Call for Proposals: AU-EU Youth Action Lab Entrepreneurship Grants (30,000 EURO awarded to support economic opportunities of young people)
Closing Date: 7 January 2026
Call for Proposals: AU-EU Youth Action Lab Entrepreneurship Grants (30,000 EURO awarded to support economic opportunities of young people)
Is your organisation or (social) enterprise passionate about young people taking control of their own future?
Call for Proposals
The Entrepreneurship Grants aim to provide support to youth actors that work on strengthening the economic opportunities for young people!
The Entrepreneurship Grants provide grants opportunities for 30,000 EURO for which individual youth organisations and consortiums of youth organisations can apply to.
What Entrepreneurship Grants mean with supporting economic opportunities of young people?
The grants focus on youth-led actions that address a three-fold selection of key challenges young people face around the world in their economic participation and taking control of their own future:
- Access to skills development opportunities that are according to the needs of young people and local economic realities and support the start-up of new youth-led enterprises.
- The responsible growth of youth-led (social) enterprises that consider social and environmental boundaries.
- An enabling environment for young entrepreneurs to start and grow their business.
During this grant opportunities call for proposals the focus will be on the second topic: The responsible growth of youth-led that combines its social or environmental mission with income-generating activities.
AU-EU Youth Action Lab ask interested youth organisations to submit their ideas to advance responsible growth of their social enterprises in order to sustain their social entrepreneurship objectives for young people and their organisations.
What can you expect when you receive a grant?
- Your organisation will receive financial support to implement your social enterprise project with young people 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) or Cooperative with a clear social/environmental mission. The social enterprise activity exists to sustain and advance that mission, not as a side business.
- 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 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, a clear governance structure and has been operating for at least 12 months.
- You can show evidence of community programmes and revenue-generating activities.
- Income-generating activities: you run a trading arm or enterprise with income that supplements donor support and contributes to financial sustainability of the organisation.
- Social/environmental impact: you can demonstrate measurable impact (jobs for youth, improved livelihoods, affordable services, environmental gains). You have at least basic systems for tracking and reporting results.
- Profit use & reinvestment: all or most surpluses are reinvested into the mission or scaling of the enterprise. No private shareholder payments of profit.
- 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.
What kind of activities can you propose?
Your proposal can have a diversity of activities that build upon each other. AU-EU Youth Action Lab is excited to receive your ideas!
As general guidance, AU-EU Youth Action Lab can identify three broad types of activities:
Develop, test and implement new skills development curriculum for young people
For example: a new curriculum module that fills a distinct gap identified in advancing young people’s economic participation.
Scale-up and existing skills development delivery to reach a wider diversity of young people
For example: innovative methods to make skills development curriculums available to young people in remote areas.
Nurturing the exchange and coordination between (youth-led) skills development providers, local businesses and/or government actors
For example: Setting up learning exchanges between local businesses, young people and skills development providers.
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.
[Manual de financiamento em Portuguêse | Manuel de financement en Français ] - Budget Template
[Modelo de orçamento em portuguêse ] - Make sure you meet the eligibility criteria.
- Develop your proposal as individual organisation or in collaboration with other youth organisations.
- Sample Application
[Exemplo de candidatura em Portuguêse | Exemple de candidature en Français] - Submit your application by deadline
Please ensure you register to the correct grant type and language. You will not be able to switch after you register here.
Click Here To Apply
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