EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Youth Employment commits €2.3M to boost entrepreneurship among underserved communities

Youth Business International (YBI) joins a trust-based partnership engaging expertise and implementation organisations from six EU countries. Young Entrepreneurs Succeed will activate 1,600 young people to create and grow their own business.

With the aim to activate unemployed youth to access the labour market and promote entrepreneurship, the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Youth Employment has granted a transnational project, Young Entrepreneurs Succeed (YES!), committing €2.3 million for the next three years.

The EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Youth Employment seeks to complement existing EU funding on youth employment initiatives, contributing €60 million to support transnational initiatives that promote sustainable and quality youth employment.

YES!  is a trust-based partnership engaging eight public and private institutions from six EU countries with wide experience promoting entrepreneurship among underserved youth. These organisations include regional development agencies, NGOs, universities and consultancies acting as implementation, expertise or dissemination partners. YBI is an expertise partner of YES!  and will develop the partnership by contributing to new support content.

It is expected that 1,600 NEETs (youth Not in Education, Employment or Training) from Greece, Poland, Italy and Spain will be provided with training, coaching, access to finance and mentoring services to start and grow their own business or to find a job. There are still over 6 million NEETs in the European Union.

YES!  partners will work together gathering evidence on target group needs and existing gaps in service provision, designing and testing new financial and non-financial services for underserved young entrepreneurs. They will also measure and share the project social impact. Once evaluated, these new services will be transferred and scaled globally through the YBI network of 50 member organisations in 48 countries worldwide.

 ABOUT THE EEA AND NORWAY GRANTS

The EEA and Norway Grants represent the contribution of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway to reduce economic and social disparities and to strengthen bilateral relations with 15 EU countries in Central and Southern Europe and the Baltics.

For the period 2014-2021, the total contribution is €2.8 billion (EEA Grants €1.5 billion and Norway Grants €1.3 billion).

Under the EEA Agreement, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway are part of the European internal market. The EEA Agreement sets out the common goal of working together to reduce social and economic disparities.