Addis Ababa, ETHIOPIA (ILO News): The International Labour Organization (ILO), in collaboration with the Edukans Foundation, awarded the ILO Youth-to-Youth Fund (Y2YF) to ten youth-led organizations in Addis Ababa and the Somali Region. Out of 46 initial proposals received, the ten winning organizations are awarded with US$10,000 each to create employment opportunities for youth to start or improve their small enterprises or other entrepreneurial initiatives.
The ten officially registered, non-governmental and non-profit youth-led organizations: six from Addis Ababa and four from Somali region, will work with the ILO and Edukans Foundation to implement their projects. A total of 1,000 youth in a forced displaced context will receive support from the youth-led organizations to start and improve their business.
ILO - Addis Ababa, addressing winners.
©ILO/Zelalem Alemenew Desta
Addressing the winning organizations, Alexio Musindo, Country Director, ILO - Addis Ababa, emphasized their crucial role in addressing youth unemployment in Ethiopia. In his opening remarks, he said, "The ILO Y2YF brings crucial financial support to the youth-led organizations to enable young people to start and improve businesses. The innovation, creativity, design and effective implementation of this award is expected to bring an inclusive and sustainable change in the lives of young people."
Highlighting the importance of this initiative in contributing to the Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), he added, "The Youth-to-Youth Fund is being implemented for the first time in Ethiopia, youth-led organizations will play a leading role in addressing the unemployment challenge. Their contribution will be aligned to SGD 8 – Decent work and economic growth.”
Initially, the competitive process announced by the ILO received 46 proposals, out of which 16 youth-led organizations made it to the pre-selection phase. The shortlisted organizations received assistance to refine their projects through a proposal writing workshop. ILO and Edukans Foundation carried out a capacity need assessment with shortlisted organizations to review their potential and to strategize engagement in terms of technical support.
The final winners of the ILO Y2YF were identified through a pitch competition where a panel of judges selected the top ten most impactful proposals.
Recollecting the long journey of these organizations from proposal submission, technical assistance provision, pitching and rigorous evaluation and selection processes, Jean-Yves Barba, Chief Technical Advisor of the ILO PROSPECTS Ethiopia, said, “We aimed to select youth-led organizations that combine multiple programme components focusing on capacity building, improving business, access to finance, digitization, marketing of businesses to maximize their impact on labour market outcomes for youth. For young Ethiopians accessing the job market is a challenge which requires capacitating youth-led organizations with tools and resources to promote entrepreneurship”.
Beyond the funding, the winning organizations will also benefit from capacity building and technical assistance to effectively implement their innovative youth-focused entrepreneurship projects.
Marta Tsehay, National Programme Officer for ILO PROSPECTS in Ethiopia, highlighted the relevance of the fund, “Y2YF is a unique competitive grant for youth-led originations to design and implement youth entrepreneurship programs for decent work. The initiatives involve different partners providing a new dimension to the whole project and an opportunity to leverage shared resources and experiences. This allows the ILO to follow a holistic approach to address the multifaced youth entrepreneurship challenges”.
Extending his gratitude for the ILO, Edukans Foundations, and the Government of the Netherlands, Getu Neberu, Founder &
Executive Director of Rejoice Africa expressed the commitment of his organization to effectively implement the project proposal. Rejoice Africa will implement capacity building on an entrepreneurial mindset and generating business by using the ILO Start and Improving Business (SIYB) tools ideas.
Endurance Youth Association is one of the 10 winning organizations. Mekdes Abebe, Director of the association said, “The Youth-to-Youth Fund competition process we have passed through to get the grant is unique and informative. The process enabled us to identify pressing youth employment challenges in Ethiopia. With the technical and financial support we received through the ILO-Youth-to-Youth Fund, 100 youth will be supported with vocational skills, business development and entrepreneurship trainings and access to financial services”.
About PROSPECTS Opportunity Fund
The initiative is part of the Government of the Netherlands supported Partnership for improving prospects for forcibly displaced persons and host communities (PROSPECTS ) program.
Under the PROSPECTS program, ILO currently implementing an initiative entitled “Advancing Young People’s Engagement and Meaningful Participation in the PROSPECTS Partnership ”, The objective of the project is to empower and meaningfully engage young people in forced displacement contexts.
