Call for proposals: Implementing Partner to co-design and implement the ILO’s Youth -To- Youth Fund (Y2Yf) model in Addis Ababa and Somali region

In Ethiopia, the ILO, in partnership with UNICEF and UNHCR, is implementing a new activity area entitled “Advancing Young People’s Engagement and Meaningful Participation in the PROSPECTS Partnership.” The objective is to advance young people’s engagement and meaningful participation in the PROSPECTS programme by partnering with young leaders, putting young people at the front and centre, and integrating their engagement in our interventions and outputs.

Young people in forced displacement contexts, particularly refugees, and those who are internally displaced (IDPs), face specific legal, policy and economic constraints that limit their opportunities to realise their rights and access decent work, banking services, education, skills development, and career development opportunities. Their lives, education and career prospects are often disrupted. Conflict and forced displacement also negatively impact young people’s cognitive and physiological development – often at a particularly critical age and stage of their development.

In response to these pressing challenges, one of the outcomes of the “Advancing Young People’s Engagement and Meaningful Participation in the PROSPECTS Partnership” activity area is to skill and empower young people to be effective partners and to lead and drive change in their communities and their lives. In line with this outcome the ILO is looking for an implementing partner to support the design of the ILO’s Youth-to-Youth Fund (Y2Yf) model, tailor it to the needs of youth in forced displacement contexts in Ethiopia and implement it in Addis Ababa and the Somali region. Y2Yf is a competitive grant scheme designed to engage an implementing partner to support 10-12 youth-led organizations with funding, capacity building and direct technical assistance to execute innovative, small-scale projects on youth entrepreneurship as a means to create decent employment for youth.