The fourth call for proposals by the African Culture Fund (ACF) dedicated to the Solidarity Fund for Artists and Cultural Organizations in Africa (SOFACO), Batch No. 2 Special Covid-19 / Cultural organizations was launched on September 26, 2020 and was closed on October 31, 2020.
The main objective of SOFACO is to strengthen the resilience of artists and cultural organizations through assistance for the creation and reconstruction of the social fabric of the artistic sector in Africa facing the COVID-19 crisis.
At the closing date, 409 applications were registered, including 267 French-speaking files and 142 English-speaking files, which came from 35 African countries and 3 from the diaspora.
The selection process was undertaken in three stages: the registration and examination of the applications leading to a clean registration file, the preselection and evaluation, and the final selection by an autonomous and independent selection panel.
The selection panel, composed of: Wadi Mhiri (Tunisia); Dr. Salia Malé (Mali); Dr. Jean-Luc Gbati Sonhaye (Togo); Dr. Robert Nantchouang (Cameroon); and Massira Touré (Mali), met virtually on December 15, 2020, to proceed with the final selection and deliberation of the files.
At the end of the deliberations, 45 applications were selected from 21 African countries.
The African Culture Fund wishes to renew its thanks to donor artists, patrons, and partners, in particular DOEN Foundation, FORD Foundation and Open Society Foundation, as well as BICIM (Mali) and SONAVIE (Mali) for their support.