Youth Organizations for the Community-Led Advocacy and Digital Spaces for the Safety of Women and Girls in West Africa
Donor: UN Women Africa and Ford Foundation
Location: Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal
Beneficiaries: Organisations
Project focus areas: Gender-based violence and digital abuse
Funding amount: USD 50,000 – 100,000
Project duration: 20 months (1 November 2026 to 31 May 2028)
Deadline: 21 October 2026
UN Women is inviting youth and civil society organizations in West Africa to implement youth-driven advocacy and digital interventions that foster safer online and offline spaces for women and girls.
The SAFE project, implemented by UN Women in West Africa with support from the Ford Foundation, addresses the persistent prevalence of gender-based violence and digital abuse affecting women and girls across the region. The initiative responds to alarming statistics, such as millions of women experiencing intimate partner violence and high rates of female genital mutilation, by targeting harmful social norms, toxic masculinities, and technology-facilitated abuse, including AI-generated deepfakes and online harassment. By leveraging the region's vibrant youth demographic, feminist movements, and expanding digital platforms, the project aims to create safer physical and online spaces, generate regional evidence, and foster community accountability.
This call for proposals seeks to engage a qualified youth or civil society organization as a Responsible Party to implement activities under Output 1.1 of the SAFE project, focusing on strengthening the capacities of youth organizations, feminist organizations, digital artists, content creators, influencers, and young activists. The selected organization will design and execute a cohesive package of youth-driven interventions to counter online misogyny, promote non-violent masculinities, and build safer community ecosystems, with a particular focus on Senegal, Nigeria, and Ghana, while maintaining a regional mandate for scalable learning and advocacy.
Applicants are encouraged to form consortiums and partnerships, especially with grassroots and women-led entities, and must demonstrate experience in youth-led advocacy, digital safety, social norms transformation, and prevention of violence against women and girls. Proposals should align with the SAFE project results framework and apply evidence-based, inclusive, youth-centered, feminist, and intersectional approaches that promote the meaningful participation of young women, young feminists, youth facing multiple forms of discrimination, and groups at risk of exclusion from digital or civic spaces.
Funding for this call ranges from 50,000 USD to 100,000 USD, and the assignment is expected to be implemented over a period of 20 months, starting from 1 November 2026 to 31 May 2028. The Responsible Party will be required to deliver an inception report, a detailed implementation plan, a strategy for engaging youth and feminist actors, a portfolio of counter-misogyny narratives and advocacy products, quality-assured campaign materials, dissemination and engagement plans, safeguarding and ethical engagement measures, periodic progress updates, documentation of lessons learned, and a final narrative and financial report.
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