Competition

* Unless explicitly noted, all times indicated for deadlines are for the appropriate NL timezone (NST or NDT)

Scope

The Addressing Neglected Areas of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in sub-Saharan Africa (ANeSA) initiative is issuing a preannouncement of an upcoming two-stage funding opportunity. The call of Letters of Interest is expected to launch on June 29, 2026. The initiative will support up to six additional Implementation Research Teams, with grants of up to CAD 1.2 million each. Up to 12 teams will be invited to submit full proposals in the second stage. 

Eligibility

The proposed research project must take place in at least one eligible country in sub-Saharan Africa. Please see the Approach section below for the full list of eligible countries. 

Overview  

Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) are foundational to people living full, healthy lives in ways that enable them to contribute to prosperous, equitable and sustainable societies. Across the life course, when people can access quality SRHR information and services and have decision-making power to exercise their rights, they can effectively contribute to their wellbeing and that of their families and communities. Respect for SRHR, along with improved access to and delivery of SRHR services, brings both immediate and long-term benefits for health, particularly for reducing inequitable impacts of sexually transmitted infections. It also improves other aspects of life, including education, employment, livelihoods and access to resources such as land, credit and social capital.  

There is limited evidence on sustainable, equitable, evidence-informed, scalable and gender-transformative interventions to transform service design and delivery, strengthen the development and implementation of policies, laws and legal instruments, and build equitable and sustainable SRHR systems that address the challenges facing under-served populations across sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, lack of, or limited representation of under-served populations, including women and girls, men and boys, and gender diverse people, in leadership and community engagement limits the role that civil society plays alongside decision-makers and practitioners to effectively address the root causes of poor SRHR. 

Addressing Neglected Areas of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in sub-Saharan Africa (ANeSA) is an initiative co-funded by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). ANeSA aims to support greater realization of neglected sexual and reproductive health and rights by under-served populations, including women and girls, men and boys, and gender diverse people, in sub-Saharan Africa. 

ANeSA five priority areas are:  

• Improving access to family planning and contraceptive services 

• Expanding access to safe abortion care, where legally permitted, and post-abortion care (APAC) 

• Upholding SRHR rights and ensuring access to services for adolescents 

• Preventing sexual- and gender-based violence (SGBV) and improving services for people experiencing SGBV 

• Strengthening advocacy for SRHR 

ANeSA focuses on advocacy as both a priority area for implementation research and an expected outcome across all areas of SRHR. Implementation research projects implementing, evaluating, adapting, and scaling evidence-informed, community-informed SRHR advocacy initiatives would therefore be eligible for funding. This is intended to generate and translate evidence on gender-transformative advocacy interventions as well as address the lack of evidence on how to effectively link and translate advocacy initiatives to build system sustainability and accountability across all areas of SRHR. 

Availability of funds 

This call is to support a second cohort of up to six additional new IRTs. Funding available includes: 

• Up to CAD 1.2 million per successful application. 

• Up to 12 Letters of Interest (LoIs) will be selected to move to the second stage of this call. The successful applicants will be required to attend a virtual proposal development workshop, after which they will each receive a proposal development award of CAD 50,000 for a duration of three months. The main deliverable is the submission of a full proposal.  

Should funding levels not be available or decrease due to unforeseen circumstances, ANeSA reserves the right to withdraw the call for applications and reduce, defer or suspend financial contributions to grants offered as a result of this funding opportunity. 

Anticipated timelines

• Call for Letters of Interest Launch: June 29, 2026 

• Informational Webinar: July 15, 2026 

• Deadline for Submission of Letter of Interest: August 23, 2026 

• Successful Applicants Notified: December 18, 2026 

• Proposal Development Workshop: February 9-11, 2027 

• Call for Full Proposal Launch: February 12, 2027 

• Deadline for Submission of Full Proposal: May 2, 2027 

• Applicants Notified of Funding Decisions: July 21, 2027  

In addition to the external funding agency’s submission procedures, this Intent to Apply (EOI/LOI/NOI) must also be submitted for Departmental, HSS Faculty, and Research Initiatives and Services (RIS) institutional reviews and approvals via Memorial's Researcher Portal (RP). In order to facilitate the HSS Faculty’s administrative review, please ensure "Heather C. O'Brien (Grants Facilitator)" and “Matthew Milner (Grants Facilitator)” are added as "Team Members" on your RP file. If invited to full application, HSS and RIS reviews will again be mandatory.

In accordance with University-wide approval protocols, all tabs of the RP file must be completed, the completed application must be uploaded to the “Attachments” tab, all supporting documentation including support for cash and in-kind commitments and/or letters of support must also be uploaded, and “Submit” must be pressed prior to the HSS internal deadline listed below. HSS cannot guarantee completion of an administrative review for application files that are incomplete and/or are submitted after the HSS deadline. For more detailed submission instructions and information, please consult the HSS Research Support Services website.

If you plan to apply to this competition or other research funding opportunities (as either PI or CI), e-mail an HSS Grants Facilitator, Heather C. O’Brien (HSSResearchAdmin@mun.ca or 864-8603) or Matthew Milner (HSSResearchGrants@mun.ca or 864-8050), to notify the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of your intent to apply. E-mailing the intent to apply as early as possible will help to facilitate an efficient review. A Grants Facilitator can answer any questions you may have about internal or external submission procedures and may also be able to help with proposal development.