The Youth Café is Africa’s largest convening community of professionals harnessing youth advocacy, policy and research for social impact, with over 3500 organisations and 947000 individuals. Amongst its focus areas is governance and political inclusion aimed at enabling the effective and active engagement of more youths in policy, democratic processes and accountability initiatives in Africa and beyond, as well as increasing advocacy for political stability and effective governance to ensure there is a transparent, democratic, and accountable environment.
Why the Ignite African Youth Project?
- Across Africa, weak state capacity, the tenuous rule of law, amendment/removal of term limits, high inequality, illegitimate elections, and corruption continue to erode democracy.
- The lack of institutional capacity, cultural and traditional norms, limited resources, disinformation and shrinking civic spaces undermines youth engagement in African democracies, hence persistently hindering young people’s participation, especially in leadership roles.
- The Youth Café through the project Ignite African Youth will increase the institutional and individual capacity of young people and oriented organisations, heighten the visibility of young people through enhanced profiles and strengthen platforms for inter-regional and inter-continental discussions and dialogues.
Objectives and activities
Enhancing young people advocacy capacities through experience sharing, communication campaigns and coaching to support them on claiming power for political participation.
Activity 1: Stakeholder mapping
A mapping exercise will be carried-out in collaboration with the Youth Democracy Cohort and EPD to identify key stakeholders and The Youth Café partners for this project.
Activity 2: Perception Survey on the S4D and Menu of Possible Commitments
The Youth Café will conduct a survey to understand the youth’s knowledge and perception of the existing commitments, missing areas, suggestions, etc.
Activity 3: Sensitisation campaign through online jams
An awareness raising campaign will be held involving four youth organisations in the four implementation countries. The campaign, involving young people, will consist of five online jams, workshops and webinars on the S4D and the Menu of Possible Commitments.
Activity 4: Africa Youth Post 2023 S4D Review Papers and scorecards
A series of review papers and scorecards will be created to measure and track the progress of each implementation country in the adoption and implementation of the recommended Menu of Possible Commitments.
Activity 5: Co-creation of an advocacy toolkit and action plan
Through a fact sheet, social media, newsletters, reports, infographics, podcasts, webinars etc.
Activity 6: Dissemination of survey findings and scorecards
The Youth Café will disseminate the findings of the project through fact sheets, social media, newsletters, reports, infographics, podcasts, webinars etc.
Activity 7: Recording of 3 virtual advocacy masterclasses
Advocacy masterclasses will be organised, on advocacy monitoring and evaluation, advocacy communications, policy development, project management and resource mobilisation. The objective is to enable young people to control of their own political and civic rights.
Activity 8: Conduct monitoring and evaluation and project retrospect
All along the project, monitoring and evaluation activities will be carried-out through surveys and interviews to get views from the participants. At the end of the project a retrospect reflection workshop will be organised to capture lessons-learned.
Main deliverables
- 40 in-country youth organisations mapped, 10 per country (Zambia, Kenya, Central African Republic, Ghana).
- At least a 50% increase in youth visibility and active political engagement.
- 4 scorecards developed, highlighting the 33 actionable and specific recommendations.
- An advocacy toolkit developed and a Youth Advocacy Action Plan co-created with 20 organisations and youth advocates, featuring an Advocacy by Design Workshop 2024.
- Advocacy by Design daily reports: Report 1, Report 2.
- Dialogue event debate and reports on the topic Why Democracy Tomorrow Means Climate Action Today and Youth for Future Dialogue with the former Prime Minister of Mali.
- UN Civil Society Conference daily reports: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4.
- 3 advocacy masterclasses organised, impacting 1,500 young people directly through live virtual sessions and 3,000 young people indirectly through views and downloads of the recorded sessions. Session 1, Session 2, Session 3, Session 4, Session 5, Session 6, Session 7,
- Peoples Dialogue Festival 2024 reports: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4.
- Research and Review Papers: Youth Policy on the Summit for Democracy, African Youth Communique, Review of African Youth Participation at the Summit.
- Webinars organised to discuss youth civic and political inclusion and participation, the Summit for Democracy and the Menu of Possible Commitments. Webinar 1, Webinar 2, Webinar 3 . Webinar Blog Report, Human Rights Day, Activism Against Gender Violence, Digital Literacy.
- Podcasts addressing youth participation, gender, and economic topics: Podcast 1, Podcast 2, Podcast 3, Podcast 4.
- Youtube videos on youth in democracy and public affairs.
- Informal Youth Working Group on the Summit for the Future.
Don’t miss any of their activities