Small Grants for New Ideas
The Asia Foundation is inviting individuals and organizations across Southeast Asia to propose pilot projects advancing Women, Peace and Security, with grants of up to USD 3,000 available under its AMPLIFY program’s Civil Society Activation Initiative. Applications close on November 6, 2026, for a project period running November 2026 through March 2027.
The call, published on October 12, is aimed at women human rights defenders and peacebuilding practitioners, along with artists, researchers, advocates, women’s rights organizations and informal groups in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Indonesia, the Philippines, Timor-Leste, Thailand and Vietnam. Applicants need not represent a registered organization, and the foundation particularly encourages women and people from communities underrepresented in peace and security spaces.
Three Themes
Each proposal has to speak to one or more of three themes. Under environmental security, the foundation points to a disaster-prone region where extreme weather and environmental stress can worsen displacement, threaten livelihoods and raise protection risks for women and girls, with suggested topics spanning natural disasters, extractive industries, water insecurity and natural resource management.
The digital transformation theme covers two edges of the same blade: expanding women’s participation in technology, AI and cybersecurity as a route to livelihoods and leadership, while countering technology-facilitated violence that threatens women’s safety online and offline and chills their role in public life.
The third theme, women’s participation in peacebuilding, notes that women remain excluded from many formal and informal peace processes even as border crises, transnational threats and governance challenges raise the stakes for community voices in preventing conflict.
What the Money Is For
Funded projects should produce fresh thinking, new tools or analysis, imaginative approaches, conversations, or action on emerging WPS questions. The foundation lists possibilities including short research and evidence-gathering, a digital tool, a participatory workshop, an advocacy push, artwork, storytelling or film, or testing a new methodology. Outputs can be in English or in local languages, and each project should involve something genuinely new or adapted rather than covering ongoing programs or plugging ordinary funding gaps.
Beyond the grant, all selected applicants will join a two-day regional convening in February or March 2027 to share learning, trade peer feedback and build regional connections, with travel and participation costs covered separately by AMPLIFY. The initiative wraps up around International Women’s Day 2027.
The backdrop is momentum and constraint at once: the Women, Peace and Security framework is advancing in the region through the ASEAN Regional Plan of Action and a growing set of national action plans, yet civil society actors still lack flexible resources to test new ideas and respond to emerging issues. The foundation’s answer is a fund built for experimentation, asking applicants to email a statement of interest, activity description, CV or portfolio and indicative budget, then complete a short registration form.
Sources
- CALL FOR PROPOSALS: WPS Civil Society Activation Initiative | The Asia Foundation
- Asia Foundation WPS Civil Society Activation Initiative – Open Opportunities
