The Government of the Netherlands is financing a partnership initiative entitled “The
PROSPECTS Partnership Programme”. The PROSPECTS is a global partnership that aims to
improve the access of host communities and forcibly displaced people to education, social
protection and decent work. PROSPECTS operationalizes the humanitarian-developmentpeace
nexus, creating strong partnerships between humanitarian and development actors
to leverage comparative advantages, and improve coordination and efficiency to boost their
overall impact for refugees and host communities, as envisioned in the outcomes of the
2016 World Humanitarian Summit under the New Way of Working. Spearheaded by the
Government of the Netherlands, it brings together the International Finance Corporation
(IFC), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the UN
Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank to help transform the way in which
governments and other stakeholders, including the private sector, respond to forced
displacement crises.
Young people in forced displacement contexts, particularly refugees, and those who are
internally displaced (IDPs), face specific legal, policy, social and economic constraints that
limit their access to education, skills development, and decent work, and affect their ability
to realise their rights. Conflict and forced displacement can also negatively affect their
cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development, further limiting their prospects for a
successful transition into adulthood and sustainable employment.
In response to these pressing challenges, the ILO implemented the Youth-to-Youth Fund
(Y2YF) in 2022 as a youth employment intervention that combines employment creation and
entrepreneurship development with young people's meaningful engagement and
participation. The first phase of the Y2YF was implemented between 2022 and 2024 in Addis
Ababa and the Somali Region of Ethiopia through an implementing partner that supported
10 youth-led organizations. The programme sought to address youth unemployment in
contexts affected by forced displacement while empowering young people and youth-led
organizations to identify and implement locally relevant solutions. During its first phase in
Ethiopia, the Y2YF supported over 1,000 youth to start new businesses or strengthen existing
enterprises through entrepreneurship training, coaching, mentorship, and access to finance
linkages created through the program. In addition to creating direct employment
opportunities for participating youth, the programme generated wider benefits by
contributing to employment and livelihood opportunities for members of their
communities. By promoting economic inclusion and collaboration among young people
from refugee and host communities, the Y2YF also contributed to strengthening resilience,
social cohesion, and peaceful coexistence.
Building on the experience and lessons learned from the first phase, the ILO plans to
implement a second phase of the Youth-to-Youth Fund in Addis Ababa, the Somali Region,
Amhara, and Benishangul-Gumuz. The second phase will seek to supports small‐scale youth
entrepreneurship development projects implemented by youth‐led organizations. It will
also strengthen the capacities of youth-led organizations to design and deliver innovative,
youth-driven solutions that benefit refugees, internally displaced persons, and host
communities.
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The ILO is therefore looking for an implementing partner to support the design and
implementation of the Youth-to-Youth Fund (Y2YF) model, tailor it to the needs of youth in
forced displacement contexts in Ethiopia and implement it Addis Ababa, Amhara and
Benishangul Gumuz, and Somali Regions.
2. Youth- to-Youth Fund (Y2YF)
The Y2YF is a competitive grant scheme managed by a national implementing partner that
supports youth-led organizations with funding, capacity strengthening and direct technical
assistance. It is designed for youth-led organizations to propose innovative project ideas on
how to create entrepreneurship and business opportunities for other young people. 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 proposals should include project ideas that contribute to the promotion and/or
development of business opportunities for young people as a means to create employment.
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, improve enterprises whether micro or larger to be more growth
oriented.
The Youth-to-Youth Fund supports youth led organisations in Ethiopia to support youth to
start and improving their business. The Youth-to-Youth Fund is not a Business Idea or
Business Plan Competition. The Fund does not support entrepreneurs/for-profit
enterprises or applying youth-led organizations themselves to become entrepreneurs or
employers. The applying youth-led organizations should facilitate and support the process
of youth becoming entrepreneurs rather than the organization itself aspiring to make profit
from entrepreneurial activities. Any components of the proposed project with a key purpose
of generating profit for the implementing organization cannot be funded by the grant. In
the case of social enterprise organizations, any income generation activity should be used
to conduct activities that will be directed to program beneficiaries and also to sustain the
project activities.
The project ideas should address some of the challenges that are faced by young people in
forced displacement contexts who are, or aspire to be, entrepreneurs or to improve and
expand their business. These include for example:
 Lack of access to capital and finance
 Lack of skills and educational opportunities to start and improve business
 Lack of business development skills
 Limited access to markets and business to business linkage
 Lack of experience and skills
 Lack of social capital / networks
 Lack of access to financial capital for a variety of reasons some of which are listed
above
 Challenges to register and formalize their enterprises
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Approaches to tackle these obstacles can be found, for example, in the following
areas that will support youth to start and improving their business:
• 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/core
skills to enhance the competency level as well as confidence of young people and
support job search support activities.
• Access to finance: linking young people with financial institutions. Providing youth
with the tools, capacity, and confidence to request financial services for the creation
or expansion of their own enterprises or working with financial institutions to make
their services more available to young entrepreneurs.
• Building social capital: facilitating the development of mechanisms that help
young people increase their networks, client base, support systems, market access,
and negotiation power, such as forming or joining networks, associations, or
cooperatives. For example, support for association building for young 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 between
existing and new enterprises by youth; developing and strengthening value chains;
and identifying where emerging 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
youth.
• Household enterprise development: facilitating and enabling the creation or
expansion of household enterprises to enable young people, especially young
women, to work from their homes.
The above-mentioned challenges and intervention areas are only examples intended to
help explain the general purpose and goal of the Y2Y Fund. Proposals are not limited to
these areas. There are many other challenges and intervention areas not mentioned here
that may inspire innovative and unique solutions.
The Fund gives youth through the youth-led organization an opportunity to contribute to
address the youth unemployment challenge and create youth employment opportunities in
their communities as active development partners rather than just beneficiaries.
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Objective of Y2YF
The general objective of the Youth-to-Youth Fund is to promote youth employment and
participation through the engagement and capacity building of youth-led organizations to
support youth entrepreneurship to improve employment prospects of young people in
forced displacement contexts.
The major expected outcomes of the project are:
 Youth-led and refugee youth-led organizations have the organizational, technical and
financial management capacity to design, deliver and sustain youth employment and
entrepreneurship projects.
 Young people, particularly young women, in forced displacement contexts have
increased access to decent and sustainable jobs and self-employment opportunities
through viable youth-led enterprises.
 Young people recognised as promoters and creators of employment opportunities
for youth.