Introduction

The Joint Gender Fund, a collaborative donor Fund, was established to improve the strategic impact and effectiveness of donors to address gender based violence and how it relates to HIV & AIDS and socio-economic empowerment in South Africa. The fund deliberately focuses on the ‘trilogue” or intersection and dynamics that exist between gender-based violence (GBV), HIV & AIDS and socio-economic empowerment (SEE).

The broad based objectives of the Joint Gender Fund (JGF) are to:

• Increase donor coordination and collaboration in relation to GBV
• Increase coordination and collaboration between government and civil society in their responses to GBV, HIV and AIDS and socio economic empowerment or poverty (a nexus of factors referred to by the Joint Gender Fund as the Trilogue)
• Strengthen collaboration between civil society organisations for innovative responses to GBV
• Enhance leadership (in terms of ensuring a deepened understanding of the GBV context for practitioners and improving programming and organisational functioning) in the targeted civil society sectors
• Provide funding for partners to implement more integrated, comprehensive and transformative responses to the Trilogue (GBV, HIV and AIDS and economic empowerment or poverty)

Context

GBV is relevant to the HIV risk of women and girls in numerous ways. There is an obvious direct relevance when the trauma of forced sex of any kind with an infected partner increases the risk of transmission, but the fear and power differentials associated with GBV also limit the ability to negotiate safe sex. Several dynamics have been postulated for an indirect link between GBV and HIV risk. GBV increases gender inequalities and is an important cause of 'choice disability' or the inability of those affected by GBV to make and implement prevention decisions. These unequal gender power relations are a fertile substrate for HIV and GBV. As is true for all HIV prevention programs, but particularly so for programs seeking to reduce GBV, it is crucial to change socially constructed norms relating to male and female roles and behaviour and to create an enabling environment to catalyze contextually relevant responses for violence reduction. Instrumental in a national response is the development of local and national leadership, and support for community-led action, ranging from grassroots educational campaigns to reducing structural barriers to advocacy around accountability in relation to policy implementation. In addition, it is significant to consider the relationship between low economic status, HIV and GBV. Specific research findings from various regions indicate that economically dependent women and girls are more likely to be constrained into sexually risky situations: less able to negotiate safer sex with partners, less likely to be able to leave an abusive or violent relationship, and much more likely to exchange sex for food, goods, or assets. Research now also shows that economic independence for women is a factor that is strongly related to negotiating safer sex. Thus, the combination of HIV and GBV prevention and economic initiates could produce important synergies that extend beyond the economic realm to ‘‘empower women’’ and provide more enduring protection from HIV risks than HIV prevention can do alone.

Funding

The JGF hereby announces a specific call for expression of interest from organisations seeking funding for work in the following priority areas:

1. Prevention Models: The JGF is interested in funding innovative and comprehensive initiatives beyond education and awareness with a prevention strategy to address GBV and the intersections with HIV that will bring about change at a community and national level and have the ability to influence social, legal and political factors in the power dynamics affecting GBV and HIV. Though national in scope, the strategy should also focus on the links and roles played at individual, family, service provider and community level. Initiatives should include a partnership of national and local civil society organisations (CSOs) working on behavioral change targeting attitudes and norms, with an entry point of GBV but clearly linking with at the very least one other trilogue area i.e. HIV & AIDS and/or SEE.
2. Research: The JGF is interested in funding a research study that examines and analyses the practical and theoretical links between GBV, HIV and SEE to enhance our knowledge around what works and to gain a proper understanding of the gaps and challenges in implementation.  The research should also explore what models and strategies exist and should provide available evidence to demonstrate how these efforts contribute to greater effectiveness in reducing GBV and HIV risks. The research approaches utilized should include the participation of key local groups implementing strategies and programs that seek to advance the links between GBV, HIV and SEE.

Please submit concept note of no longer than five pages to Puleng Mkhatshwa puleng@hivos.co.za by Friday 24 June 2011.

Please include the following sections in the concept note:

• Organisational background
• Project details (including problems addressed and aims & objectives)
• Project implementation
• Time frame
• Summary budget

Please note: based on submitted concept note, preferred organizations will be requested to submit a full application. Acceptance of proposal will be based on their contribution to the JGF’s envisaged ultimate outcomes.

Criteria for funding

• Grantees must be South African civil society organisations
• Grantees must have adequate financial systems and adequate governance.
• Organisations that have strong women’s leadership, participation and empowerment
• New or existing programme that address GBV and shows the intersections with HIV and/or SEE
• Programmes that target marginalised poor young women, girls, men and boys
• Organisations that have a vision around transforming gender norms, stereotypes, attitudes and empowering women

>Duration: The maximum funding period is 2 years.

The fund will support initiatives that address the “trilogue” and specifically those that incorporate the following:

• Constituted groups and organisations
• Joint initiatives that have a results orientated focus in one or more geographical area
• Cross sector collaboration e.g. civil society and government collaboration
• Programmes and projects that promote innovative approaches and ideas inter-linking GBV and HIV & AIDS and/or SEE
• Sustainable programmes that can be replicated or scaled up
• Direct programme and activity costs
• Institutional costs subject to an appraisal by the Programme Officer and approval of the Advisory Committee

Eligibility

• South African registered Non Profit and Non Governmental Organisations
• Civil Society organisations i.e. Community Based Organisations and Non Governmental Organisations
• A track record of financial management (organisations in existence for longer than a year must submit audited financial statements)
• Identifiable governance structure
• Newly established organisations

The fund will not support

• Direct government funding
• International organisations
• Bursaries, loans, individual or otherwise
• Individual entrepreneurs to establish businesses

Principles and Approaches of the Fund

• Taking a proactive women’s rights/feminist approach
• Supportive of activism to challenge unequal power relations
• Supportive of social change recognizing the importance of social mobilization
• Zero tolerance for Violence Against Women
• Recognition of system of male dominance and unequal power relations between men and women
• Actively supporting women’s empowerment and addressing the systemic character of gender based violence

Grant amounts

The grant allocations will vary from R100 000 to R1 000 000 depending on the capacity to effectively manage the grant.

Download

• PDF