Provision of grants is an important component in the Foundation's capacity-building interventions. Through grant making the Foundation channels financial support to capacity building to strengthen the core public sector and its interface with the private sector and civil society, and to support regional initiatives in the area of specialized training, policy analysis, applied policy research, negotiation and policy advocacy. Grants are mainly provided to support core projects and programs. However, the Foundation also provides seed support for the emergence of suitable institutional frameworks for country-level coordination of capacity-building activities.  Over the next five years, the Foundation's operational priorities will evolve around six core competence areas:

1. Economic policy analysis and management;
2. Financial management and accountability; 
3. Strengthening of national statistics;
4. Public administration and management; 
5. Strengthening of policy analysis capacity of national parliament;
6. Professionalization of the voices of the private sector and civil society. 

Strengthening capacity for economic policy analysis and management is a key driver to the strategic objective of enhancing the enabling environment, participatory development, and improving the efficiency of the public sector. This focus enables the nurturing of change processes affecting public policies and legislative frameworks. The key instruments used to achieve this goal are support to policy units located in public and private sector and training programs. The other competence areas are supported by programs aimed at strengthening management capacity and accountability of key public sector institutions/agencies involved in public resources management, delivery of services and supply of socio-economic data. Strengthening of statistical services is vital for generating reliable data on socio-economic indicators at macro, meso and micro-levels to enable policy targeting and evaluation of impacts of poverty reduction programs. ACBF intervenes in capacity building using three funding mechanisms:

• Direct Funding 
• Co-financing 
• Parallel Funding

Guidelines for ACBF Grants
Following a call for proposals initiated by the Foundation or letter requesting financial support from the Foundation, the Foundation’s program staff may ask the grant seeker to submit a formal proposal. To this end, the Foundation provides guidelines indicating elements that should be included in the proposal. These guidelines are contained in two forms: Project Identification Note and Format for Preparation of ProjectDocument.  

Proposals requesting for ACBF Grants should be sent to:

The Executive Secretary
The African Capacity Building Foundation
7th Floor, Intermarket Life Towers,
Cnr Jason Moyo/Sam Nujoma Street,
P. O. Box 1562, Harare, Zimbabwe.
Phone: +(263-4)790398/9, 700208/210
Fax: (263-4) 702915, 738520
Email: root@acbf-pact.org

General Restriction
As a matter of policy, the Foundation does not provide financial support to individuals, nor can the Foundation grant be used for funding physical infrastructure such as buildings or endowments. Foundation's grant funds are given to organizations and not to individuals. Additionally, the Foundation does not award undergraduate scholarships or make grants for purely personal needs. Support for graduate and postgraduate fellowships is generally provided through grants to universities and other beneficiary organizations, which are responsible for the selection of recipients.

Financial support
The Foundation provides funding in the form of grants through the African Capacity Building Fund (ACB Fund). The ACB Fund is constituted by the contribution of donors to the Fund. The largest source of financing continues to be from donors' pledges (bilateral and multilateral). The World Bank administers the Fund on behalf of the Foundation. 

Co-financing: 
In most instances, the Foundation requires that the recipient organization seeks additional funds from other sources to match the Foundation's grant. The Foundation believes that co-financing is an important instrument in leveraging additional support for the projects in its portfolio, as well as in harmonizing donor activities with capacity-building programs. The Foundation recognizes that its assistance is intended to serve as a catalyst for supplementary support from other sources. The Foundation's policy on co-financing is thus intended to create a network of partnership among donors and beneficiaries of assistance so as to supplement its support to capacity-building efforts in Africa.

Other support
Technical and advisory assistance is provided to project beneficiaries at several levels in the project management cycle, namely design, preparation, implementation, supervision and monitoring.