Deadline: 4-Apr-25
The United Nations Development Programme is announcing this call for proposals to award low value grants to locally registered non-governmental organizations, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and community groups.
To support youth-based innovation and entrepreneurship, UNDP with funding from Mastercard Foundation is implementing a Young Africa Innovates (YAI) Programme to generate, select and scale innovative youth-led solutions, which should contribute to employment and strengthen the innovation ecosystem.
There is a particular focus on young people, particularly targeting those who do not usually benefit from traditional innovation initiatives (atypical actors), and marginalized young people including women, persons living in rural communities, and persons with disabilities. The programme will utilize a low-value grant model to stimulate innovation and scale up impact towards inclusive development.
The YAI programme aims to engage over 5,000 innovators across Ghana. These will be individuals actively working on innovative solutions and will facilitate the rapid validation, testing, and scaling of more than 500 unique solutions.
The 2025 grant award seeks to:
- Scout, inspire and promote innovative solutions at the grassroots level across the two regions – Eastern and Greater Accra.
- Systematically develop capacity and platforms among local communities, civil society groups, and other stakeholders as a key driver of innovation.
Eligibility Criteria
- Applications must be submitted by duly registered and legally recognised entities; including associations, NGOs, CSOs and CBOs. Applying entities must have a solid management team, and demonstrate strong evidence of credibility and experience in working with grassroots innovation.
- To qualify for the grant award, the applicant must:
- be a non-governmental or non-profit organization with legal mandate to operate in Ghana;
- have at least a good financial standing and a sound safeguarding policy.
- have a dedicated human resource capacity for the assignment.
- have at least 2 years’ experience and proven records of working with communities and marginalized groups (including youth, women and persons with disabilities)
- have at least 2 years’ experience designing and facilitating programmes with a focus on grassroots innovation and upskilling youth, PWDs and women to gain decent employment.
- have at least 2 years’ experience of working with other grassroots community organizations in Ghana, particularly in organizing community engagement events and related activities.
- have at least 1 year experience showing a strong ability to scout and identify potential innovators, (innovations with the potential to score highly on value, impact, scale) coupled with excellent networking skills to build relationships within grassroots communities.
- Have demonstrated commitment to ethical practices in scouting and recruiting, ensuring fairness, and transparency.
For more information, visit UNDP.