The Africa Digital Rights Fund (ADRF) 2019 for Digital Right Initiatives

Application Deadline: December 6th 2019

The Africa Digital Rights Fund (ADRF) offers flexible and rapid response grants to select initiatives in Africa to implement activities that advance digital rights, including advocacy, litigation, research, policy analysis, digital literacy and digital security skills building.

Round two of the ADRF seeks to support initiatives in various thematic areas, including but not limited to the following:

• Access and affordability
• Access to Information
• Cybercrime
• Data protection and privacy
• Digital economy
• Digital Identity (ID)
• Digital security
• Diversity and inclusion
• eGovernance
• Freedom of expression
• Hate speech
• Innovation for democratic participation, transparency and accountability (civic and social tech)
• Misinformation/Disinformation
• Network disruptions
• Strategic litigation
• Surveillance

General Guidelines
Geographical Coverage
Round two of ADRF is open to organisations based and/or operational in Africa and with interventions covering any country on the continent.

Size of Grants
Grant size in round two shall range from US$1,000 to US$20,000. Cost sharing is strongly encouraged.

Eligible Activities
The activities that are eligible for funding are those that protect and advance digital rights. These may include but are not limited to research, advocacy, policy analysis, litigation, digital literacy and digital security skills building, and participating in digital rights legal and legislative processes.

Duration
The grant funding shall be for a period not exceeding 10 months.

Eligibility Requirements

• The Fund is open to organisations and coalitions working to advance digital rights in Africa. This includes but is not limited to human rights defenders, media, activists, think tanks, legal aid groups, and tech hubs. Entities working on women’s rights, or with youths, sexual minorities, refugees, and persons with disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply.
• The initiatives to be funded will preferably have formal registration in an African country, but in some circumstances organisations and coalitions that do not have formal registration may be considered. Such organisations need to show evidence that they are operational in a particular African country or countries.
• The activities to be funded must be in/on an African country or countries.

Ineligible Activities

• The Fund shall not fund any activity that does not directly advance digital rights.
• The Fund will not support travel to attend conferences or workshops, except in exceptional circumstances where such travel is directly linked to an activity that is eligible.
• Reimbursements for costs that have already been incurred.
• The Fund shall not provide scholarships.
• Fund recipients are excluded from receiving more than one grant at a time.

For More Information:

Visit the Official Webpage of the Africa Digital Rights Fund