Call for Proposals: Community-Led Advocacy and Digital Spaces for the Safety of Women and Girls in West Africa

The SAFE project, implemented by UN Women in West Africa with support from the Ford Foundation, addresses the critical prevalence of gender based violence and digital abuse across the region. Highlighting stark statistics, such as 14 million women experiencing partner violence annually and 42 percent affected by female genital mutilation, the initiative targets harmful social norms, toxically constructed masculinities, and emerging technology-facilitated abuse like AI-generated deepfakes. Focusing on Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal, the initiative engages feminist actors, youth networks, traditional leaders, and media platforms to build safer physical and digital ecosystems while generating evidence and strengthening community accountability mechanisms.

While implementation concentrates on the three primary countries, the project maintains a regional orientation to generate scalable prevention models and cross-border advocacy approaches. Eligible feminist and women's rights organizations are invited to submit proposals, with encouragement to form strategic consortiums that enhance technical quality, safeguarding, and sustainability. To ensure effective oversight, applicants to this call are restricted from applying under the separate youth organization call, establishing a clear complementary structure where youth entities lead peer content creation while feminist partners deliver technical guidance, backlash response, and ethical digital mentorship.

Selected organizations will strengthen safe, peer-led digital spaces under Output 1.3 by providing safeguarding support, digital safety training, and online community moderation for youth creators and influencers promoting non-violent masculinities. The selected entity will work closely with youth networks to ensure digital platforms remain rights-based, survivor-centred, and resilient to misogynistic harms. It is in that perspective that this Call for Proposals is launched to select a qualified civil society organization as a Responsible Party to implement selected activities under Output 1.3 of the SAFE project, focusing on strengthening safe, peer-led digital spaces and media platforms that promote positive identity models for young men, counter online misogyny, and normalize consent, empathy, and non-violence.