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

Detailed information on the grant opportunity and how to apply can be found in the Funding Manuals:

English, Portuguese, French.

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 organizations that seek to innovate in their own context in response to a global challenge!

The Innovation Grants provide grant opportunities of 42,000 EURO to which individual youth-led organisations can apply.

What do we mean with innovations?

We define innovation as designing, testing, adapting, scaling or improving an activity, approach, campaign, or collaboration that creates positive and lasting change for young people and their communities. 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 idea may combine several approaches. It may start locally and grow over time. It may improve an existing solution or create an entirely new one. We are excited to receive your ideas!

  1. Create tangible local impact: a positive change for young people and/or their communities in their own context.
  2. Contribute to longer-term systems, policy, or practice change related to a global challenge, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Agenda 2063, or other relevant frameworks.
  3. Demonstrate innovation by designing, testing, adapting, scaling, or improving approaches with the potential for sustainable impact and future replication.
  4. Generate learning and share knowledge with youth actors and other stakeholders across Africa and Europe.

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 manuals: English, Portuguese, French.
  • Make sure you meet the eligibility criteria;
  • Develop your proposal as an individual organisation;
  • Submit your application by 23rd of September 2026 at 13.00 PM Central African Time.

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

Join our webinars on September 03 at 13.00 PM CAT as we share about the Innovation Grants focus. There will be space for Question-and-Answers

Topic:  AU-EU Youth Action Lab: Information webinar – Entrepreneurship & Innovation grants

Click here to register in advance for this webinar.

Missed our webinar? View past presentation here: Resources

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:

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 young people  in Africa and Europe to collaborate, 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 organizations’ stability, resilience, financial security and organizational 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 organizations 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 young people 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 other grant type at the Annual Link & Learn events and through the Power2Voices online platform.

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

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. We define innovation as designing, testing, adapting, scaling or improving a new or existing activity, approach, campaign, or collaboration that creates positive and lasting change for young people and their communities. For example, your innovation could be adapting and piloting an innovative campaign to shift narratives around climate action.

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 everyone the impacts of a particular challenge can be different, they often are linked to the same root-causes. We are looking for innovative ideas to tackle intersectional and global challenges.

This means recognising that young people’s experiences are shaped by multiple and overlapping factors, such as gender, disability, geographic location, socioeconomic status, migration status, ethnicity, or other forms of identity and lived experience. As such, the Innovation Grants will focus on youth activities that have an intersectional approach. 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 42,000 EUR as grants are being offered for the full 42,000EURO. You also cannot go above 42,000 EUR as that is the maximum amount.

Your project will be funded for a duration of 12 months, from January 2027 to December 2027

All applications for the innovation grants are due on 23rd of September 2026 by 13.00 PM Central African Time.

Applications received later than the stated date and time will not be considered.

We will award a total of 13 Innovation grants during the third Call for Proposals.

It is expected that the assessment process of applications will take around three months, therefore expect to hear from us by January 2027. An announcement will also be made on the Power to Voices platform for you to check your emails.

If you have any questions or need further clarification, please contact us using the email address below. We will do our best to respond as soon as possible. However, due to the high number of enquiries and limited capacity, we are unable to guarantee response times.

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

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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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