Deadline: 11-Apr-25
The Youth Democracy Cohort (YDC) is launching a call for proposals for Digital Advocacy Grants to promote an open digital space allowing youth to advocate for their rights, by engaging with national governments in multi-stakeholder dialogues.
Local organisations are encouraged to propose their own working method and advocacy strategies, specially adapted to their local context. However, the action should focus on promoting youth rights in the digital sphere, influencing regulation of digital spaces, and protecting digital platforms as a space for human rights advocates. The grants will seek to achieve policy reforms or institutional changes at the local or national levels in their respective countries.
Objectives
- The objective of the YDC advocacy subgrants is to promote an open digital space allowing youth to advocate for their rights, by engaging with national governments in multi-stakeholder dialogues. Local organisations are encouraged to propose their own working method and advocacy strategies, specially adapted to their local context. However, the action should focus on promoting youth rights in the digital sphere, influencing regulation of digital spaces, and protecting digital platforms as a space for human rights advocates.
- A key focus of these advocacy efforts will be to ensure that digital spaces are safe, inclusive, and accessible for young people to navigate and claim their rights, recognising their fundamental role in civic engagement and democratic participation. The grants will seek to achieve policy reforms or institutional changes at the local or national levels in their respective countries. The advocacy points mentioned below will frame their activities.
Funding Information
- Selected organisations will receive a €25,000 grant for a nine-month project, running from June 2025 to March 2026.
Eligible Activities
- The activities can take different shapes, but must involve engagement with policy making actors or decision makers, at the national level. Applications with a clear logic of intervention will be favoured, those which demonstrate a clear plan to achieve concrete objectives that are directly linked to the problem identified.
- They recommend avoiding repetition, unnecessarily entangling different elements and setting unrealistic objectives. The advocacy project must contribute to promoting an open digital space and the defense of human rights online by strengthening policies, regulations and practices that:
- Protects an inclusive, open and safe digital space that human rights and democracy activists can use for their advocacy work
- Ensures accessibility and open data to uphold the right to access information online for transparency and democratic governance
- Counters disinformation campaigns and protects digital activists from repression, surveillance, censorship, cyber-attacks, and internet shutdowns
- Welcomes digital innovation from civil society to expand public participation
- Promotes the responsible and transparent use of AI and big data to enhance civic engagement, protect human rights and democratic processes, while addressing societal challenges.
Ineligible Activities
- The following types of activities are ineligible:
- actions concerned only or mainly with individual sponsorships for participation in workshops, seminars, conferences, congresses;
- actions concerned only or mainly with individual scholarships for studies or training courses;
- actions supporting political parties or candidates in elections;
- retroactive financing for projects already in implementation or completed;
- projects for the exclusive benefit of individuals or restricted groups of individuals.
- environmentally harmful projects will also not be financed.
Eligibility Criteria
- Organisations should comply with the following criteria:
- Be a registered legal entity;
- Be registered in one of the following countries: Senegal, Benin, Guinea, Mauritania, Togo, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad
- Organisations with limited access to funding and little experience working with larger donors are strongly encouraged to apply.
For more information, visit Youth Democracy Cohort.
