In our last newsletter, we told you about the launch of our first thematic call for the Catalytic Fund which is focused on the very pertinent theme of Youth and the City: Challenges of and Visions for Demographic Change.
The deadline for submission of concept notes outlining the proposed project in the first round is Monday, 30th April 2012. Concept Notes can be submitted in English, French, Portuguese or Spanish. Templates and instructions will be available on-line, initially in English only. The other languages will be posted as soon as they become available. An Expert Evaluation Panel will assist the Cities Alliance Secretariat in assessing the eligible applications and making recommendations for funding.
The choice of theme for the Catalytic Fund builds on efforts the Cities Alliance has made in recent years to integrate gender and youth in its work programme under Norway’s sponsorship. The thematic call has three main objectives in line with the ‘catalytic’ nature of the Fund:
To raise awareness of the role of youth in urban development at a time when cities, grappling with a historic urbanisation process, appear ill-prepared to provide improved governance, meaningful representation, or economic and social roles for their youthful populations.
To select and support, both technically and financially, innovative youth-led or youth-focused urban projects and to revisit traditional Cities Alliance areas such as city development strategy, slum upgrading and national policies on urban development with an emphasis on youth.
To provide a flexible platform for successful projects to develop peer-to-peer learning networks and to systematically extract and share knowledge that both informs and influences urban practices as well as policy dialogues at the local, national and global level.
For more information on the Catalytic Fund, please visit www.citiesalliance.org
