Who we are

Urgent Action Fund (UAF-Africa) is a feminist, Pan-African, rapid response fund committed to transforming power relations through resourcing African feminists and womn’s human rights defenders and their formations as an act of solidarity. We are a part of the ecosystem of feminist and womn’s movements in Africa and globally. In character, we are bold, courageous, proactive, responsive, creative, rigorous, curious, alert, agile, imaginative, grounded, consistent, and reliable. As a rapid response Fund, we are ready, alert, and agile to respond to and prioritise the urgent needs of womn in various movements. Registered in Kenya and Zimbabwe and operating as a virtual organisation, the Fund boasts of strategic presence in Africa’s five sub-regions- East Africa: Nairobi & Makuyu-Kenya, Kampala-Uganda and Addis Ababa-Ethiopia; North Africa: Cairo-Egypt; Central Africa: Bujumbura- Burundi; Southern Africa: Harare -Zimbabwe, Lilongwe & Blantyre -Malawi, Antananarivo, Madagascar, Johannesburg & Cape Town-South Africa, and West Africa: Benue State & Abuja -Nigeria and Parakou-Benin and Yaoundé & Douala Cameroon and Lomé, Togo. Recognising the need to move resources rapidly on a continent where opportunities and threats arise and decline quickly, UAF-Africa uses a Rapid Response Grant-making mechanism to support unanticipated, time-sensitive, innovative, and unique initiatives that promote women’s agency in democratic governance, economic, environmental and climate justice, natural resources governance and conflict transformation while protecting their personhood, integrity, and rights.

Objective of the Feminist Knowledge Leadership Programme

The objective of the Feminist Knowledge Leadership programme is to work with WHRDs, feminist activists, researchers and scholars to build a culture of learning within and external to UAF-Africa for deeper consciousness, consistently theorising and articulating a feminist, pan-Africanist perspective and translating this to solidarity and action.

Background

UAF-Africa launched the African Womn’s[1] Human Rights Defenders Platform (aka. the Feminist Republik) in December 2019 after years of reflecting on grantmaking trends and conversations with activists, partners and advisors on challenges facing womn’s human rights defenders (WHRDs) and areas of support that are lacking. It was clear that there is a need for a platform that focuses on developing a Registry to document the gendered experiences of AWHRDs (in addition to two other areas of focus: holistic security, safety, well-being and collective care, and healing justice).

The overall objective of the Registry is to collect, collate, process, analyse and ensure the appropriate application of knowledge on the threats, attacks, risks, and violations faced by AWHRDs. The Registry further aims to map, quantify, and analyse the extent and types of violence against AWHRDs and their families, communities, and organisations, as well as describe the characteristics of these attacks and the contexts in which they take place.

UAF-Africa has partnered with five networks of WHRDs to conduct gendered documentation of the threats, risks and violations faced by African WHRDs in five (5) pilot countries: Uganda, Sudan, Kenya, Burkina Faso and South Africa.

Each Registry partner collects data on the threats, risks, and violations faced by WHRDs in their specific country and sends the information to UAF-Africa through a standardised form for data coding and analysis.

Objectives of the Consultancy

UAF-Africa is seeking the services of a feminist researcher to support her Feminist Knowledge Leadership Team in conducting Registry data quality analysis, coding, and generating trends analysis reports. The consultant reports directly to the Knowledge Leadership Senior Programme Officer.

Scope of Activities

The Consultant will be expected to:

• Follow up with Registry partners to make sure they each share at least 5 documentation reports per month
• Conduct data quality of monthly documentation forms, including contacting Registry partners for additional information.
• Conduct qualitative coding of the Registry data.
• Support the production of knowledge pieces pertaining to analysing the data generated through the Registry. This includes support with developing outlines, writing first drafts of qualitative data analysis pieces, and generating graphs and other visualisations of the data.
• Attend Registry partners meetings as needed.
• Provide any other form of support that might arise.

Monthly Deliverables

• Each Registry partner submits 5 documentation reports per month.
• At least 20 forms per month are reviewed and uploaded on Impact Mapper.
• At least 20 forms per month are coded.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in womn’s studies, social sciences or related fields.
• Proficiency in written and spoken English.
• At least three years of experience in research focusing on womn’s rights, human rights, and social justice issues.

Skills

• At least three years of experience in feminist research and knowledge generation.
• Excellent communication skills.
• Excellent interpersonal, writing and negotiation skills.
• French or Arabic language skills are an added advantage.
• Experience working in a virtual work environment is an added advantage.

Duration of the consultancy

The Consultant is expected to work two days a week (Tuesday and Wednesday) on an initial 3 months contract with a possibility of extension.

[1] Our use of womn is an act of challenging and replacing traditional ideas of what and who a womn is and can be and the links of womn to a system of patriarchy where womn are, in effect, subject to men or a sub-category of men. Womn for us includes lesbian, bisexual womn, transwomn and those who are gender non-conforming, identifying with neither gender.