06/09/2025
Youth Challenge Fund 4 (YCF4) Grant 2025 – €7,000 in Funding for Girl- & Youth-Led Groups in West & Central Africa
https://eacolectiva.org/funding/578-youth-challenge-fund-4
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The Fund will provide up to 5,000 EUR (potentially up to 7,000 EUR for past grantees) to unregistered and registered groups, collectives and/or organizations led by girls or young feminists working towards gender equality in their communities. These funds are flexible, meaning that groups can decide how they spend these funds. Groups will have seven months to implement their activities and will become part of the Youth Challenge Fund network, which will provide accompaniment support to build groups' strengths and connect with other youth groups.
In this funding round, we are accepting proposals from 7 key areas of activism. These areas were identified by youth activists in the region as priorities for young people. We welcome proposals that are gender transformative, which means that they challenge social norms that reinforce gender inequality and address the root causes of that inequality. The areas of focus are:
Girls’ Employment & Entrepreneurship
Protection from Violence
Youth Leadership & Mentorship
Girls Access to Quality Education
Climate Change, Environment & Livelihoods
Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights
Humanitarian Response & Emergency
Have you already received funding from the Youth Challenge Fund? Don’t worry, you can still apply!
Benefits
The grant award is only one aspect of the Youth Challenge Fund. If you are successful, you will join the Youth Challenge Fund 4 network and be supported on a journey to strengthen your activism. This will include at least 5 capacity strengthening sessions, defined by your needs, run online by different County Offices and the West and Central Africa Regional Hub. You will have access to all the tools and resources available on the Equality Accelerator platform and help define new tools needed. You will have support from a dedicated Plan Country Office staff member to support the implementation of your project, as well as online networking opportunities to meet and share learnings with other young activists working in the region.
For the Youth Challenge Fund, you can receive support with:
Non-financial resources:
Tools
Technical support
Capacity building opportunities
Guidance on collective actions ideas
Implementation and influencing
Networking
Enable inspiration for project ideas
Connections
Storytelling and sustainability
The Fund will provide up to 5,000 EUR and up to 7,000 EUR for second or third time grantees. These funds are flexible, and groups can decide how they spend these funds. The funding will be distributed by the end of October 2025 and groups will have seven months to implement their activities with the funding. The recommended way to transfer funding to selected groups is through a bank transfer. However, as this fund will support unregistered and registered groups, having a group bank account is not a requirement, and we will work with you to identify the best and easiest way to disburse the funds.
Requirements
To apply for this fund, you must be based in one of the countries listed below. We can only accept applications in English or French. Groups don’t need to be registered, but they need to have at least 3 members and be led by girls or young feminists between the ages of 15-30. We don’t mind if you call yourselves a collective, network, group, organisation or anything else!
Due to differing country office capacity, there is a varying number of grants available, please see below the number of grant opportunities available in your country:
Togo: 1 grant
Liberia: 4 grants
Guinea Bissau: 2 grants
Guinea: 5 grants
Central African Republic: 3 grants
Mali: 3 grants
Sierra Leone: 1 grant
Ghana: 5 grants
Benin: 6 grants
Nigeria: 8 grants
Niger: 1 grant
Cameroon: 5 grants
Burkina Faso: 2 grants
For Chad and Senegal, we are only accepting applications for Education focused projects
Additionally, Youth Challenge Fund Round 4 has extra funding for education projects through to support 8 girl- and youth-led groups in the WACA region working on education and gender equality. Groups led by girls or young feminists aged 15–30, with at least three members, can apply for up to €5,000 for new projects or up to €7,000 for re-grants, with only one education grant awarded per country office. Projects should be gender-transformative and tackle the root causes of girls’ unequal access to education, such as school-related gender-based violence, lack of leadership opportunities, barriers for young mothers and married girls, gender stereotypes, low participation in STEM, and challenges during emergencies. Successful applicants will also provide extra reporting on education-focused activities, especially those that are youth-led or digital.
We encourage all groups to apply here on the Equality Accelerator website; it will be much easier to manage your application this way. However, if you are unable to apply online due to a disability and/or a lack of access to the internet, please email [email protected] and we will do our best to accommodate your group.
From the Youth Challenge Fund three previous rounds, we’ve learned a lot about how to improve the process for young activists. For this round, we improved this process so that it is more participatory, accessible, and intuitive for activists. We want to keep improving so please let us know if we can do better!
Eligibility Criteria
Your group works to promote gender equality and is primarily led by girls, women and people who identify as trans, non-binary, intersex and/or gender non-conforming between the ages of 15-30 (groups led by young feminists from 15-24 will be prioritized)
Your group’s budget is less than 50,000 EUR annually
Your group is independent of government institutions, political and religious organisations, and corporations.
Your proposal centers on at least one of the defined Youth Challenge Fund areas of focus (listed above).
If your group is selected, we will have to check that your group is who they say they are. We have a simple and quick process which will include contacting at least two references and checking your registration documents (if your group is registered). We will also need identification documents from two group representatives.
You are based in any of the countries listed at the end of this fund information.
If a group is led by under 18s, and you don’t have any over 18 representatives in your group, we will need to follow safeguarding procedures and request consent from a parent or guardian.
If you are based in Chad and Senegal, please only apply if your project is addressing education changes for girls and young women.
