We are continuously learning, documenting, and sharing what we are observing, what we hear from our constituents, what we are experiencing in our grant-making and alliance-building work, and what we are making sense of in a world that is constantly in flux.
This work includes Documentation, Information Management, Research and Publications, Learning and Historical Political Initiatives, and Special Projects. Over the years, UAF-Africa has produced many multifaceted publications that reflect the political and socio-economic moment in which the Fund and her constituencies found themselves, focusing on the African continent at regional, sub-regional, national, and local levels.
In producing and thinking about knowledge, we root ourselves in challenging power: we are conscious that knowledge production is laden with power relations. While there is an adage that “knowledge is power”, insofar as knowledge arms one with the capacity to make better, more informed choices in the world, power also determines who and what can be known, who is allowed to be a “knower”, what is valid knowledge and who are the purveyors of knowledge? in this way, power is knowledge.
We understand feminist approaches to knowledge production as ones that acknowledge the histories of the erasure of different forms of knowledge that need to be re-centred. This entails examining how indigenous knowledge has been marginalised and consciously erased.
We see activists as experts whose knowledge and experience are the basis for intellectual theorising.
We understand our place to be actors who are not studying “the other” but our contexts – one in which we are funders, not the activists at the frontlines. As such, we are claiming a complex political space. We are accountable for not reproducing damaging tropes about our contexts or producing essentialist knowledge only that is valuable for the people we interview. As an activist funder who understands the regional and global contexts and how knowledge is created, we are also expected not to reproduce the power dynamics regarding knowledge production.
At UAF-Africa, we think deeply about our positionality and power. We are transparent about not engaging in a “study of the other” but a deep engagement with local actors, researchers and the contexts and trends we study because they deserve to be studied in and of themselves, not because we are curious externals.
“It is not taboo to go back and fetch what you forgot.”- Akan people of Ghana".
- African Proverb
To work with African womn’s human rights defenders and other research institutions and partners to build a culture of learning and knowledge production within and external to UAF-Africa. This is done to contribute to the collective development of deeper consciousness, consistent theorising and articulation of feminist, pan-African experiences, and expertise, and translate this to solidarity and action.
Refers to a sustained culture and practice of reflection, review, analysis, and deepening consciousness internally and externally as part of our commitment to excellence in our four areas of expertise and specialisation.
Refers to the culture and practice of ensuring records of the contexts, analysis, implementation, reflections, and related experiences are systemised so we can tell our own stories and serve our political agendas.
Refers to planning and implementing systems for organising, ordering, collating, saving, and securing information and data related to internal and external aspects of UAF-Africa’s work.
Refers to setting a research agenda specific to our political mandate and systematically conducting or enabling research to be conducted in keeping with that agenda. It includes packaging and repackaging information to create different knowledge pieces that meet the needs of actors, including feminist movements and various philanthropic actors, among other decision-makers.
Urgent Action Fund Africa is a pan-African and Feminist Rapid Response Grant Making Fund. We have resourced more than 5,200 grants with a geographical presence in Africa's 54 countries.
Collectively, our Board Members and Staff members are physically present in more than 15 African countries and speak more than 46 African languages
