World Habitat Day
2013 Urban Youth Fund Beneficiaries
7th October 2013 — Beneficiaries of the 2013 Urban Youth Fund will be unveiled on Monday in Mumbai, India as part of the celebrations marking this year’s World Habitat Day.
At the same time the inaugural announcement of successful applicants to the India Youth Fund Window will be made on the same day. Concurrently, the UN-Habitat will be launching the state of the Urban Youth, India report. In New York, the government of Brazil and UN-Habitat will be hosting an event at the General assembly that aims at strengthening youth participation in the UN.
Annually, the Urban Youth Fund gives youth led projects worldwide an opportunity to materialize their innovate ideas towards urbanization with the aim of indulging the youth in the UN-Habitat mandate.
This year, by the deadline of 15 April 2013, 8,449 applications from youth-led organizations in 129 countries had been received by the fund, Africa and Asia pacific/Arab regions yielded the largest number of successful applicants. Applications received went through a rigorous evaluation process, including a check of eligibility, a quality assessment, shortlisting, vetting by Habitat Programme Managers and a final selection of projects by the Steering Committee. The selected projects were then approved by the Advisory Committee.
Most of the projects are from the Africa region while Asia Pacific/Arab region and Latin America and Caribbean region share the same number of projects. A majority of the proposed projects aim at providing employment for young people living in cities. With special interest in this year’s cycle, the Urban Youth Fund received a large number of projects that aim at increasing the participation of young people in urban governance, urban agriculture and climate change related projects. All beneficiaries are required to ensure equal participation of young men and women in their projects, as well as ensure that the impact is gender responsive.
Some of the approved projects include initiatives that establish scorecards used for monitoring and evaluating the new leadership and governance in Kenya, in relation to the devolution systems. Other projects include young citizen’s media that aim to use media to educate the young population on good governance and responsibility. As well, waste management, housing rights, vocational training and micro-finance, climate change education and capacity building are areas that other projects will be working on. Particularly encouraging are the many projects that combine different urban development issues and engage with local governments, the private sector and other actors to ensure the long-term sustainability of the projects.
The India Youth Fund Window is a partnership between UN-Habitat and the Narotam Sekhsaria Foundation (NSF) under the global Urban Youth Fund. The funding window aims to advance youth empowerment in India.
The government of Brazil and the UN-Habitat invites all to a side-event in the United Nations Head Quarters in New York on the 7th of October, 2013 in Room 2 (Conference Building) from 13:15-14:30. The event aims at providing a platform for meaningful engagement and decision making, in order to enhance youth participation in the UN.
Below is the list of granted projects
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