A USAID Nigeria Strengthening Civic Advocacy and Local engagement (SCALE) project beneficiary, Women and Community Livelihood Foundation (WOCLIF), has secured funding from the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) to implement interventions to end violence against women and girls in three local government areas (Ibiano, Ikono, and Eket) in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. This was following the participation in SCALE’s Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) capacity-strengthening program which is aimed at strengthening the capacity of local Nigerian CSOs in preventing and responding to cases of SGBV and Child and Early Forced Marriages (CEFM). Prior to the capacity-strengthening program, over the past three years, WOTCLIF had submitted several SGBV-themed proposals to donors, including to AWDF, which were all unsuccessful.
 
“We won the award because our proposal showed a better understanding of the prevention of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and child early and forced marriage (CEFM),” according to WOCLIF Executive Director Uduak Umoh: “The capacity-building program [provided by SCALE] also equipped us with the knowledge and skills to successfully mainstream GESI into project design from the proposal development stage through implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. This was reflected in the proposal we submitted to AWDF. ”
 
SGBV continues to be a stumbling block to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 5 in Nigeria. With this funding, WOTCLIF is contributing to Nigeria’s effort to curb SGBV and CEFM, and meanwhile strengthens its institutional and technical capacity to receive and manage direct donor funding.

The SCALE project is a United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded five-year project (2021-2025) designed to strengthen the financial, management, and advocacy capacity of CSOs in Nigeria to create a more accountable, transparent, peaceful, and democratic Nigeria with more effective and efficient public service delivery.