Intro & Context: Kinds of Information

• Sections:     Intro & Context | Themes & Trends | Donors & Funds

1. Introduction & Context

This document provides information about the work of members of the global donor community that provide funding for:

  • youth-led projects (from informal youth initiatives to large-scale international youth organizations);
  • youth activism and the development of youth civil society;
  • youth policy development initiatives;
  • youth research; or
  • any other youth-specific initiative at the international or regional level.

To the extent feasible, the mapping of donors presents the following information on each member of the donor community, including:

  • access information to annual financial reports including annual volume of funding for youth related activities;
  • target groups;
  • geographical scope of engagement;
  • thematic foci; and
  • other criteria for funding.

In addition to their grant-making activities, many members of the donor community engage in operational programs or internally organized and managed projects that have specific priorities and that involve significant financial investment. To the extent possible, an overview of these programs and information about where detailed figures for the volume of financial investment of such programs can found is presented.

This document also identifies other international donors whose funding, although not considered “youth specific,” benefits young people—for example, that provided to support civil society organizations or development-assistance funding. Again, to the extent feasible, considering the information available in the public domain, we try to provide an overview of the annual level of investment by such donors.

To the extent possible based on available information, we have also attempted to identify some general trends in the way that funding for youth-specific work is organized at the national level. We hope that this will illustrate the ways in which funding provided by the international donor community relates to national financial provision for youth.

For the purposes of this mapping we make a distinction between operational programs and grant-making. We do so in order to distinguish between financial support made available for use by young people themselves (admittedly, in line with certain criteria and conditions put in place by the organization in question) and programs organized and rolled-out by the organization, which nevertheless represent a significant investment in young people, but which funds are in fact controlled and used by the organization rather than young people themselves. Some organizations consider grant-making a form of operational program, however.