Deadline: 26-Jul-2024
The Ghana Youth Activity addendum seeks to support a local Ghanaian applicant with a defined youth-led and locally-led program to empower Ghanaian youth to advance their own social, economic, and civic development through improved employability, improved access to essential services, and strengthened civic engagement.
USAID seeks to support an applicant whose proposed program reflects the Positive Youth Development (PYD) approach and who can independently identify and address new and impactful interventions.
Purpose
- The purpose of the Ghana Youth Activity is to empower Ghanaian youth to advance their own social, economic, and civic development. The theory of change for the Ghana Youth Activity is: If youth employability, youth’s access to essential services, and youth civic engagement are improved, then youth will be able to advance their own social, economic, and civic development.
- The Ghana Youth Activity is a youth-led and locally-led activity that incorporates a cross-sectoral approach to youth empowerment. While its focus is to empower youth and improve their agency at the community level, it also seeks to strengthen the capacity of youth-led and youth-serving organizations and Government of Ghana agencies.
- The integrated and multi-sector design of the activity addresses the multifaceted nature of the challenges Ghanaian youth face and supports cross-sectoral, positive youth development outcomes. This approach to youth empowerment promotes efficiencies and facilitates innovation to create synergies that go beyond what any one sector or system might achieve working in isolation.
Objectives
- Youth employability improved. The Ghana Youth Activity is designed to advance skills in key foundational areas required for youth to improve their suitability for paid employment: improved educational attainment, market-driven technical and vocational skills, and soft skills.
- Educational attainment for youth improved. The applicant’s program should include accelerated learning programs that improve youth’s literacy and numeracy skills, particularly those of out-of-school youth. Partnership with the Government of Ghana’s Ministry of Education’s Complementary Education Agency (CEA) is critical to create sustainable and flexible pathways to further educational attainment or transition to employment for youth at different stages of education and different ages.
- Technical and vocational skills that enable youth to meet market demand improved. The applicant’s program must identify how it will engage the private sector to identify market demand skills and emerging labor opportunities as well as TVET providers that are offering training/certification aligned with local market needs. Applicants are encouraged to consider multiple and innovative approaches to skill development programming to provide different pathways and options for youth. Target skills should address local market needs and include entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and digital literacy to support youth that are un-/underemployed. Government of Ghana agencies that should be considered for partnership include the Youth Employment Agency, National Service Scheme, National Youth Authority, and Ministry of Youth & Sports. The applicant should also consider working with youth-led and youth-serving organizations.
- Soft skills of youth advanced. The applicant’s program must include an approach that improves the ability of youth to interact effectively with others in the workplace but also in other domains of life, including life planning, positive parenting, and financial planning. Applicants are encouraged to consider the engagement of both youth and the private sector to identify the most critical lacking skills. Effective approaches to soft skill improvement interventions and partnership with the CEA are encouraged.
- Youth access to essential services improved. The Ghana Youth Activity is designed to improve youth access to essential services in three key areas: health care, financial services, and digital services.
- Access to youth-friendly health care services expanded. The applicant’s program description should address how it will raise youth awareness of the importance and availability of preventive and timely health care (e.g., sexual and reproductive health, family planning, mental health and wellbeing) that is safe for youth and ‘stigma-free’. In addition, applicants are strongly encouraged to focus on youth access to existing health programming (through intentional referrals and/or layering of services) and improved capacity of youth-serving organizations to deliver these services. Applicants are encouraged to consider partnerships with the Ghana Health Service, Ministry of Health, Christian Health Association of Ghana and other non governmental organizations
- Access to youth-friendly financial services expanded. The applicant’s program description should focus on improving access to and availability of youth-friendly financial services (such as credit, seed funds, savings and loan services) for youth entrepreneurs and those pursuing entrepreneurial ventures. Characteristics of youth-friendly financial products include low or no fees, ease of digital/mobile access, and reduced documentation barriers to enrollment. Engagement with both the Government of Ghana’s Youth Employment Agency and Ghana Enterprises Agency is encouraged for interventions in this area.
- Access to high-quality digital services improved. The applicant’s program should include an approach to improve youth access to safe and reliable digital information across thematic areas such as health, education, and civic engagement. Approaches may include increasing youth access to mobile and internet services, especially for rural youth. For young entrepreneurs, training services may be provided on the use of digital and social media marketing platforms to improve their entrepreneurial and income generation efforts. These holistic, digital services will strengthen youth capacity to make safer, better informed decisions overall.
- Youth civic engagement strengthened. The Ghana Youth Activity is designed to strengthen civic engagement through improved social cohesion, youth engagement in governance and civic affairs, and the implementation of youth-led solutions for community development.
- Youth promotion of social cohesion improved. The applicant’s program description should describe how it will transform relationships across potentially conflicting groups and build social trust and cohesion, especially among youth populations. Applications should consider the use of platforms such as media/social media and interventions such as peer-to-peer mediation to mitigate conflict, encourage critical thinking skills, counter misinformation and disinformation, and reduce youth susceptibility to recruitment by Violent Extremist Organizations (VEOs). In addition, the program should encourage and support youth efforts/initiatives in peacebuilding in their communities.
- Youth engagement in governance and civic affairs increased. The applicant’s program should focus on increasing the voice and role of youth in decision-making, including their ability to serve as advocates in their communities and throughout all levels of government. Applicants are encouraged to include in their approach youth-focused networks and support for youth in leadership roles that address conflict prevention and post-conflict resolution. Youth engagement with the state as citizens is also critical, including the role of effective engagement and improved service delivery across sectors (health, education, etc.) for youth.
- Youth-led solutions for community development implemented. The applicant’s program description should detail its plan to improve the leadership skills of youth and youth-led organizations to identify and address community issues, including peaceful dispute settlement. This could also include awareness-raising interventions on positive and negative socio-cultural norms and monitoring of government district-level interventions using ICT solutions. Applicants should consider the role of youth networks, including how to increase the capacity of existing networks and build new ones.
- Youth agency strengthened. The applicant’s program description should also focus on a crosscutting objective: strengthening youth agency through an improved enabling environment that encourages and recognizes youth and their assets. Key actors should include parents, community members, and Government of Ghana representatives at all levels (national, regional, district, and community). This crosscutting objective aligns with the Positive Youth Development approach that is expected to be utilized for this activity
Programmatic Priorities
- USAID/Ghana requests applicants to incorporate the following programmatic priorities in designing their program.
- Positive Youth Development
- Proposed activities are based on the input of youth, fit the Positive Youth Development (PYD) 25 framework, and focus on the following two distinct age bands: Adolescence (15-19 years) and Emerging Adulthood (20-24 years).
- Conflict Sensitivity
- Proposed interventions account for the prevailing context and account for how the context and the interventions affect each other, either positively or negatively (SaferWorld). The Conflict Sensitivity Consortium’s definition of conflict sensitive is: “A conflict sensitive approach involves gaining a sound understanding of the two-way interaction between activities and context and acting to minimize negative impacts and maximize positive impacts of intervention on conflict, within an organization’s given priorities/objectives (mandate).”
- Inclusive Development
- USAID/Ghana promotes a nondiscriminatory, inclusive, and integrated approach that brings those with limited access to benefits, legal protections, or social participation into development processes and ensuing benefits. Marginalized and underrepresented communities (and youth from these communities) are central to design and implementation of interventions. Fulbe youth, girls and women, youth living with disabilities, and youth living with HIV/AIDS are among marginal populations to be included.
- Do No Harm
- USAID/Ghana’s programs cannot put individuals or groups at increased risk of harm or raise their public profile in a way that could lead to backlash. This applies especially to contexts in which violence, discrimination, stigma, and criminalization affect youth. Under “do no harm”, safety and security concerns of participants are addressed, such as holding meetings in safe places, not displaying names or photographs of vulnerable beneficiaries or groups, using marking and branding exemptions in high-exposure activities, and training implementing partners on safety of their staff and of vulnerable youth.
- Localization
- The sustainability of the Ghana Youth Activity is linked intrinsically to a local systems approach to creating lasting change in Ghana. In addition to making the award to a local Ghanaian organization, interventions will put local actors, including Government of Ghana agencies, local organizations and youth, in the lead, strengthen local systems and foster local capacity strengthening. Marginalized youth will be partners and leaders in starting and continuing interventions to advance their development. Programs must include an initial community mapping of youth-friendly services and the involvement of youth-led/youth-serving organizations in implementation.
- Climate Change and Resilience
- Climate change and resilience is expected to be incorporated and addressed throughout the design of the activity. In addition, it will be a fundamental consideration during the co-creation design process.
- Private Sector
- Applicants are encouraged to identify how they will strategize, align, collaborate and implement their program with private sector actors. In particular, the design should incorporate private sector engagement to support increased employability and digital and financial services for marginalized youth. Programs should identify how the private sector will be utilized to increase scale, sustainability and contribute to developing models for expanding interventions to other areas.
- Positive Youth Development
Funding Information
- Subject to the availability of funds, USAID/Ghana anticipates supporting one assistance type award of $10-$15 million over the life of the award. USAID reserves the right to award more or fewer awards than this estimate and is not obligated to make any awards.
- USAID anticipates awarding the five-year Ghana Youth Activity in or before mid-November, 2024. However, submitted concepts are not required to be for a five-year implementation period.
Target Population and Geographic Area
- The target population for this activity are marginalized, “forgotten” youth ages 15-24 in rural and/or urban communities, especially girls and young women, people with disabilities, and other disadvantaged groups. This demographic is targeted because of several interrelated factors 24 including youth NEET, low educational attainment, and high teenage pregnancy. Programming should be adapted, as appropriate, to different age bands: adolescents (ages 15-19) and emerging adults (ages 20-24). Initially, the geographic focus area are the 17 districts in the ZOI in northern Ghana, with expansion to other regions with high rates of NEET, such as Savannah, Ashanti, and Greater Accra regions. Conflict-affected areas in which there is a lack of social cohesion may also be considered. The applicant should propose the estimated total number of youth that will benefit from this activity.
Eligibility Criteria
- Eligibility is limited to local entities. A local entity means an individual, a corporation, a nonprofit organization, or another body of persons that— (1) is legally organized under the laws of; (2) has as its principal place of business or operations in; and (3) is (A) majority owned by individuals who are citizens or lawful permanent residents of; and (B) managed by a governing body the majority of who are citizens or lawful permanent residents of a country receiving assistance. For purposes of this definition, “majority-owned’ and “-managed by” include, without limitation, beneficiary interests and the power, either directly or indirectly, whether exercised or exercisable, to control the election, appointment, or tenure of the organization’s managers or a majority of the organization’s governing body by any means.”
- All interested organizations are restricted to submitting one Concept Note as the Prime Applicant. If more than one Concept Note is received with the same Prime Applicant, USAID will seek written clarification from the relevant entity regarding which Concept Note should be considered for review. If clarification is not resolved within five (5) business days, all Concept Notes submitted by the Applicant will be deemed ineligible.
- Please note that Applicants can serve as sub-awardees or supporting partners on multiple Concept Notes under this Addendum.
- Applicants must have established financial management, monitoring and evaluation processes, internal control systems, and policies and procedures that comply with established U.S. Government Standards, laws, and regulations.
- USAID will perform a risk assessment in accordance with 2 CFR 200.205 to determine the responsibility of Applicants considered for award. USAID may determine that a pre-award survey is required to conduct an examination that will serve as the basis for determining whether the prospective recipient had the necessary organization, experience, accounting and operational controls, financial resources, and technical skills – or the ability to obtain them – in order to achieve the program objectives and to comply with the terms and conditions of the award. Depending on the results of the risk assessment, USAID will determine to execute the award, not execute the award, or to award with “specific conditions” (2 CFR 200.207).
- USAID welcomes applications from organizations that have not previously received financial assistance from USAID.
For more information, visit Grants.gov.