What is the Youth-to-Youth Fund?

The Youth Entrepreneurship Facility is an initiative to “unleash African entrepreneurship”. It is a collaboration between the Africa Commission, the Youth Employment Network (YEN) and the International Labour Organization (ILO).

The Youth-to-Youth Fund component of the Facility offers local youth-led organizations an opportunity to actively participate in the development of youth entrepreneurship in their communities. It supports small-scale youth entrepreneurship development projects implemented by youth-led organizations.

The Youth-to-Youth Fund was created as a mechanism to identify, test and promote innovative entrepreneurship solutions to youth employment challenges.

This goal is accomplished through a competitive grant scheme for youth-led organizations to propose innovative project ideas on how to create entrepreneurship and business opportunities for their peers. The organizations with the most innovative project ideas receive a grant and complementary capacity building to help them implement their projects and test the viability of their ideas. The scheme is implemented simultaneously in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

The Fund also aims to facilitate the emergence of youth-led organizations and the emergence of district-wide youth enterprise development networks and platforms in the program countries.

Thematic Focus
In 2011, the Youth-to-Youth Fund in Tanzania and Uganda will focus on Young Women's Entrepreneurship Development. The objective of the Fund is to identify implementable project ideas that contribute specifically to the development of entrepreneurship and business opportunities for young women. In Kenya there is a Green Window for proposals that support the support the establishment or expansion of green enterprises or businesses.

What kind of proposals are we looking for?

Eligible Proposals
The proposals should include project ideas that contribute to the promotion and/or development of entrepreneurship and business opportunities for youth as a means to create employment for themselves and other youth. The winning organizations, through their projects, are expected to create opportunities for youth to start or improve their small enterprises or other entrepreneurial initiatives. The proposed project ideas should thus focus on how to empower and enable young people to establish enterprises, whether micro or more growth oriented.

The project ideas should address some of challenges that are faced by young people who are, or aspire to be, entrepreneurs. These include for example:
• Household and other responsibilities that lead to limitations in time and availability
• Lack of support and encouragement from the family and society at large
• Limited education
• Lack of confidence
• Lack of experience and skills
• Lack of social capital / networks
• Lack of access to financial capital for a variety of reasons
• Challenges to register and formalize their enterprises

Approaches to tackle these obstacles can be found for example in the following areas:
• Access to support services: providing access to business development services (BDS) and information such as market information, management, financial literacy, asset building, e-business assistance, mentoring, product development and technology advice.

• Capacity building: providing or facilitating training on vocational or life skills to enhance the competency level as well as confidence of the young people.

• Access to finance: linking youth with financial institutions. Providing young people with the tools, capacity and confidence to request financial services for the creation or expansion of their own enterprises, or working with the financial institutions to make their services more available to young entrepreneurs.

• Building the social capital: facilitating the building of mechanisms that help the young people to increase their networks, client base, support systems as well as market access and negotiation power, such as forming or joining networks, associations, or cooperatives. For example, support to association building for young women entrepreneurs.

• Formalization: supporting the registration and formalization process of existing micro- and small scale businesses run by young entrepreneurs.

• Value chain linkages: creating links between existing businesses, or existing and new enterprises by young people, developing and strengthening value chains, identifying where the upcoming enterprises could add the most value.

• Social entrepreneurship development: facilitating the creation or expansion of social enterprises (i.e. enterprises/ventures that use entrepreneurial principles to address a social problem or community challenge and achieve social change) led by young women and men.

• Household enterprise development: facilitating and enabling the creation or extension of household enterprises to enable the young people, and especially young women, to work from their home.

Note: The above mentioned challenges and intervention areas are only examples, meant to help to explain the general purpose and goal of the Y2Y Fund. The proposals are not limited to these areas. There are many other challenges and intervention areas not mentioned here which might inspire innovative and unique solutions.

In Tanzania and Uganda the proposals should address and offer solutions to the challenges that touch young young women in particular and empower and enable them to become entrepreneurs.

In Kenya  the target group is both young women and men. Preference is given to projects that provide opportunities for eco-friendly entrepreneurs to grow their businesses.

Project Duration
Projects in Tanzania and Uganda must be completed within 18 months of receipt of the first payment of the grant. In Kenya, the maximum implementation period is 12 months.

Co-funding
The applicant is required to contribute a minimum of 25% (calculated of the requested grant amount) as a counterpart contribution towards the total project costs . This contribution can be monetary or in kind (such as staff time, office space, office equipment, machinery used in training).

Language
Proposals are only accepted in English. Applications submitted in any language other than English will not be considered.

Who can apply for the Youth-to-Youth Fund?

Eligible applicants are officially registered non-governmental, non-partisan, not-for-profit youth-led organizations. By "youth-led organizations" the Youth-to-Youth fund refers to formally registered membership organizations, such as business membership organizations (BMOs), young entrepreneurs' associations, and other non-governmental organzations (NGOs), community-based organizations (CBOs), associations, networks, cooperatives, and coalitions in which young people between the ages of 15 and 35 represent the majority of the management/decision making body (i.e. trustees' board, board of directors, management team etc.). Young people in these organizations have the decision making power and they are the ones approving the use of project funds.

The project manager of the proposed project must be a young person between the ages of 18 and 30 (18-35 in Kenya). He/she should be the one submitting the proposal, and will be considered the Youth Entrepreneurship Facility's key counterpart in the applicant organization. He/she is expected to attend all the training provided by the Fund as part of the application process.

Grants are not given to individuals or non-registered organizations, as funds can only be disbursed to legal entities.

The applying organization or one of the implementing partner organizations have to be physically located in the target region(s)/district(s).

Current Y2Y Fund grantee organizations are not eligible to apply during the implementions period of their project funded by the Y2Y Fund.

How are proposals selected?

Selection Process
There is a 3-step, transparent selection process in place:

Step I: Selection of the most innovative proposals.
Youth-led organizations are invited to submit the "Short Proposals for Innovative Ideas". A diverse national panel of independent experts will select the most promising eligible proposals based on pre-determined criteria (see below) to continue to the second round as "semi-finalists".

Step II: Verification of the eligibility of the organization and the proposal, and ensuring implementation potential.
The semi-finalist organizations will be visited by YEF staff in order to verify their eligibility. Those confirmed to meet the eligibility criteria will be invited to a capacity building workshop, after which they will submit a more detailed and extensive "Full Proposal for the Implementation Plan". The full proposals will be assessed by a panel consisting of YEF staff and external experts from the Round I Assessor Panel. Eligible proposals (see eligibility criteria above) that demonstrate realistic implementation potential will continue on to the third round as "finalists".

Step III: Final Selection by an Independent Jury
The finalists will be invited to a Finalist Showcase and Capacity Building event during which a high level Jury will interview and select the grant winners. The showcase event also serves as an opportunity for the finalists to present their project ideas to a larger audience for networking and fundraising purposes.

The grantees will be selected on a purely competitive basis. Fairness and transparency of the process will be ensured by:
• enforcing a clear, pre-determined selection criteria (see below) and steps
• removing all applicant organization information before the short proposals are reviewed (blind review)
• retaining a diverse selection committee comprised of external, independent experts
• evaluating each proposal independently by at least two expert reviewers
• retaining an independent final jury, and
• making the results open and available.

Selection Criteria Primary Selection Criteria:

a) Innovativeness
- Compared with what is being done currently in the country and specifically in the target region(s) to support entrepreneurship development, is this idea new and different?
- Is the proposed project idea innovative/unique?
     o Presenting a new technology or a way of using existing technologies?
     o Bringing partners together that do not typically work together in this area?
     o Targeting a new sector, not typically covered by such an intervention?
     o Combining components or methodologies that are typically not combined?
     o Including additional services to a typical approach?
     o Including other innovative features?

b) Demonstrated relevance of the proposed solution
- Does the proposed project benefit young women?
     o How many young women are expected to benefit from the project?
- Does the project contribute to development of entrepreneurship and business opportunities for young women?
     o How many businesses are expected to be started by young women as a result of the project?
     o How many existing businesses led by young women are expected to expand their operations as a result of the project?
- Do the created enterprises employ other youth?
     o How many new jobs for young people are expected to be created by the businesses startedexpanded as a result of the project?
- Is there a solid rationale for the chosen approach?
     • Is the problem analysis accurate: Is there a clear understanding of the problems that the targeted youth are facing and the roots of those problems?
     • Does the proposal meet the needs of the identified beneficiaries?

c) Replicability
- Can the solution potentially be replicated elsewhere in similar or other contexts?
- Is the idea potentially interesting for others to copy?
- Can larger numbers of young people be reached using the proposed approach?

Secondary Selection Criteria:

d) Implementation Potential
• Is the implementation plan likely to lead to the anticipated results?
• Can the project realistically be implemented within the timeframe and with the available resources?
• Do the organizations involved have the capacity to implement the project OR can they realistically build their capacity/ engage the partners needed to implement the project?

e) Sustainability
• Do the results and impact of the project have potential to continue after the initial implementation period?
• Ownership and community involvement
• Is the project supported and "owned" by the community it targets?
• Does the project create synergies, emphasize community contribution and utilize the strengths and the resources of the respective communities?
• Does it involve the beneficiaries (young women) in its design and implementation processes?

f) Partnerships Developed
• Did the organization partner with other stakeholders in project design and/or does it propose to do so in the project implementation?
• Does the project bring different stakeholders together?
• Does it have the potential to initiate strategic alliances between geographical areas, institutions or sectors?

g) Inclusion of Young Women
• Does the project promote inclusion and active participation of young women?
• Will young women be involved in the planning and/or implemention of the project?
• Will young women beneficiaries (if any) have access to different services provided by the project?

Timeline and how to apply

Deadline for receiving short proposals: July 3, 2011
Notification of semi-finalist proposals: July, 2011
Site-visits: July 2011
Proposal writing workshop: August 2011
Deadline for receiving full proposals: August 2011
Notification of finalist proposals: September 2011
Finalist showcase and capacity building & notification of awards: October 2011
Signing of grant agreements: November 2011

All applicants must submit the Short Proposal Form in English and email it (as  PDF or Microsoft Word Document attachment) before the deadline of July 3, 2011.

In Tanzania send applications to yefafrica@ilo.org before the deadline of July 3, 2011. In the subject field, please write: Tanzania Y2Yf, short proposal, [name of your organization].

In Uganda send applications to yefuganda@ilo.org before the deadline of July 3, 2011. In the subject field, please write: Uganda Y2Yf, short proposal, [name of your organization].

Kenya applications should be directed to KCDF: vijana@kcdf.or.ke on or before the deadline of June 30, 2011 at 5 pm. In the subject field, please write: Kenya Y2Yf, short proposal, [name of your organization].

What do the grantees get?

Grant Package
As part of the "grant package", the competitively selected grantees will receive funding between USD $5,000 to $20,000 as well as technical support and services (such as mentoring, capacity building and access to other, possible partner organizations). The grant packages will be based on a needs assessment and specifically tailored to the grantee organizations.

Capacity building will be provided to shortlisted applicants in every step of the application process. Eligible finalists will also receive a software donation and training on ICT from Microsoft.

In this second call for proposals, 5-15 youth-led organizations will receive a grant in Tanzania. As part of the selection process, 15-20 organizations will receive training and technical assistance to strengthen their capacity.

The 2011 Y2Y Fund is sponsored by the Africa Commission and the BASF Social Foundation, with Microsoft providing the grantees with software and ICT training. The fund is implemented by the Youth Employment Network and the ILO in partnership with the Foundation for Civil Society.

Grant Agreement
Following the decision to award a grant, the grantees will be offered a contract based on ILO's standard grant agreement. The agreement will, in particular, establish the following rights and obligations:

• The grantee will receive the funding in 2-3 disbursements conditional upon approved technical and financial reports.

• The YEF Secretariat reserves the right to contract external and independent auditors for carrying out expenditure verifications of at least 5% of the projects.

• If the Grantee fails to implement the project as stated in the agreement or fulfill other terms of the agreement, the YEF secretariat reserves the right to suspend payments and/or to terminate the agreement. The grant may be reduced, and/or the YEF Secretariat may demand full or partial repayment of the amounts already paid.