and access to decision-making processes, particularly in the post-conflict phase.
• Empowerment
  To build capacity for organizations on the ground to shift power relations affecting the status of women in society, including: 1) ensuring women’s participation in democratic processes and peace-building, 2) women’s and girls’ access to education, and 3) women’s economic livelihoods.

Guidelines

The International Women's Program gives preference to the following types of organizations:

• Organizations located in regions where Soros foundations are active;
• Locally based, locally run, indigenous, independent nongovernmental organizations;
• Networks or coalitions of NGOs working together;
• Organizations managed and led by women;
• Organizations that forge partnerships with other civil society groups; and
• Organizations that have a 5+ year track record and demonstrate sustainability.

The program seeks to support organizations that carry out the following types of activities*:

• Call for the inclusion of women and women’s substantive demands in peace talks, transitional justice initiatives, and post-conflict reconstruction;
• Ensure women’s participation in constitutional reform and other post-conflict democratic processes, to promote their ability to shape public policy and set national priorities/agendas;
• Strengthen efforts to criminalize sexual violence, including marital rape, and strengthen the implementation of law;
• Support advocacy efforts of local civil society that condemn violence and other women’s human rights violations, and link it with global processes;
• Combat impunity for gender-based violence;
• Ensure women leaders are actively recruited, supported, and trained to participate with an equal voice in the post-conflict phase;
• Support gender training for those in the military, law enforcement, or peace-keeping;
• Support inclusion of, and increase access for, civil society and mainstream human rights groups in peace-building processes;
• Push for and support reparations for women in post-conflict situations which could include increased employment opportunities, vocational training, access to health and financial services, and property rights;
• Influence international fora such as the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, Special Representative to the Secretary General on children and armed conflict, special rapporteurs, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, etc. to promote gender justice;
• Increase the effectiveness of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration programs geared toward the needs of former child soldiers, particularly girls;
• Support movement-building on the ground of local civil society to push for societal approaches to prevent violence against women, justice and accountability mechanisms, education for women and girls, economic livelihood approaches and more; and
• Innovatively utilize media, such as radio.

*While the above points serve as a general profile of the types of organizations IWP has typically funded, the program is open to supporting other types of activities related to promoting women’s rights in conflict/post-conflict societies and does not seek to limit the parameters of organizations’ work.

Geographic Mandate

The International Women's Program will make grants aimed at promoting women’s rights in conflict/post-conflict zones, in regions where Soros foundations are active, with priority given to the following three countries:

• Democratic Republic of Congo
• Nepal
• Uganda

To Submit an Inquiry

Proposal submissions under this focus area are by invitation only. To submit an inquiry of no more than 600 words for a potential application to be considered, please email the following information:

• Name of organization and contact information (contact person, title, mailing address, street address, tel/fax, email, website)
• Country (or countries) of benefit
• Brief description of organization
• Brief history or list of impacts
• Type of request (general support, project support, core support, institutional travel grant, East-East/South-South exchange)
• Indicate area of work (Rights Protection, Engendering Transitional Justice, Legal & Judicial Reform, or Empowerment)
• Brief description of request for funding (note: the International Women's Program will consider multi-year funding requests of up to three years)
• Total amount requested

Email inquiries to women@sorosny.org. Subject line should state: “Funding inquiry: NAME OF ORG, COUNTRY OF BENEFIT” (Example: “Funding inquiry: Center for Women’s Rights, Cambodia”).

Inquiries will be accepted on a rolling basis. Uninvited proposals will not be considered.