Six Organizations Receive Grants from the Money Well Spent Fund at Tides Supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

January 8, 2010 – The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and  Tides Foundation are pleased to announce that six grants, totaling over $2.7 million, have been awarded to projects that promote more efficient family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) funding in sub-Saharan Africa. This marks the first round of grant making from the Money Well Spent Fund, which was created to fund advocacy and policy‐related activities aimed at increasing the effectiveness of funding in the FP/RH sector, with a regional focus on Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Money Well Spent Fund issued an open call for letters of inquiry in May 2009 and received more than 150 applications.  After a rigorous review process, the following six organizations were ultimately recommended for funding:  

• East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA - HC): A $1,060,000 grant to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of funding for FP/RH in East, Central and Southern Africa by increasing political commitment; strengthening donors and partners’ collaboration, coordination and contribution; integrating family planning with other health services; and strengthening health systems and service delivery mechanisms.
• Equilibres & Populations (E&P): A $353,000 grant for advocacy to increase UNITAID’s contributions to FP/RH. E&P will work closely with French stakeholders and the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition to convince UNITAID to allocate more resources to reproductive health supplies and services and to improve the efficiency with which those funds are used.
• Gender Action: A $200,000 grant to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of World Bank and African Development Bank funding for FP/RH and HIV/AIDS. Gender Action plans to produce an in-depth monitoring report and an online tracking database that will facilitate civil society advocacy focused on improving World Bank and African Development Bank funding and eliminating harmful user fees and loan conditionalities.
• IPAS, Inc.: A $300,000 grant to demonstrate, through research and policy dialogue, the significant health-system and hospital savings of providing safe abortion care services in Nigeria and Malawi. Ultimately, this work will offer care that respects women’s reproductive-health needs and reproductive rights; reduce the number of women’s deaths and disability from unsafe abortion; and improve the use of resources within health systems in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Pathfinder International: A $800,000 grant to improve the funding environment for family planning in Tanzania, with the overall goal of higher modern contraceptive prevalence and improved reproductive health indicators in Tanzania. Pathfinder will pursue three overarching strategies: increasing national focus on FP/RH within key policies and strategies; capacitating district governments to allocate more funds for FP/RH; and leveraging AIDS funds in support of FP/RH.
• Poverty Alleviation Crusaders (PAC): A $64,100 grant to promote transparency and accountability in the FP/RH sub-sector in Nigeria by mobilizing civil society groups to demand that government and donor agencies be more transparent in their disbursement and expenditure of funds.
  

About the Money Well Spent Fund
The Money Well Spent Fund is a funding program supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and operated by Tides Foundation. The fund helps ensure that resources for family planning and reproductive health in sub‐Saharan Africa are well spent. The purpose of this program is to identify and fund primarily advocacy and policy‐related activities, based in evidence and oriented to solving specific problems to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of expenditures of funding in the family planning and reproductive health sector.

About Tides
Tides provides support for a variety of institutional grantmaking efforts including funding collaboratives, global grantmaking programs, and other grantmaking infrastructure.  Our global work on women’s health includes the Tides Africa Fund and the Africa women’s program of the HIV Collaborative Fund for Treatment Preparedness.  In the United States, Tides has the Reproductive Justice Fund and the Catalyst Fund.

Tides actively promotes change toward broadly shared economic opportunity, robust democratic processes and the opportunity to live in a healthy and sustainable environment where human rights are preserved and protected. Founded in 1976, we offer an array of services that amplifies the efforts of forward-thinking philanthropists, foundations, activists and organizations to make the world a better place. With offices in San Francisco and New York City, Tides provides fiscal sponsorship for over 200 groups across the country, operates and supports green nonprofit centers and granted more than $108 million in 2008 alone. For more information, visit www.tides.org.