Deadline: 30 August 2019

The Fiji Women’s Fund is currently open to support women’s groups, networks and organisations in Fiji to expand and enhance their work on women’s empowerment and gender equality.

The Fund is an initiative of the Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development (Pacific Women) Program, funded by the Australian Government.

Objectives

The Fund provides women’s groups, organisations and networks with the sustainable support that they need to improve women’s lives, particularly those in rural and remote areas or who are marginalised or disadvantaged.

In line with this objective and the shared Australian and Fiji Government development priorities outlined above, the Fund has identified three end-of-investment outcomes to be achieved by 2022. These are:

• Women’s groups, organisations, or networks supported by the Fund are empowered and have the capacity (knowledge, skills, resources and relationships) to contribute to transformative change that improves women’s lives.
• Women’s groups, organisations, or networks supported by the Fund are having influence at different levels (individual / systemic and formal / informal) and are contributing to transformative change in women’s lives.
• The Fund has transitioned to an independent local entity and has secured funding from donors, private sector, and local philanthropy.

Essentially, the Fund will provide funding and capacity development support to women’s groups, organisations and networks in Fiji, so that they can expand and enhance their work towards women’s empowerment and gender equality. The Fund will also contribute to the development of the women’s movement in Fiji as a key partner for equitable, rights based development.

Principles

Key principles of the Fiji Women’s Fund include:

• flexible, responsive and accessible in supporting women’s organisations and networks;
• influence and encourage transformative shifts in existing power1 structures to contribute towards gender equality and women’s empowerment;
• foster collective action and movement building of women’s organisations, networks and groups;
• promote and practise action reflection and participatory learning processes; and
• promote and practise accountability, transparency, inclusiveness and local ownership

Thematic Areas

The Fund works in the following thematic areas:

• Empowering women through increased economic opportunities
• Eliminating violence against women
• Improving women’s participation in leadership and decision making
• Strengthening women’s groups and coalitions for change.

Types of Grant

There are two types of grants available:

• Type B (FJD 50,000 to FJD 150,000): a one-year funding with contribution to core funding which includes human resource, administration or organizational support costs. Applicants do not need to have previous grant management experience with Australian aid or other donors.
• Type C (FJD 5,000 to FJD 50,000): grants can be less than one year. Applicants can be unregistered, small, developing, and rural- based organisations who do not need to have previous grant management experience with Australian aid or other donors.

Eligibility Criteria

The Fund invites expressions of interest from women’s networks, groups and organizations which are:

• Based in the Northern and Eastern Divisions of Fiji.
• Work with Fijian women from ethnic minority groups.
• Work with gender non- conforming people or work with people of diverse sexual orientation.

Eligible Organizations

• The minimum eligibility criteria for Fijian women’s groups, organisations or networks include:
  • must be governed and led by women, with women filling the majority of leadership positions (including equality of financial control mechanisms);
  • have a clear commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment;
  • come from or have reach to remote, rural, or other marginalised groups;
  • be open to working with diverse groups and issues regardless of ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, people living with disability; and
  • have worked as a group for at least one year.
• Other eligibility criteria include:
  • self-identification i.e. they identify as women’s groups, networks or organisations;
  • ability to manage funding and other support – either directly or through relationship to a third party. Direct grants will require an independent bank account controlled by women; and
  • willingness and availability to participate in evaluation and training activities as appropriate to the size and type of grant
  • women focussed projects managed by organisations that do not specifically focus on gender may occasionally receive support from the Fiji Women Fund if they work with particularly marginalised groups: for example, women within groups of people with disabilities or women within LGBTQI organisations

Eligible Programs or Projects

• Eligible programs or projects that can be funded should focus on at least one or more of the following:
  • eliminating violence against women (specific activities only supported through Type A and B grants to organisations with a demonstrated women’s human rights based approach);
  • increasing viable women’s economic opportunities;
  • improving women’s participation in leadership and decision-making;
  • strengthening women’s groups and coalitions for change in relation to the above areas;
  • programs or projects which link together one or more of the above themes through advocacy, research or learning activities;
• Additional criteria for those who are applying for Type A and/or B grants:
  • evidence of registration (e.g. under the Charitable Trust Act or as a limited liability company or under the Department of Women or Ministry of Youthand Sports).
  • financial, administrative and decision-making structures in place and functioning in line with good governance and adherence to democratic principles;
  • previous experience managing donor funds – for Type A grants previous experience with DFAT or other international donors is required;
  • demonstrated commitment to building or contributing to collaborative action such as previous engagement with the women’s movement or in joint activities;
  • programs or projects which have a desired contribution to wider change such as through networking, sharing of lessons and experience, policy related advocacy, use of popular culture or media; and
  • programs or projects which have capacity development or advocacy focussed activities with remote, rural or other marginalised women’s groups, organisations and networks.

Ineligible Programs or Projects

Grants will not be provided for:

• support to individual women or families – such as through scholarships or individual or family assistance payments;
• infrastructure such as community halls, resource centres, roads, or watersupplies ;
• religious or political activities, i.e. grantees must adopt a non-religious and non-political , neutral approach;
• fundraising, donations or prizes;
• repayment of loans or bank overdrafts;
• expenses which have already been paid for (retroactive funding);
• purchase of assets such as vehicles, including boats, unless specified in the call for EOIs or demonstrated to be essential for the success of the activity;
• activities which are contrary to the interests of the Fund;
• support activities by partisan political organisations;
• activities / organisations that have a significant component of professional salaries at Australian or ‘expatriate’ rates;
• activities / organisations that are focused primarily on the provision of infrastructure, equipment, freight or construction / renovation of buildings; and grants will not be paid to organisations with proven terrorist activities or links to terrorist organisations.

How to Apply

Submission of the Expression of Interest Form can be done through email, mail or hand delivery at the addresses given on the website.

For more information, please visit https://fijiwomensfund.org/grants/