Co-Impact, a global philanthropic collaborative, has announced grants totaling $161 million in support of 34 initiatives across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

The initiatives are focused on addressing the structural and discriminatory root causes that hold back progress toward a just and inclusive society. Through its Foundational Fund, Co-Impact awarded grants totaling $95 million to support eight systems-change initiatives focused on improving health, education, and economic opportunity. Recipients include CAMFED International, which will use the funding to implement a model for supporting girls’ success in local secondary schools in Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, and the Foundation for Ecological Security, which will conduct research to better understand the effects of environmental degradation on the livelihoods and earnings of people in rural India.

Through the organization’s Gender Fund, grants totaling $66 million were awarded to predominantly women-led, locally rooted organizations in support of 24 initiatives addressing a variety of systemic barriers. Recipients include Alliances for Africa, which will work to improve the responsiveness to sexual harassment in Nigeria’s tertiary educational systems; Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida, which will help ensure broad and equitable access to abortion and to strengthen feminist movements across Mexico; and University of Johannesburg, which will provide increased access to educational opportunities relevant to the study of law.

In addition, Co-Impact awarded two grants totaling $1.6 million to advance practitioner-oriented research and learning and generate a body of evidence on how to advance women’s leadership and gender equality.

“Many systems around the world fail to deliver on their promises because discrimination against women, girls, and other marginalized groups is baked into their design,” said Co-Impact founder and CEO Olivia Leland. “Our program partners work with governments to fix this, dismantling barriers to inclusion in public and market systems and using proven innovations to help millions of people access greater opportunities and live with dignity.”

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