AU-EU Youth Lab Entrepreneurship Grants 2025: Empowering Youth-Led Enterprises for Economic Growth

The AU-EU Youth Lab’s Entrepreneurship Grants Program offers a unique opportunity for youth-led organizations, social enterprises, and individuals dedicated to empowering young people to take charge of their economic future. With the goal of supporting initiatives that enhance young people’s economic participation, this program provides grants to foster youth-led actions addressing key challenges faced by youth globally in relation to entrepreneurship and economic development.

Focus Areas of the Entrepreneurship Grants

The grants are designed to support youth initiatives tackling three core challenges in fostering economic opportunities for young people:

1. Access to Skills Development Opportunities: The program emphasizes the need for youth to gain skills that align with both their personal aspirations and the realities of their local economic landscapes. This includes promoting the development of new youth-led enterprises, enhancing the employability of young people, and ensuring these opportunities are relevant to their communities.
2. Responsible Growth of Youth-Led Enterprises: The grants aim to support the sustainable and responsible growth of youth-led (social) enterprises. This involves incorporating social and environmental considerations into business practices, ensuring that young entrepreneurs operate within ethical frameworks while driving positive change in their communities.
3. Enabling Environment for Youth Entrepreneurs: Building an enabling ecosystem is essential for young entrepreneurs to thrive. The program supports initiatives that create the right conditions for youth to start and grow businesses, facilitating access to resources, mentorship, and networks that help young people succeed in their ventures.

Benefits of the Entrepreneurship Grants

Selected organizations will receive financial support ranging from 30,000 to 50,000 EUR to implement projects that advance skills development among youth. Additionally, they will become part of a broader platform that facilitates peer exchange, allowing organizations to share their solutions and collaborate with decision-makers, stakeholders, and other youth organizations across Africa and Europe.

Further, grant recipients will gain access to mentorship and capacity-building resources tailored to their specific needs. This support ensures that organizations are not only funded but also equipped to expand and scale their impact effectively.

Funding and Eligible Activities

The program’s funding covers a wide range of activities aimed at strengthening youth economic participation. These can include:

• Developing, Testing, and Implementing New Curricula: Proposals may involve creating innovative educational content that fills gaps in advancing youth economic participation, such as introducing a new curriculum module tailored to specific local needs.
• Scaling Up Existing Programs: Grants can support efforts to expand and reach more diverse groups of young people, particularly those in remote or underserved areas, through innovative delivery methods and platforms.
• Fostering Exchange and Coordination Among Key Stakeholders: Organizations may propose activities that facilitate collaboration between local businesses, youth, and skills development providers. For instance, this could involve organizing learning exchanges between youth-led businesses and other stakeholders to exchange knowledge and foster collaboration.

These activities can overlap and combine, allowing for flexibility in the proposal’s approach, as long as they align with the core objectives of strengthening youth economic participation.

Eligibility Criteria

To qualify for the AU-EU Youth Lab’s Entrepreneurship Grants, the applying organization or enterprise must meet the following criteria:

• Youth-led: The organization or enterprise must be led by young people aged 18 to 35, where the decision-making power lies primarily with youth.
• Social Enterprises or Enterprises: The applying entity must either be a social enterprise or a regular enterprise with a strong social impact. Social enterprises are businesses that aim to create positive social change alongside financial sustainability.
• Legally Registered: The organization must be formally registered, have a bank account, and have a governance structure in place, ensuring accountability and transparency.
• Located in One of the 12 Eligible Countries: The applicant must be based in one of the African Youth Action Lab focus countries, which include Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia (Somaliland region), Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
• Minimum Financial History: The organization should have a history of managing funds or grants, with a minimum annual budget or past grants of 10,000 EUR.

Application Deadline and Process

The deadline for submitting applications is February 19, 2025. Organizations or social enterprises meeting the criteria are encouraged to apply and take advantage of this opportunity to secure funding, share their ideas, and access valuable resources that will help them contribute to the economic empowerment of young people across the globe.

For further details, visit the AU-EU Youth Lab official website to learn more about the application process and get started on your journey to making a tangible impact in your community and beyond.