Each regional office makes grants in fields that most effectively address problems in that region. In the New Delhi office, we support efforts in seven key areas:
Arts and Culture
Our grantees seek to increase the academic presence of a wide array of artistic and creative disciplines in institutions of higher learning; to foster the use of the arts in schools; to preserve products of artistic and cultural activities; and to nurture the use of the arts and cultural practices in strengthening the values of tolerance and peace.
Civil Society and Social Justice
We support the development and growth of intermediary grant-making institutions to seed and strengthen indigenous philanthropies that operate at the local, state or national level to promote social change and social justice. We also make grants to strengthen and support the building of an accountable, transparent and credible civil society in the region and to enable the sector to become a positive force for peace, tolerance and inclusion through key strategies for interventions.
Development Finance and Economic Security
We support strategies that strengthen retail institutions, microfinance networks and institutions to promote financial inclusion, especially of poor women, Dalits and other marginalized communities. Our grantees facilitate linking rural producers and artisans with corporate partners to realize better wages and incomes.
Environment and Development
We support efforts to integrate environmental conservation with strategies to improve livelihoods, create new economic opportunities and increase social equity. Our grantees help resource-dependent and marginalized communities to build social networks, increase their capacity to manage resources, secure resource rights and use various strategies to ensure long-term equitable access to natural resources.
Higher Education and Scholarship
We support organizations that provide scholars and institutions with improved access to current information and electronic knowledge and that enhance their capacity to become key players in the global areas of scholarship. We also make grants to develop and maintain pluralistic and diverse communities in the region.
Local-Global Governance
We support efforts to enhance the voice and representation of poor and marginalized communities in key institutions of governance at the local, national and regional levels, and to strengthen the capacity and commitment of the state to promote welfare, redistribution of power and security in South Asia. Our grantees also do innovative research, documentation, advocacy and training that provides solutions and helps different levels of governance to work together more effectively.
Sexuality, Reproductive Health and Human Rights
Our work strengthens advocacy for women’s reproductive rights, with a particular focus on women from the “margins” and efforts to make reproductive and sexual rights central to the human rights discourse. To combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic—a major challenge in the region—we support education and awareness, as well as protection of the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS. We also support increasing scholarship and expanding discourse on sexuality and sexual rights and seek to create an understanding of gender-based violence within different contexts of vulnerabilities.