Women for Africa Foundation (Spain and African countries)
The Women for Africa Foundation is a Spanish non-profit private entity created in February 2012 by María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, the former Vice-President of the Government of Spain. The Foundation's main objective is to contribute to the development of the African continent through the support and empowerment of its women, who are the driving force behind its progress.
Women for Africa works for democracy, governance, peace, human rights, and sustainable economic and social development. It is convinced that equality is the most potent factor for social transformation. Women for Africa supports and promotes democratic societies that respect the rights and dignity of people: their freedom, equality, solidarity, honesty, respect, transparency, tolerance, and diversity.
Since 2021/2022, the Eurofins Foundation has been supporting the “Science by Women Scholarships Programme”, launched in 2014 with the objectives of promoting African women's access to science and technology, supporting them in their research careers, making their achievements visible, and promoting their leadership within the international scientific community.
The programme's ultimate goal is to enable female African researchers to play a leading role in the transition of Africa to a knowledge-based and innovation-led economy and thereby in the transformation of people's daily lives.
The program funds six-month fellowships for African women scientists in different research centres based in Spain.
The project’s priority areas are health and biomedicine, energy, water, climate change, agriculture, and food security.
In addition to contributing to the costs for six Fellows, the support from the Eurofins Foundation has been instrumental for the development of activities related to the Science by Women programme. Thanks to this funding, the organisation has been able to run conferences and training courses that are essential to increase the Fellows’ leadership skills and to promote the cohesive growth of NOW IS AFRICA (Network of Women Innovating In Science In Africa).
Moreover, the organisation has been able to go a step further and take research from the laboratory to the application with the first contest for the best projects in scientific dissemination and technology transfer.
This project contributes to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:
