Thousands of women's organisations in the African Great Lakes carry the most relevant responses to gender inequality. Almost none of them can access international funding. Mwanamke Fund exists to close that gap.
Communications Team, Mwanamke Fund · Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo
Ask a donor why a small women's organisation in a rural territory of South Kivu has never received international funding, and the answer will rarely be about the quality of its work. It will be about audit requirements it cannot meet, application forms in a language its leaders do not write, minimum grant sizes far above what it could absorb, and reporting formats designed for organisations ten times its size.
This is the gap Mwanamke Fund was created to close. Our role is not to do the work of local women's organisations, nor to design programmes on their behalf. It is to make resources reach them, on terms they can actually meet.
Mobilising and allocating resources to those who are excluded
The primary role of Mwanamke Fund is to mobilise and allocate funds to small, vulnerable and marginalised organisations and movements of Indigenous women and girls who are excluded by the criteria required by major international donors and funders, and who lack the capacity to access major regional and international philanthropic opportunities.
It also means reserved shares rather than good intentions: at least 35% of grants for rural and remote organisations, at least 25% for organisations never funded by an international donor, and at least 15% for organisations led by Indigenous women or women living with disabilities.
Influencing the wider philanthropic sector
Mwanamke Fund also influences the broader philanthropic sector to mobilise resources in support of women's human rights. A fund of our size will never replace the large donors. What it can do is demonstrate, with evidence drawn from its own portfolio, that funding small local women's organisations is not a risk to be managed but an investment with a high social return.
Specifically designed to mobilise resources, and drawing on its experience in providing strategic micro-grants and supporting the capacity building of local women's organisations, Mwanamke Fund plays a vital role in the survival and growth of local women's groups and movements in the African Great Lakes countries.
That advocacy is carried into the spaces where priorities and financial flows are decided — from regional bodies to international climate negotiations, where we have argued for adaptation finance to reach Indigenous and vulnerable women directly.
Addressing the root causes, not only the symptoms
Mwanamke Fund aims to address the root causes of gender inequality while qualitatively combining fundraising, micro-grants, resource mobilisation and capacity building for small Indigenous women's organisations and for vulnerable and marginalised women and girls in the African Great Lakes countries.
This is why our support does not stop at the transfer of money. Every partner organisation receives a shared organisational diagnosis, free certified training in financial management, project design, monitoring and evaluation, safeguarding and digital security, individual mentoring with at least two field visits per grant cycle, and access to communities of practice with organisations from all three countries.
It is also why we fund across nine programmes rather than one: women's rights; sexual and gender-based violence; sexual and reproductive health and rights; functional literacy and economic empowerment; agroecology and food security; adaptation to climate change; water, hygiene and sanitation; peace, reconciliation and conflict transformation; and political participation and women's leadership. These problems reinforce one another, and a woman who cannot read her own contract is not made free by a health service alone.
What success would look like
The measure of our role is not the amount we disburse. It is the solidity of the organisations we accompany, and the place they win for themselves in the spaces where decisions are made.
“Every grant is a voice raised, an initiative brought to life, a woman regaining power over her own life.”
Mwanamke Fund
By 2030, the indicator that will matter most is the number of organisations that no longer need Mwanamke Fund in order to access resources. That is the point of our work: to become, for each partner, a stage rather than a destination.
