Call for concept notes: Scaling Care Innovations in Africa

Scope

The Scaling Care Innovations in Africa initiative seeks to respond to the challenges and gaps in unpaid care through a focus on policy and program innovations related to the “3Rs”, namely recognize, reduce and redistribute care work. Innovations may contribute to recognizing the value of care at policy, community and household levels, reducing the drudgery and time spent on unpaid care work, and redistributing the responsibility and cost equitably within households and beyond. The goal is to harness locally generated data and evidence to guide care policies and interventions to improve lives and livelihoods of marginalized women and girls.

Work supported under this initiative will be guided by IDRC’s approach to scaling science, which focuses on impact in ways that maximize benefits to society. The approach promotes scaling impact rather than scaling specific actions or innovations. This means that scaling is not necessarily about pushing up or out, because bigger outputs or more actions do not always lead to better impact. The focus will be on scaling impacts that are important to women and girls in different socio-economic contexts, ensuring their voices are heard in the process.

Eligibility

This Call for concept notes is open to individual organizations or consortia with a lead organization based in sub-Saharan Africa. The initiative will require successful applicants to form coalitions involving research organizations, government and/or private sector entities, civil society organizations, and other key implementing partners that are essential to link research to action.  Active engagement of women’s rights organizations through project co-design is essential to ensure the relevance of the proposed work and its sustainability.

Only proposals that meet the eligibility criteria above will be considered.  

More details

For more information, please read the detailed call for concept notes document. 

Please also consult our frequently asked questions.

Two Q&A sessions will be held on May 15 and May 24, 2023, at 8am EST.  

• Link to May 15th Q&A session can be found here 
• Link to May 24th Q&A session can be found here