Project profile — Women's Voice and Leadership - South Africa

• South Africa (100.00%)

• Government And Civil Society, General: Women's rights organisations and movements, and government institutions (15170) (100.00%)

• Gender equality (principal objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (not targeted)
• Participatory development and good governance (significant objective)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• Urban issues (significant objective)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Children's issues (not targeted)
• Youth Issues (significant objective)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Disability (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)
• Nutrition (not targeted)
• Disaster Risk Reduction(DRR) (not targeted)

This project is part of Canada’s Women’s Voice and Leadership Program, which supports local and regional women’s organisations and networks that are working to promote women’s rights, and advance women’s empowerment and gender equality in developing countries. This is done by supporting activities, building institutional capacity, and promoting network and alliance-building as women’s rights and feminist organizations are critical agents of change. The Program also responds to the globally recognized, significant gap in funding and support to women’s rights organizations and movements around the world. In South Africa, the project is implemented by a national women’s rights organization called Gender Links. The project aims to strengthen an estimated 85 local women’s rights organizations, including 2 networks, and to provide them with the capacity, resources and opportunity to advance their priorities for gender equality and women’s empowerment across the most marginalized areas of the country.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) improved management and sustainability of local women’s rights organizations in South Africa; (2) enhanced performance of women’s rights organizations’ programming and advocacy to advance gender equality and empower women and girls; and (3) increased effectiveness of sub-national and national women’s rights platforms, networks and alliances to affect policy, legal and social change in South Africa.

Results achieved as of the end of the project (March 2023) include: (1) provided financial support and capacity building to over 85 women’s rights organizations in seven provinces in South Africa; (2) women’s rights organizations raised over CAD $8 million in additional funding, partly as a consequence of strengthened capacity; (3) conducted advocacy work that influenced 16 policies and laws in favour of women’s rights; and (4) provided direct support to 50,000 people (65% women, 34% girls and boys, 1% persons with disabilities and 1% gender non-conforming people) through services for gender-based violence survivors, sensitization and promotion of women’s rights, and activities to support lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI+) people and organizations, among others.

• Proactive disclosure