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 50.000 EURO for which individual youth organisations and consortiums of 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 is youth-led: young people (age 18 to 35) are the decision makers.
  • 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.
  • Your annual budget or grants managed in the past should be a minimum of 10.000 EURO.

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

  • Carefully read the funding manual. (English | French | Portuguese)
  • Make sure you meet the eligibility criteria.
  • Develop your proposal as individual organisation or in collaboration with other youth organisations.
  • Deadline for applications: 19th of February
SUBMIT APPLICATION

Need help with your application? Join our webinars in January and February 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

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 – available soon] for more information.

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

  • Your organisation is youth-led: young people (age 18 to 35) are the decision makers.
  • 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.

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.

We mean a challenge or opportunity in a certain context that finds its ‘root-cause’ in a challenge faced in diverse contexts at a global scale, for example climate change or lack of youth participation in decision-making. A challenge that is recognizable across contexts and allows for sharing and learning from experience.

This is an innovation that works on the nexus of different thematic areas and global challenges for example, an innovation that addresses the gendered impact of climate change in a given context. It could also mean grantees that work on intersectionality by connecting diverse young people in a joint youth-led solution.  We aim this way to fund innovations that can experience more difficulty in obtaining funding as they are often not fitting ‘siloed’ funding modalities.

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

NO, grants are minimum of 30,000 EUR and cannot go below that. You cannot therefore apply for grants below  30,000 EUR or above 50,000 EUR.

Your project will be funded for a duration of 12 months, from May 2025 to April 2026.

All application are due on the stated date –19 of February 2025 by midnight CET. Applications received later than the stated date and time will not be considered.

It is expected that the assessment process of applications will take about six weeks, therefore expect to hear from us beginning of April 2025. An announcement will also be made on the Power2Voices platform for you to check your emails.

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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.

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