Project profile — Women's Voice and Leadership - Kenya

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. The project, implemented by CARE Canada, supports approximately 120 women’s rights organizations across Kenya. The project helps them improve their structures, programming and capacity to deliver quality services in order to promote women’s and girls’ rights, and equal opportunities for all. It also strengthens the effectiveness of women’s rights platforms in Kenya.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) improved management and sustainability of local women’s rights organizations in Kenya; (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 Kenya.

Results achieved at the end of the project (February 2025) include: (1) provided over CAD $4.6 million in direct funding to 122 women’s rights organizations across Kenya through responsive funds and multi-year grants; (2) 100% of the 45 women’s rights organizations that received multi-year funding reported sourcing and using evidence or data in their policy and advocacy work in a timely and responsive manner. This is compared to 43% at baseline. 69% of these organizations and 100% of the 4 local implementing partners have diversified their funding sources since the start of the project, securing more than CAD $10 million in additional funds; and (3) 42 organizations that received multi-year funding and the 4 local implementing organizations report an increased ability to create and improve basic organizational processes and systems. This includes human resources and external relationship management.