Is your organisation eager to take your innovative solution to a global challenge to the next level?

Call for Proposals

The energy and ideas of young people around the world drives solutions and helps to create opportunities to key challenges in communities and beyond. The Innovation Grants aim to provide support to youth organisations that seek to innovate in their own context in response to a global challenge!

The Innovation Grants provide grants opportunities between 30,000 and 40,000 EURO for which individual youth organisations can apply to.

What do we mean with innovations?

We define innovation as designing, testing, scaling or improving a new or existing activity for young people in their own context with long-term impact. In other words, an impact that will benefit your community and your peers also after your grant project ends!

What can you expect when you receive a grant?

  • Your organisation will receive financial support to implement your innovation in your own community and beyond.
  • Your organisation will become part of a platform for you to share your solution with peers, decision-makers and other stakeholders across Africa and Europe.
  • You will benefit from mentorship and other forms of capacity development support according to the needs of your organisation.

When is your organisation eligible to apply?

  • Your organisation must be a non-profit, operating as a Trust, Community Based Organisation (CBO) or as a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO)/Civil Society Organisation (CSO) with a clear social mission.
  • Your organisation must be youth-led: young people (aged 18-35) represent the organisation’s governance and have primary decision-making power over the organisation’s direction and programmes (100% is aged 18-35) and are directly involved in designing and carrying out activities (>80% is aged 18-35)
  • Your project must be youth-led: all staff (100%) working on implementing the project should be young people (aged 18-35)
  • You are a youth organisation that is formal: you are legally registered in your country, have an organisation bank account and a clear governance structure.
  • You are located and registered in one of the 12 African Youth Action Lab focus countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia (Somaliland region), Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
  • Your proposed activity takes place in one or more of the above 12 countries.

What kind of activities can you propose?

Your proposal can have a diversity of activities that build upon each other. We are excited to receive your ideas!

As general guidance, we can identify three broad types of activities:

Meaningful youth participation in decision-making

For example: a new methodology for young people to monitor the commitment of decision-makers to increase access to quality education

Implementation of a youth-driven solution

For example: implementation of a new climate resilience approach in each context.

Sharing and scaling of a distinct activity with other youth organisations beyond their own context

For example: development of an online learning product

The activities you propose can be a mixture of the broad types of activities above and do not need to ‘fit in one box’.

How to apply

APPLICATIONS FOR THIS GRANT IS NOW CLOSED. 

We will communicate on results soon.

For questions on this grant, please refer to the FAQ below, if your query is not found below, please email: innovation@aueuyouth.com

APPLY NOW CANDIDATE-SE JÁ POSTULEZ DÈS MAINTENANT

Webinars

Learn more about this grant type by registering to one of the following webinars:

Missed our webinar? View past presentation here: Resources

Need help with your application? Join our webinars in November for Question-and-Answer sessions (dates to be confirmed very soon)!

Want to connect with other youth organisations and stay up-to-date on the latest info about the grants? Sign up to our online community on the Power to Voices Platform in two steps:

Step 1: Sign up to the Power to Voices Platform by making an account: Sign Up Here

Step 2: Go to the AU-EU Youth Action Lab Community and click on ‘follow’ to become a member of the group, via this link: AU-EU Youth Action Lab Community | Power to Voices

Consortium partners:

FAQ

Need help on how to submit your application? View our guide here.

Applicants are invited to first refer to the Funding Manuals for each grant type and carefully read the Call for Proposal Text and any related documents published on the Youth Lab website. Questions, likely to be relevant to all applicants, can be found in this regularly updated document, classified by themes.

FAQs for Innovation Grants

All Youth Action Lab grant types are created by youth and for youth. This funding addresses the lack of opportunities for youth in Africa and Europe to collaborate, cooperate, develop, implement and scale up their own initiatives. It is designed to support young people to be more engaged, empowered and connected. The grant aims to nurture organisations’ stability, resilience, financial security and organisational capacity with the result aimed at showing impact created at community level with a distinct scale-up potential.

The Innovation Grants aim to provide support to youth organisations that seek to innovate in their own context in response to a global challenge! The grant supports youth led organisations innovative solutions and thereby increases opportunities for youth to take the lead and create positive change at scale. The grant provides organisations with an opportunity to work with other youth to share their solutions to peers and decision-makers at the continental and inter-continental level.

This grant will also allow you to meet grantees from the three other grant types at the Annual Link & Learn events and through the Power2Voices online platform (accessible beyond the grant period)!

Some more good news? Our application and reporting mechanisms are designed in a way that make sense to youth initiatives. Read the full  [funding manual] for more information

To apply for Innovation Grants, your organisation must meet the following requirements:

  • Your organisation must be a non-profit, operating as a Trust, Community Based Organisation (CBO) or as a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO)/Civil Society Organisation (CSO) with a clear social mission.
  • Your organisation must be youth-led: young people (aged 18-35) represent the organisation’s governance and have primary decision-making power over the organisation’s direction and programmes (100% is aged 18-35) and are directly involved in designing and carrying out activities (>80% is aged 18-35)
  • Your project must be youth-led: all staff (100%) working on implementing the project should be young people (aged 18-35)
  • Your organisation is formally registered in your country, has an organisation bank account and a clear governance structure.
  • You are located and registered in one of the 12 African Youth Action Lab focus countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia (Somaliland region), Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
  • Your proposed activities take place in one or more of the above 12 countries.

That’s a great question! Simple answer is NO- we do not see innovation as being about a technological design. An innovation is a broad term and is often mistaken as only something that is completely new or perhaps something focusing on new technologies. While this could be the case, innovations are so much more! Our working definition is that we define innovation as designing, testing, scaling or improving a new or existing activity for young people in their own context with long-term impact.

With a global challenge we mean an issue that is faced by young people and their communities around the world. For example, the impact of climate change, or the limited representation of young people in decision-making processes. While in each context and for each individual the impacts of a particular challenge can be different, they are linked to the same root-causes. We are looking for innovative ideas to tackle intersectional and global challenges.

These are activities that work on different thematic areas around the global challenges at the same time. For example, an activity that addresses the impacts of climate change on access to education of young people. It can also be an activity that brings together young people from various diverse backgrounds and lived experiences. We aim to fund activities that do not fully ‘fit’ into one thematic area and can experience additional barriers to apply for funding.

Yes, of course! The information sessions are organised to help you with your application but are not mandatory.

No, you cannot apply for grants below 30 000 EUR as grants are a minimum of 30,000 euro. You also cannot go above 40,000 EUR as that is the maximum amount.

Your project will be funded for a duration of 12 months, from May 2026 to April 2027.

All applications for the innovation grants are due on 7th of January 2026 by 14.00 PM CAT / 15.00 PM EAT. Applications received later than the stated date and time will not be considered.

We will award a total of 15 Innovation grants during the second Call for Proposals.

It is expected that the assessment process of applications will take around four months, therefore expect to hear from us in April/May 2026. An announcement will also be made on the Power2Voices platform for you to check your emails.

Requests for additional clarifications can be sent to the following email: action.lab@aueuyouth.com

Newsletter

Sign up to know about the programme’s opportunities and events.

Stay connected

Follow us and get involved!

This website has been prepared with the financial assistance of the European Commission. The views expressed herein are those of the consultants and therefore in no way reflects the official opinion of the European Commission.

Newsletter

Sign up to know about the programme’s opportunities and events.

Stay connected

Follow us and get involved!

This website has been prepared with the financial assistance of the European Commission. The views expressed herein are those of the consultants and therefore in no way reflects the official opinion of the European Commission.

© 2024 - 2028 - AU-EU Youth Lab - All Rights Reserved