African Initiatives is to close next year after failing to find enough income to continue running.

The charity, which supports marginalised women in Tanzania, has stressed that while Covid-19 is not the cause of the closure, the pandemic will “bring further financial uncertainty”.

“During extensive discussions about our possible closure, we looked at other options (such as a merger with another NGO sharing our vision and mission) but, unfortunately, failed to find an alternative,” said the charity. 

“Therefore, we came to the conclusion that a planned closure, which allows us time to complete the majority of our projects and phase a hand over to our partners, is our only option. This way, there will be as little disruption as possible to our projects, partners and, most importantly, the women and girls we work with in Tanzania” 

With heavy hearts, we are announcing our plans to close African Initiatives in early 2021. More about @AIglobal reasons for closure and how you can continue to support the most marginalised women and girls here: https://t.co/aeVkgetlDc

— African Initiatives (@AIglobal) July 28, 2020

African Initiatives is urging supporters to continue to donate to its partners, which are supporting women and girls in Tanzania.

The aid charity added: “For more than 20 years we have helped to build our partners’ organisational capabilities so they are now able to take full control of development programmes; from programme design to implementation and evaluation.

“The end goal of all international NGOs is to make themselves redundant and we are delighted that we are able to hand the baton of development to our partners.”

African Initiatives’s registered office in the UK is in Bristol. According to the Charity Commission’s latest records the charity had annual income of £715,600 for the year ending March 2019, including £45,800 in donations and legacies, and spending of £686,500.

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