African Civil Society Funding at a Crossroads: RWAMREC at the 10th East Africa Philanthropy Conference

Rwanda Men's Resource Centre joins regional leaders in Addis Ababa to explore the future of African-led philanthropy.

The 10th East Africa Philanthropy Conference (EAPC), held from 16–20 June 2026 at the Ethiopian Skylight Hotel in Addis Ababa, brought together philanthropists, civil society practitioners, intermediaries, and funders from across the region under the theme Anchoring Systems in an Era of Transition. Rwanda Men's Resource Centre (RWAMREC) was represented by Gisèle Umutoniwase, Director of Programs, who participated throughout the conference.

The conference is organised by the East Africa Philanthropy Network (EAPN), of which RWAMREC is a proud member. As an EAPN member organisation, RWAMREC's presence at the EAPC was not that of a passenger observing the conversation from the sidelines, but of a partner helping to shape it — part of a network of regional actors working together to name what is changing in African civil society funding, share what is working, and build the connections that allow civil society to remain grounded during uncertain times.

The Capital Story Is Not What It Seems

The conference arrived at a genuinely pivotal moment. A consistent message across sessions was that the funding environment has fundamentally shifted — and that waiting for it to return to what it was is not a strategy.

US foreign aid has contracted sharply. Major global health funds have made significant cuts to their replenishment cycles. For organisations dependent on international donor flows, the pressure is real and immediate.

Yet the capital story is more complex than a narrative of scarcity alone. High-net-worth assets held across Africa and remittances flowing into Sub-Saharan Africa now surpass both official development assistance and foreign direct investment. The challenge, as speakers and practitioners made clear, is not the absence of capital — it is the absence of architecture to mobilise it toward civil society.

One session reframed fundraising itself: not as a reporting obligation or a necessary inconvenience, but as a distinct organisational function — one driven by purpose, relationship, and emotional connection. For gender justice organisations, this matters. The case for engaging men and boys as allies, for transforming norms around masculinity and violence, is not always legible within conventional grant logic. Telling it well, and to the right people, is part of the work.

Africa's underrepresentation in global climate finance also surfaced as a structural injustice with direct implications for civil society resourcing. The continent bears the majority of climate change's consequences while receiving a fraction of climate investment. Domestic instruments — including Rwanda's own green taxonomy — were highlighted as promising signals of a shift toward African-led financial architecture.

The Infrastructure That Makes Collaboration Possible

If the first thematic thread was about where capital comes from, the second was about how it moves — and what gets lost in transit.

Over 300 collaborative giving vehicles exist globally, with more than 130 designed to benefit Africa. Yet the majority of African practitioners participating in conference sessions were unaware most of these existed. Awareness, it turns out, is one of the simplest and most overlooked barriers to collaboration.

Cross-border giving mechanisms drew particular attention. Existing instruments allow African organisations to access US tax-advantaged donations without establishing a US legal entity — a pathway with real potential for organisations working to diversify beyond traditional grant funding, yet one that remains significantly underutilised across the region.

The sessions also surfaced a tension that many in the room recognised: intermediary organisations — women's funds, regranting mechanisms, community-governed platforms — often provide the only first funding available to grassroots actors that larger funders will not resource. Yet these same intermediaries operate on project funding that covers programmes while leaving institutional operations chronically underfunded. The infrastructure that holds the ecosystem together is itself precarious.

The Localization Gap: Between Commitment and Transfer

The conference's closing thematic day confronted one of the most persistent gaps in the international development sector: the distance between what donors say about localization and what actually reaches local organisations.

Despite years of international commitments — including the Grand Bargain's 25% direct funding target — direct funding to local actors declined to 3.6% in 2024. The commitments exist. The structural transfer of governance authority, budget lines, and decision-making has not followed.

Rather than leaving delegates with the problem, sessions offered practical tools: asset-based approaches that start from what organisations already hold, live power mapping exercises applied to real partnership dynamics, and due diligence passporting frameworks designed to reduce the repetitive compliance burden placed on local organisations by multiple funders simultaneously.

A masterclass on philanthropic operating models closed the conference with an unusually honest question: most organisations, it suggested, have never consciously chosen their structure. They have inherited it — from founding conditions, early funders, or accumulated habit. For organisations considering growth or regional expansion, this is worth sitting with.

Rwanda in the Room

Beyond the formal programme, the conference created space for the kind of relationship-building that rarely happens through email. Gisèle Umutoniwase connected with funders, intermediaries, and peer organisations from across East Africa, representing RWAMREC's work on gender-transformative programming, male engagement, and community-based approaches to ending gender-based violence.

RWAMREC also joined a broader Rwanda delegation gathering at the margins of the conference, which included a meeting with the Rwandan Ambassador to Ethiopia — a reminder that Rwandan civil society, and RWAMREC's role within the EAPN network specifically, is an increasingly visible and valued presence in regional philanthropy spaces.

What This Means Going Forward

The 10th EAPC did not offer easy answers. But it offered something perhaps more valuable: a clear-eyed picture of a landscape in transition, and a community of practitioners determined to navigate it together.

For RWAMREC, the insights gathered — on sustainable financing models, collaborative infrastructure, localisation tools, and organisational design — will feed into the organisation's continued growth as a regional hub for male engagement and gender justice across Rwanda and Francophone Africa, and into its ongoing engagement as an active EAPN member shaping the future of African civil society funding.

For more information about RWAMREC's programmes and work, visit www.rwamrec.org.

Rwanda Men's Resource Centre (RWAMREC) is a Kigali-based NGO and EAPN member organisation working to engage men and boys as allies in ending gender-based violence and promoting positive masculinity across Rwanda and beyond.