The SheConnects Digital Accelerator Africa Round 2 is offering grants of $500,000 to $1 million to organisations scaling digital solutions for women and girls across Sub-Saharan Africa. The deadline is July 8, 2026
If your organisation has spent years building a digital solution that genuinely changes women’s lives, this is the funding round that could take it from promising to unstoppable.
CARE and the GSMA Foundation, with support from the Gates Foundation, have opened applications for Round 2 of the SheConnects Digital Accelerator Africa. This is not a small seed grant or a token innovation prize. It is a transformative capital injection of $500,000 to $1 million per selected organisation, designed specifically to scale digital solutions that help women and girls participate fully in the digital world.
The deadline is July 8, 2026, at 11:59 PM EDT. If you are running a women centred digital initiative anywhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, you need to read every word of this.
What Is the SheConnects Digital Accelerator?
The digital gender gap is one of the most persistent and costly inequalities in the world today. Millions of women across Sub-Saharan Africa remain excluded from mobile internet, digital financial services, online health information, and digital learning tools, not because the technology does not exist, but because the solutions built to reach them have never had the capital to scale.
SheConnects exists to fix exactly that problem. Managed by CARE and the GSMA Foundation, with backing from the Gates Foundation, the Accelerator was built to identify organisations that already have proven, high-impact solutions and give them the financial runway to scale those solutions across diverse markets. This is not funding for an idea on a whiteboard. It is funding for something that already works and simply needs the resources to reach more women, faster.
The Accelerator also connects awardees to a much bigger story. Through a deliberate South-South knowledge sharing model, organisations in Africa are paired with peer learning opportunities involving India, another region making major strides in closing the digital gender gap. This cross-continental exchange of strategy and insight is one of the more unusual and genuinely valuable parts of this programme.
What Do You Actually Get?
The headline number is the money, and it is significant. Selected organisations receive between $500,000 and $1 million in grant funding, structured as a transformative capital injection rather than a loan. There is no repayment burden here. This is capital meant to be deployed directly into scaling your solution.
The programme runs for 18 months, which gives your team real breathing room to localise, deploy, iterate, and stabilise your platform across different markets, rather than rushing through a short funding cycle that barely gives you time to prove results.
Beyond the money, awardees gain access to South-South knowledge sharing between Africa and India, placing your organisation inside a genuinely elite peer network of innovators tackling the same problem from different geographic and cultural angles. You also gain global credibility and validation simply by being backed by CARE, the GSMA Foundation, and the Gates Foundation, three institutions whose names alone can open doors to future funding, partnerships, and policy conversations that would otherwise take years to access.
In short, this is capital, community, and credibility, all in one package.
Who Can Apply?
The Accelerator is open to non-profits, NGOs, civil society organisations, community based organisations, mission driven for-profits, academic institutions, and consortia. If your organisational structure falls into any of these categories, you are eligible to be considered.
There are, however, some firm conditions. Your initiative must be implemented in Sub-Saharan Africa. You must be able to demonstrate a credible pathway to reaching at least 50,000 women users within the 18 month programme period. And only one application is allowed per organisation, with that organisation applying as the lead entity, even if you are operating as part of a consortium.
It is also important to know who cannot apply. Government agencies, multilateral or bilateral organisations, and individuals are not eligible for this round. This Accelerator is built specifically for organisations and institutions operating directly in the field, not for state actors or international bodies.
What Kind of Solutions Are They Looking For?
This is where founders and programme leads need to pay close attention, because the focus here is specific and intentional. SheConnects is looking for women centred digital solutions with measurable impact in health, livelihoods, or education.
That means if your solution helps women access maternal health information through a mobile platform, connects women entrepreneurs to digital financial tools, or delivers digital literacy and learning content designed around women’s realities, you are squarely in the zone this Accelerator was built for.
One important exclusion to note. Infrastructure only or equipment only projects are not eligible. This is not a fund for building towers, distributing devices, or laying cables without a clear, embedded digital empowerment use case attached. The Accelerator wants solutions, not just hardware. If your project is fundamentally about giving women access to a digital platform, service, or skill that changes a tangible outcome in their health, income, or education, you are exactly who they are looking for.
Why This Round Matters Right Now
Round 2 of the SheConnects Digital Accelerator Africa is happening at a moment when digital exclusion for women is no longer treated as a side issue in development conversations. It is increasingly understood as one of the central economic and social challenges of this decade, with G20 leaders publicly committing to halving the global digital gender gap by 2030.
That global momentum is exactly why this Accelerator carries the weight it does. CARE, the GSMA Foundation, and the Gates Foundation are not experimenting here. They are scaling what already works, and they are doing it with serious capital behind organisations that have already proven their model on the ground.
If your organisation has been quietly building something powerful without the funding to take it further, this is the moment that funding arrives.
How to Apply
The process starts with a clear self assessment. Confirm that your organisational structure fits the eligible categories, that your initiative is active in Sub-Saharan Africa, and that you can realistically demonstrate a path to reaching at least 50,000 women users within 18 months.
Once you have confirmed your eligibility, head to the official application portal and submit your application as the lead entity for your organisation. Remember, only one submission per organisation is allowed, so make sure your strongest, most complete application is the one that goes in.
Do not wait until the final days. Strong applications take time to put together properly, especially when you need to clearly articulate your measurable impact in health, livelihoods, or education.
A Final Word to Africa’s Digital Innovators
Across Sub-Saharan Africa, women led and women focused digital solutions are quietly transforming how millions of women access healthcare information, earn a living, and learn new skills. The challenge has rarely been a shortage of good ideas. It has been a shortage of capital large enough to take those ideas from a few thousand users to hundreds of thousands.
The SheConnects Digital Accelerator Africa Round 2 is a direct answer to that gap. Up to $1 million in funding. Eighteen months to scale. A peer network spanning two continents. And global credibility that follows you long after the programme ends.
If you are building something that genuinely brings women into the digital world in a measurable, meaningful way, this is your moment to scale it properly.
Join our Community & inside you get free access to premium Udemy courses, live tech job updates, scholarship and fellowship opportunities, and a community of professionals actually moving forward in their careers.
No fees. No paywalls. No gatekeeping.