The Strengthening Women’s Involvement in PPPs (SWIIP3) Project was funded by the Australian Government, through an Australia Awards Africa Small Grants Programme. Australia Awards established the Small Grants Scheme to provide direct financial support to alumni development groups or Communities of Practice (COPs). Some of the projects supported by the Australia Awards Small Grants have been in areas that address community challenges, contributions to skills transfer through agriculture, extractives or infrastructure-related initiatives or promotion of gender and socially inclusive practices for women, youth and rural communities. The grants often also contribute to innovative research, improved technology and capacity building of people.
One of the core benefits of the alumni small grants in addition to assisting the project beneficiaries with achieving high-impact projects is that it helps alumni establish numerous collaborations between alumni and other organisations and institutions and even across African Countries. (Source: Australiaawardsafrica.org).
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s (DFAT) Australian Aid funded project kicked off following the 10,000 AUD Small Grant awards, to achieve a one year-long gender in PPPs project. The Strengthening Women’s Involvement in PPPs project was conceptualised primarily to achieve integration of gender and the SDGs in Nigeria’s PPPs by developing a set of Gender and SDGs in PPPs Guidelines for PPPs in Nigeria; hosting a Focus Group Discussion on the developed Gender and SDGs in PPPs Guidelines and achieving knowledge transfer through a first of its kind female-focused Transaction Advisory and Gender in PPPs capacity development programme.
The programme is currently active in Nigeria, and is being managed through a host institution, the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) with a future plan to collaborate with six other African countries toward setting up gender-specific protocols for the integration of these standards in PPPs across the continent.
This website and the project has been funded by the Australian Government through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, however, the views expressed are those of the project initiator alone and are not necessarily the views of the Australian Government.