The competitive grant scheme supports youth employment projects in the Mano River Union (MRU) (Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone). It serves to identify and support small scale, innovative projects with potential to provide employment opportunities for young people (ages 15 to 30) while allowing youth organizations to actively participate in development. Youth organizations have first hand experience of the needs of young people but need of financial and/or technical support to reach their goals. Therefore grants of USD 2,000 to 50,000 will be awarded through an open, transparent, and competitive selection process.

Furthermore, the scheme serves as a laboratory to test innovative projects, in order to gain insight and extract lessons learned to be shared with the broader development community for possible replication and up-scaling.

Projects should contribute to youth employment in any of the following areas:

• Community projects and services
• Transition from school to work
• Vocational training for young people
• Youth entrepreneurship
• Economic empowerment of young women

As sustainability is an important aspect of the scheme preference will be given to partnerships with other stakeholders such as private enterprises, business associations, foundations, or government agencies.