Call for Expression of Interest: Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) 2026

Application Deadline: October 12, 2026, at 12:00 Midnight

About the Opportunity

ActionAid Nigeria (AAN), with support from Global Affairs Canada (GAC) through the Renewed Women’s Voice and Leadership (RWVL) Project, is pleased to invite eligible organizations to submit an Expression of Interest for the Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF). The fund is designed to support creative, practical, and innovative initiatives that promote and protect the rights of women and girls across Nigeria. Through this opportunity, AAN and GAC seek to encourage women’s rights organizations to develop, adapt, and test approaches that respond to persistent gender inequalities and the barriers women and girls face in their communities. Proposed interventions may address issues such as safety, access to justice, economic empowerment, leadership, political participation, or the inclusion of groups that are often underserved or excluded. The SIF aims to help organizations pilot promising ideas, strengthen advocacy, build effective partnerships, and generate learning that can inform future action. Applicants are encouraged to present initiatives that are grounded in the needs and experiences of women and girls, have clear and measurable objectives, and demonstrate potential to contribute to lasting change. Through this call, the RWVL Project reaffirms its commitment to supporting locally led efforts that advance gender equality and enable women and girls to exercise their rights, participate fully in society, and shape decisions affecting their lives.

The Opportunity

The Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) is a grant designed to support innovative ideas and initiatives addressing gender issues with a focus on diverse women and girls. This fund provides women’s rights organizations (WROs) with the opportunity to design and test creative approaches that promote and protect women and girls’ rights. Through this fund, WROs can pilot new ideas, models, and technologies that challenge existing barriers, strengthen advocacy, and generate scalable solutions for achieving transformative changes in women and girls’ lives. Ideas that address violence against women and girls, protect women and girls in conflict or on the move, women economic justice and empowerment, women political participation and leadership including policy advocacy and influencing. For this fund, innovation may include a new approach, adaptation of an existing solution, use of technology, community-driven methodology, partnership model, advocacy approach, or other creative strategy that offers a more effective way to advance women’s rights.

Scope of the Call

This call is open to all women’s rights organizations in Nigeria.

Eligibility and Selection Criteria

To be eligible for this grant, you must:

• Be a women’s rights organization or women’s rights network
• Be women-led and operating in Nigeria
• Propose an intervention that is innovative, creative, strategic, and impactful for women and girls
• Demonstrate how this intervention will advance gender equality, gender justice, contribute to systemic change and complement existing efforts in advancing the rights of women and girls
• Show how scalable the intervention can be
• Demonstrate the capacity to implement within a short timeframe and achieve measurable impact

PLEASE NOTE: Applications are particularly sought from applicants who have innovative ideas on programming for structurally excluded groups such as women and girls with disability, women and girls in conflict, women and girls on the move/returnees, female inmates, gender-based violence victims/survivors, out-of-school girls, elderly women and women in politics.

Submission Requirements

All interested applicants should use the attached template to respond to the call. The completed template should be sent alongside an organizational profile.

Please Note:

• Only one application per organization will be considered
• Applications that are not on the required template will be disqualified
• Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted due to the volume of applications received
• AAN will not be responsible for any cost you may incur in the application process

Award Ceiling

Up to Five (5) innovative ideas will be granted in this round with a grant ceiling of Twenty Million Naira (NGN 20,000,000.00) each, to be implemented within Six (6) months to One (1) year period.

Submission Guidelines

Timeline and Application Procedure:

• Call Opens: September 23, 2026
• Deadline for Submission: October 12, 2026 (12:00 Midnight)
• Submit your completed EOI and required documents via email to: RWVL.SIFGrant@actionaid.org
• Use the subject line: “Strategic Innovation Fund September 2026”

IMPORTANT: The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools (such as ChatGPT or similar platforms) to draft, structure, or generate your application narratives, project descriptions, or advocacy goals is strictly prohibited. Use of AI will lead to automatic disqualification.

How to Apply

Click Here to Apply

For More Information: Visit the Official ActionAid Nigeria Feminist Hub Page