ActionAid Nigeria, with funding from Global Affairs Canada, through the Renewed Women’s Voice and Leadership Project, announces a Call for Expression of Interest for Strategic Opportunity Funding. This fund is established to support timely, strategic, and impactful interventions that advance the rights of women and girls in Nigeria.
Issuing Organization: ActionAid Nigeria
Donor: Global Affairs Canada
Project: Renewed Women’s Voice and Leadership Project
Country: Nigeria
The Strategic Opportunity Fund
The Strategic Opportunity Fund is a fast responsive funding mechanism designed to support women’s rights organizations, women’s rights networks, and women human rights defenders to implement short term interventions that positively affect women and girls.
The fund enables rapid action to protect women’s and girls’ rights, sustain advocacy efforts, and respond to emerging gender related challenges, particularly in crisis or rapidly changing contexts.
Categories of the Fund
Applicants may apply to only one of the following categories.
- Emergency Intervention Fund
This category supports responses to urgent or unforeseen situations such as natural disasters, conflict related crises, political instability, or sudden policy changes that negatively impact women and girls. - Critical Intervention Fund
This category supports short term advocacy and strategic opportunities that can influence policy change, amplify women’s voices, and strengthen women’s movement building efforts. - Women Human Rights Defenders Intervention Fund
This category provides protection and emergency assistance to women human rights defenders facing threats, intimidation, or violence due to their activism, supporting their safety, wellbeing, and continued engagement in advancing women’s rights.
Scope of the Call
This call is open to women led organizations, women’s rights networks, and women human rights defenders operating in Nigeria.
Eligibility and Selection Criteria
To be eligible for funding, applicants must meet the following criteria.
- The applicant must be a women’s rights organization, women’s rights network, or a woman human rights defender working to advance the rights of women and girls.
- The applicant must be women led and operating in Nigeria.
- The proposed intervention must be strategic, time sensitive, and capable of achieving measurable impact for women and girls.
- The proposal must demonstrate how the intervention advances gender equality and gender justice, contributes to systemic change, and complements existing efforts to advance women’s and girls’ rights.
- The applicant must demonstrate the capacity to implement the intervention within a short timeframe.
- Priority will be given to applicants working with or advocating for structurally excluded groups, including women and girls with disabilities, women and girls in conflict settings, women and girls on the move or returnees, female inmates, survivors of gender based violence, out of school girls, elderly women, and women in politics.
Submission Requirements
All interested applicants must download and use the official Strategic Opportunity Fund application template
Completed applications should be submitted alongside an organizational profile or, in the case of women human rights defenders, a profile detailing relevant work and experience.
Please Note
Applicants may submit only one application.
Applicants may apply to only one fund category.
Applications not submitted using the required template will be disqualified.
Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted due to the volume of applications received.
ActionAid Nigeria will not be responsible for any costs incurred during the application process.
Funding Amounts
Emergency Intervention Fund
N10,000,000 Only per grant
Up to 12 grants per year
Critical Intervention Fund
6,000,000 Only per grant
Up to 13 grants per year
Women Human Rights Defenders Intervention Fund
N17,711,495 per grant
Up to 4 grants per year
Timeline
Call opens on January 22, 2026.
The fund operates on a rolling basis throughout the year, subject to the availability of funds.
How to Apply
Submit the completed Expression of Interest and required documents via email to
rwvl.sofgrant@actionaid.org
Use the email subject line:
Strategic Opportunity Fund and indicate the category applied for, for example
Strategic Opportunity Fund – Emergency Intervention Fund
How to Apply
Strategic Opportunity Fund Application Template (55 downloads)
Strategic Opportunity Fund Budget Template (35 downloads)
