Supporting Civil Society Organisations Piloting Initiatives of the AU-EU Youth Cooperation Hub

Deadline: 21 June 2019

The European Union (EU) has announced a call for proposals to strengthen youth as actors of governance and development, and foster youth inclusion and empowerment by piloting proposals emerging from the AU-EU Youth Cooperation Hub.

Program Lots

The program is divided into seven lots:

• Lot 1 Culture, Arts & Sports (CAS):
  • To support young sports and creative professionals, by promoting collaboration and enabling access to investment, capacity building and opportunities.
  • Existing and emerging CAS projects and creations are promoted, with attention to indigenous forms of CAS and showing the potential of CAS in building bridges between African & Europe.
  • Networks of young CAS professionals in the AU and EU are formed and reinforced through cultural exchanges and intercultural dialogues.
  • Capacities of young CAS professionals are built, through skills development and empowerment activities.
  • Innovative means of investment and financial support for the creative sector are promoted.
  • Socio-economic benefits of the creative industry and of CAS are stimulated.
• Lot 2 Peace & Security:
  • To strengthen stabilisation efforts in the Lake Chad Basin through a) enhanced coordination and accountability (enabling the mapping of key basic services and causal factors for peace) and b) stronger involvement of local youth as monitors.
  • An objective, simplified overview of all efforts unfolding on the ground through the mapping of stabilisation activities in the Lake Chad Basin.
  • The capacity and role of local youth is strengthened through their involvement in the mapping and monitoring processes.
  • Data analysis, transparency, accountability and integrity are strengthened.
  • Improved coordination between stakeholders leads to better-targeted resource allocation.
• Lot 3 Governance, Accountability:
  • To enable the effective and active engagement of many more young citizens in policy and democratic processes and accountability, through digital means.
  • Citizen/community-driven approaches to transparency, accountability, social auditing and/or budget reviews, especially by youth, are promoted, through a scalable, accessible and user-friendly digital platform.
  • The platform’s tools and data management functions simplify citizens’ oversight activities and enable real-time linkages between public commitments and accountability initiatives.
  • Enhanced linkages between accountability initiatives in Africa and Europe, through an augmented model of city twinning between an AU and an EU city.
• Lot 4 Governance, Remittances:
  • With an end-objective of lower remittance costs, to increase transparency on remittance fees and expand transfer options.
  • Remittance market transparency is increased, reducing AU-EU remittance costs and improving industry standards as well as collaboration between private and public stakeholders, through a comprehensive remittance service platform.
  • The platform is citizen- and youth-centric, easy to access and user-friendly, and provides up-to-date sourcing of remittance prices.
  • The platform raises awareness of innovative and emerging remittance transfer solutions on both continents.
  • Networking events build capacities for emerging transfer solutions, help build bridges between them and support innovative solutions which are today only active on one of the two continents.
• Lot 5 Environment:
  • To contribute to the Great Green Wall Initiative and bolster efforts against desertification (mapping existing agroforestry initiatives, building capacity of women & young farmers, and initiating incentives with mobile payments for ecosystem services).
  • Information sharing and coordination between Great Green Wall (GGW) activities are enhanced through a digital map, helping visualise sustainable development projects driven by local communities.
  • Capacity and participation in climate-friendly practices is boosted through creative, youth-oriented messaging and communications.
  • Wider citizen and corporate participation in the GGW is enhanced through the possibility to finance local projects and trace impact.
  • A local and scalable payment for ecosystem services (PES) scheme for drought-tolerant tree planting results in an increase in agroforestry practices among young farmers and raises income.
  • Women and youth are empowered to show environmental leadership in their communities.
• Lot 6 Education & Skills:
  • To enhance cooperation between African and European “innovative secondary schools” and key stakeholders promoting 21st-century learning (equipping youth with relevant skills for the future job market and using cutting-edge & digital pedagogy).
  • Build a partnership between two “innovative schools”, one in Europe and one in Africa, with a focus on “21st Century skills” and “student-centred learning methods”. Joint learning, innovation, and experience-sharing are achieved through partnerships, virtual and physical mobility exchanges. Students and teachers acquire the skills, knowledge and certifications needed to continuously improve teaching and learning outcomes and to succeed in the labour market.
  • A Euro-African network of “innovative” secondary schools that equip students with “21st Century skills” (abilities, and learning dispositions required for success in today’s society and workplaces).
  • Mutual learning and sharing of best practices is achieved through networking between African and European stakeholders.
  • Informed policy recommendations are developed, advising policymakers on innovative pedagogy.
• Lot 7 Business, Jobs & Entrepreneurship:
  • To harness the job creation potential of agribusiness and renewable energy by fostering collaboration, investment, knowledge transfer, organisational support and scale-up for young incubators/accelerators of start-ups and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
  • Two or more incubators are strengthened to deliver services to young entrepreneurs in the agribusiness and renewable energy sectors. An initial group of high-potential young entrepreneurs is trained, mentored and supported, enabling their start-ups/SMEs to grow (job creation, turnover increase, partnerships) and addressing gaps in the agribusiness and renewable energy value chains. Enhanced knowledge transfer between EU and AU entrepreneurship stakeholders, focused on agribusiness and renewable energy.

Size of Grants

Any grant requested under this call for proposals must fall between the following minimum and maximum amounts:

• Lot 1: minimum amount: EUR 1 million, maximum amount: EUR 1.8 million
• Lot 2: minimum amount: EUR 1.2 million, maximum amount: EUR 1.4 million
• Lot 3: minimum amount: EUR 900,000 max. amount: EUR 1.4 million
• Lot 4: minimum amount: EUR 400.000 maximum amount: EUR 800.000
• Lot 5: minimum amount: EUR 1.2 million, maximum amount: EUR 1.6 million
• Lot 6: minimum amount: EUR 1 million, maximum amount: EUR 1.5 million
• Lot 7: minimum amount: EUR 1 million maximum amount: EUR 1.5 million

Eligibility Criteria

• Lead applicant: In order to be eligible for a grant, the lead applicant must:
  • be a legal entity and
  • be non-profit-making and
  • be a Civil Society Organisation (CSO)   or an association of CSOs and
  • be established in a Member State of the European Union  or be established in a Member State of the African Union
  • be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with the co-applicant(s) and affiliated entity(ies), not acting as an intermediary
  • The lead applicant must provide financial statements demonstrating the financial capacity necessary for carrying out the project.
  • The lead and/or co-applicant(s) must prove they have carried out a minimum of 3 projects to a total value of at least €1 million in the past 5 years.
  • either the lead applicant or one of the co-applicants must be a youth organisation.
• Co-applicant(s)
  • The lead applicant must act with a minimum of one co-applicant.
  • Co-applicants participate in designing and implementing the action, and the costs they incur are eligible in the same way as those incurred by the lead applicant.
  • Co-applicants must satisfy the eligibility criteria as applicable to the lead applicant himself.
• Affiliated Entities
  • The lead applicant and its co-applicant(s) may act with affiliated entity(ies).
  • Only the following entities may be considered as affiliated entities to the lead applicant and/or to co-applicant(s):
    • Only entities having a structural link with the applicants (i.e. the lead applicant or a co-applicant), in particular a legal or capital link.
    • This structural link encompasses mainly two notions:
      • Control, as defined in Directive 2013/34/EU on the annual financial statements, consolidated financial statements and related reports of certain types of undertakings:
        • Entities affiliated to an applicant may hence be:
          • Entities directly or indirectly controlled by the applicant (daughter companies or first-tier subsidiaries). They may also be entities controlled by an entity controlled by the applicant (granddaughter companies or second-tier subsidiaries) and the same applies to further tiers of control;
          • Entities directly or indirectly controlling the applicant (parent companies). Likewise, they may be entities controlling an entity controlling the applicant;
          • Entities under the same direct or indirect control as the applicant (sister companies).
      • Membership, i.e. the applicant is legally defined as an e.g. network, federation, association in which the proposed affiliated entities also participate or the applicant participates in the same entity (e.g. network, federation, association) as the proposed affiliated entities.

How to Apply

• The application procedure consists of two phases:
  • Concept notes
  • Full applications
• The concept note together with the declaration by the lead applicant must be submitted at the address given on the website.

Eligible Countries:

• Member State of the European Union: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom
• Member State of the African Union: People`s Democratic Republic of Algeria, Republic of Angola, Republic of Benin, Republic of Botswana, Burkina Faso, Republic of Burundi, Republic of Cameroon, Republic of Cabo Verde, Central African Republic, The Republic of Chad, Union of the Comoros, Republic of the Congo, Republic of Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of Djibouti, Arab Republic of Egypt, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, State of Eritrea, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Gabonese Republic, Republic of the Gambia, Republic of Ghana, Republic of Guinea, Republic of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Kenya, Kingdom of Lesotho, Republic of Liberia, Libya, Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Mali,Republic of Mauritania, Republic of Mauritius, Kingdom of Morocco, Republic of Mozambique, Republic of Namibia, Republic of Niger, Federal Republic of Nigeria, Republic of Rwanda, Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, Democratic Republic of sao Tome and Principe, Republic of Senegal, Republic of Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Somali Republic, Republic of South Africa, Republic of South Sudan, Republic of The Sudan, Kingdom of Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania , Togolese Republic, Tunisian Republic, Republic of Uganda, Republic of Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe.

For more information, please visit the European Commission.