The COVID-19 Africa Rapid Fund Grant with an initial total funding of approximately USD4.75million (R90 million) was launched in 2020 to address research questions and implement science engagement activities associated with the pandemic.

South Africa’s Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Fonds de Recherche du Québec (FRQ), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID), United Kingdom Research and Innovation  (UKRI) through the Newton Fund, and SGCI participating councils are collaborating in this initiative, which was conceptualised under the auspices of the Science Granting Councils Initiative in Sub-Saharan Africa (SGCI). The National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa administers the Fund on behalf of all the partners.

The Fund aims to support knowledge generation and translation to inform diagnostics, prevention and treatment of COVID-19, strengthen African regional and continental science engagement efforts in response to the pandemic, and leverage existing multilateral collaborations and attract new collaborations from international partners.

The fund is administering 74 projects across three strands: 1) research (41 projects); 2) science engagement – call to science and health journalists and communicators (28 projects); and 3) science engagement – call to science advisers in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic (5 projects).