The African Women’s Development fund is an Africa-wide grant-making institution which was established in 2001 to address some of the financial problems constraining the work of African women’s organizations. In 2003 AWDF established a capacity building unit to address the capacity needs of the women’s organizations that it supports, in order to enable them to effectively implement programs in the thematic areas identified as priority concerns for women in Africa. At its 35th Regular Meeting in May 2006 the Executive Board approved at grant of US$1 million to AWDF to fund Phase III. In 2012 ACBF and AWDF signed a grant of $2.7million towards AWDF Phase IV.
The goal of the AWDF project is to promote economic empowerment and politicalparticipation of women in Africa. The two specific objectives are to:
- Strengthen the institutional and human capacity of AWDF to effectively address theneeds of its grantees; and
- Increase the institutional capacity of African Women Organizations to engage effectivelyon issues of women’s human rights and development in Africa.
