U.S. Mission to UNESCO: Leveraging UNESCO Networks to Address the STEAM Gender Gap in Africa

Deadline: 31 January 2017

The U.S. Mission to UNESCO (USUNESCO) has announced the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for a new program en titled “Leveraging UNESCO Networks to Address the STEAM Gender Gap in Africa” to design and administer a three-year grants program aimed at identifying, developing, and expanding the most promising grassroots-led initiatives in Africa to help address the persistent gender gap in science, technology, engineering, arts/design, and math (STEAM) fields.

This program aims to make progress toward eventually achieving gender parity in STEAM-related fields so that more African women and girls are empowered by the socioeconomic benefits derived from acquiring expertise in these fields and so that more women and girls contribute to innovation by creating, rather than just using, technology.

Program Goals

Through the implementation of this program, USUNESCO want to incentivize new grassroots-led initiatives in the targeted African countries that will reduce the STEAM gender gap, and consequently increase the socioeconomic benefits to women and their communities, in the following ways:

• Activate STEAM interest among girls by getting them to try STEAM-oriented activities in fun, hands-on, gender-sensitive ways.
• Inspire girls to see themselves in STEAM careers by introducing them to women leaders and role models in these areas both globally and locally.
• Train girls by equipping their teachers with the latest and greatest tools for teaching STEAM in a fun, gender-responsive, and interesting way and by getting more female STEAM teachers into classrooms in Africa.
• Sustain the girls’ interest in STEAM with opportunities for continued follow-up training, access to STEAM-oriented competitions, mentoring, and professional networking.

Funding Information

The source of this funding is Economic Support Funds.

• Approximate Total Funding: Up to 493,750 USD
• Anticipated Award Date: May 1, 2017
• Anticipated Project Completion Date: 36 months

Focus Activities

• Create a fertile environment for innovative approaches: Activities to support and nurture a population of potential grassroots-level grantees in the targeted African countries could include hands-on learning, technical assistance, in-person and virtual resource sharing, and peer and expert critiques and feedback.
• Sow the seed and nourish success: Having prepared the ground, the program should sow the seed for innovative approaches through a program of small grants to let local stakeholders test out new ideas.
• What success looks like and keep moving toward it: Successful proposals will show clear emphasis on monitoring and evaluation and demonstrate ability to effectively manage and support numerous small grantees in Africa.

Eligibility Criteria

• Eligible Applicants: educational and research institutions; foreign public entities; U.S. not-for-profit/non-governmental organizations (NGOs) subject to section 501 (c) (3) of the U.S. tax code, and foreign not-for-profits/NGOs/social enterprises.
• Cost-Sharing or Matching: Encouraged, but will not be a factor for consideration in the panel review criteria.  Applicants should show any cost share in the budget proposal.
• Other: Applicants must supply evidence that they have significant experience running multi-year small grants programs targeted to adolescent girl beneficiaries and the ability to partner with organizations already working in the targeted African countries.   

How to Apply

Interested applicants can download the Linked Zip Package with all the application documents and templates  usunesco-17-nofo-001-full-announcement-nofo  or via given website below.

Eligible Countries: Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zimbabwe, United States.

For more information, please visit U.S. Mission to UNESCO.