Nigeria Youth Futures Fund backs 456 youth-led organisations nationwide

The Nigeria Youth Futures Fund (NYFF) has supported more than 456 youth-led organi-sations and individuals across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) through various grant programmes aimed at promoting youth participation in govern-ance and community development.

The Grants Monitoring and Evaluation Officer of the fund, Mr. Richard Chieberi, dis-closed this on Saturday at the Youth Ideas Summit 2.0 held in Damaturu, Yobe State.

Chieberi said the initiative, implemented by LEAP Africa with funding from the MacAr-thur Foundation, Ford Foundation and Luminate Group, has completed three grant cy-cles since its inception.

He said beneficiaries were supported through different funding windows, including Indi-vidual Grants, Development Grants, Catalyst Grants and the Agile Fund, which provides rapid financial support for youth-led interventions addressing emerging community challenges.

“Since inception, we have funded over 456 organisations and young people across Nige-ria. Although I cannot disclose the exact amount disbursed, I can say we have invested millions of dollars in supporting youth-led initiatives across the country,” he said.

Chieberi described Spotlight for Transparency and Accountability as one of NYFF’s Cata-lyst Grantees, saying the organisation had played a significant role in strengthening civic engagement across the North-East.

He cited Bayani AI, an artificial intelligence platform developed by Spotlight to track fed-eral allocations to Nigeria’s 774 local government areas, as one of the organisation’s major innovations promoting transparency and accountability.

“The work these young fellows have done presents the North-East in a different light. It shows that the region is rich in innovation and that young people are committed to civic engagement and grassroots development,” Chieberi said.

He disclosed that the Nigeria Youth Futures Fund was considering providing additional support to outstanding fellows by integrating them into its national grant programme.

He added that the overall objective of the fund is to equip young people with the re-sources needed to influence policy and decision-making at both the national and sub-national levels.

Speaking at the summit, the Chief Executive Officer of Spotlight for Transparency and Accountability (STA), Mu’azu Alhaji Modu, said the event brought together about 200 young people from the six states of the North-East to showcase innovative ideas and community-based projects implemented by young people.

According to him, the summit featured 25 fellows of the Local Government Accountabil-ity Fellowship and four winners of the Civic Innovation Challenge.

He said each fellow received a $100 seed grant to execute projects in their communities, while each Civic Innovation Challenge winner received N500,000 to develop innovative solutions to governance and social challenges.

“The fellows have exceeded our expectations. With grants of about N140,000 each, they have implemented projects that organisations with much larger budgets sometimes struggle to deliver. This demonstrates that young people have the passion and commit-ment to transform their communities,” Modu said.

He explained that the fellowship selected three participants from each of the six North-East states, with an additional four fellows from Yobe State, bringing the total number of fellows to 25.

Modu said the four Civic Innovation Challenge winners developed digital solutions fo-cusing on budget transparency, primary healthcare and civic participation.

He noted that one of the innovations, Civic Play, uses game-based learning to teach young people civic responsibility and encourage active participation in community de-velopment.

Modu said this year’s summit built on the success of the maiden edition held in Yobe State last year, noting that some of the participants who attended the first edition later applied for the fellowship and have now implemented impactful projects in their com-munities.

“We are seeing young people inspire one another. They are proving that with modest support and the right mentorship, they can develop practical solutions to challenges facing their communities,” he said.

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