Our activities and support programmes
In order to support the socio-economic inclusion of young people and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in North Africa and the Middle East, the Safir project offers two types of activities.
On the one hand, various skill-sharing programmes aimed at incubators, civil society organisations and universities in the region.
On the other hand, a series of support programmes for over 1000 young people in the region, centred on two main themes : social entrepreneurship and advocacy for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. These support programmes will be implemented by 7 incubators and 21 civil society organisations, the Safir project partners.
All of these activities will contribute towards creating a regional network of stakeholders committed to social entrepreneurship and the SDGs.
To train a network of stakeholders mobilised around the themes of social entrepreneurship and the Sustainable Development Goals, Safir offers a series of activities to incubators, civil society organisations and universities in North Africa and the Middle East.
They answer the dual need for the professional integration and civic integration of young people who face mass unemployment, increasing of inequalities and ecological and environment threats...
Support programme for Innovative Entrepreneurship Support Structures (SAEI)
Specialised in the support of young project leaders, Innovative Entrepreneurship Support Structures (SAEI), such as incubators, accelerators or business start-ups, provide an environment conducive to the implementation of innovative initiatives for sustainable development.
They answer the dual need for the professional integration and civic integration of young people who face mass unemployment, increasing inequalities and ecological and environment threats etc.
7 incubators in North Africa and the Middle East were therefore selected in the first year of implementation of the Safir project, in order to build a regional network of support structures. They currently benefit from skill-sharing sessions, led by 2 Safir consortium member incubators: Lab’ess and Pitchworthy. Following these sessions, they will provide support to the young project leaders.
These 7 incubators will also contribute to the creation of a guide to innovative entrepreneurship, adapted to the regional context and drawing on their own experience in the field.
The first year of implementation of the project was dedicated to selecting the Safir partner CSOs. The 21 organisations selected currently benefit from advocacy training workshops for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda, implemented by our partner responsible for advocacy-related activities, the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND).
The university thus has a duty to train responsible citizens capable of integrating easily into society. However, it is confronted with a difficult regional context. On the one hand, the capacities of absorption of graduates by the labour market are largely exceeded. On the other hand, a large number of the training courses provided are not in line with the needs and challenges of sustainable and inclusive development; entrepreneurial skills are particularly lacking.
In order to guarantee young people that their higher education diplomas are a guarantee of professional integration, universities must be supported to develop new professional skills and spread a culture of citizenship and responsibility among their students.
This is why the Safir project proposes a third support programme, aimed at Higher Education and Research Institutions in North Africa and the Middle East and focused on:
- The adoption or strengthening of governance in terms of University Social Responsibility (USR)
- Support for the design or strengthening of training courses dedicated to social entrepreneurship and the challenges of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
- The strengthening of university incubators dedicated to social entrepreneurship
These spaces will be places of transition between the academic world and the job market. They aim to:
- strengthen the skills of students;
- promote synergies between companies and universities
- raise public awareness of SDG issues in order to reach as many people as possible and to foster a culture of citizenship among students and teacher-researchers.
An initial cohort of 9 universities was selected in 2020. These institutions will benefit from technical and financial support to strengthen their academic offer in social entrepreneurship, to create incubation spaces dedicated to student-entrepreneurs and to adopt good governance in terms of university social responsibility.
Ultimately, the objective is to enable these spaces to incubate students’ social entrepreneurial initiatives and to organise awareness raising sessions on the SDGs. They will be invited to participate in regional meetings between project beneficiaries and will have an annual programme of citizen events.
The activities offered by the Safir project to young people in the North African and Middle East region include two components : activities dedicated to social entrepreneurship and those dedicated to advocacy for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Social Entrepreneurship component
In terms of social entrepreneurship, Safir offers the young people selected support sessions at the various stages of development of their entrepreneurial, media and associative project:
- Two series of introduction workshops on social entrepreneurship and on the Sustainable Development Goals. The first series of workshops have already taken place from mid-February to mid-March 2021. It allowed for the awareness raising of 200 young people in the various countries in which the programme is active. A second series of local workshops will be held in February-March 2023, to initiate other young people to these themes.
- An incubation programme, aimed at 90 young people who have already developed an idea in 6 months into a project with social, cultural or environmental impact. The selected applicants will be supported by the 7 Safir network incubators. The call for applications for this programme will be launched by the summer of 2021.
- An acceleration programme, which will provide the possibility for around fifty young people who have participated in the incubation phase, to access funding and to continue to receive support for 6 months. They will also benefit from a networking trip in Europe.
The young people will be selected at the end of the incubation period by a funding committee bringing together various experts.
The young people selected by these activities may be invited to participate in other Safir events that will be organised in the region.
The Sustainable Development Goal Advocacy training component
As regards advocacy training for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, general and more specific training sessions will be offered to the participants. The support of young people comprises three elements:
- A 6 month training period, which will allow for over 600 young people from the various countries in which the project is active to take part in training provided by the CSOs. A first call for applications will be launched in the spring of 2021 and a second in the spring of 2022.
- The participation of 60 young people in the Youth Forum, organised by the ANND. Providing a platform for dialogue, this two-day forum brings together experts, public authorities and young people. It provides the latter with the opportunity to develop skills in the formulation of recommendations for the attention of the public authorities.
- The participation of 20 young people in the Arab Forum for Sustainable Development. Organised by the United Nations, this forum is the regional mechanism for the follow up and review of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in the Arab region.
This SDG advocacy training programme will be implemented in 2021-2022 and repeated in 2022-2023.
The young people selected by these activities may be invited to participate in other Safir events that will be organised in the region.