The Advocacy Innovation Grant

The advocacy innovation challenge is an annual grant designed to incentivize advocacy campaigns to change public perceptions and challenge social norms that constraint women’s access to employment opportunities in non-traditional trades. Initiatives target young women, influencers, local authorities, Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions, and training providers, media, and government agencies. These initiatives are expected to contribute to advancing the project outcomes on improved public and industry attitudes towards women’s economic participation in non-traditional trades.
The grant is open to local CSOs, Youth and Women’s Rights organizations with experience in gender justice, women’s economic empowerment, leadership and advocacy.  Recipients of this grant will also receive capacity building and technical support to design, plan and implement their advocacy initiatives.
The grant is open to innovative campaigns around the following key thematic areas:

Anticipated Results for the Innovation Grant

The goal of the Challenge grant is to advance the INVEST project objectives on changing public attitudes, through community mobilization and outreach campaigns targeting young women, key influencers and change agents. The objectives are as follows:

• To influence public perceptions on women’s participation in non-traditional sectors.
• To strengthen the capacity of women and youth-led organizations to engage the public and advocate for increased participation of young women, particularly urban poor young women who face multiple levels of marginalization, in high-growth and non-traditional sectors (inclusion).
• To build the capacity of recipient organizations to scale up their advocacy and public engagement initiatives on gender inclusivity and women’s empowerment.
• To mobilize a community of advocates for women’s empowerment in the non-traditional trades sectors through advocacy and public engagement initiatives.
• To complement the project’s media and communication efforts with outreach that targets family, community leaders and industry stakeholders with messages that promote and support young women’s empowerment in non-traditional occupations/trades
• Promote an enabling environment for women’s economic empowerment in training institutions, workplaces and communities.

Eligible organisations

To be eligible to apply for the Advocacy Innovation Challenge grant:

• Organisations must be a registered entity in Ghana with a minimum of 3+ years of operational experience in-country
• The applicant should be a local CSO/NGO, women’s rights organization or youth organization with a track record in gender justice, women’s labor rights, youth rights, advocacy, and/or community outreach
• Organizations must demonstrate linkages with the innovation grant objective: promotion of initiatives on one or more of the key themes of the challenge.
• The applicant must demonstrate that they have the resources to deliver the ideas for which the challenge grant funds will be applied (ie. staff, logistics)
• The applicant must have experience working in the communities, like or adjacent communities in which the campaigns will take place
• Commitment to gender equality and inclusion
• The prospective beneficiary agrees to provide data and information on their operations to meet the project M & E obligations.
• The applicant should oblige WUSC to conduct a pre-audit and monitoring and evaluation capacity assessment

Grant Cycle/Timelines

Activity  Dates