United Nations Association of Tanzania in collaboration with Msichana Initiative engaged through hosting the “Future of CSO” session through a breakout session during the CSO Week, October 2021. The session aimed to highlight the role of youth-led organizations, barriers in harnessing the space as well as discussing joint solutions on improving the participation of youth-led organizations so as to groom the next generation of young leaders in the sector. 

The discussion focused on the role of youth-led organizations in the sector, achievements, as well as suggesting solutions that will help to improve the performance and visibility of the organizations inviting youth-led organizations, young women-led organizations, philanthropies, and other development partners while other participants joining virtually being able to share their insights and engage in the discussion and learning from pioneers in the sector.

Youth-led and young women-led organizations have the potential to generate novel, bottom-up solutions that respond to local situations, interests, and values, solving social and economic problems of marginalized communities. However, most of the voices of local youth-led organizations are left unheard due to issues related to trust, financial constraints, and barriers in harnessing the space to unleash their power. Youth-led organizations usually have less capacity to attract big funding and comply with donor requirements than well-established CSOs, despite being a good entry point in interventions regarding young people due to their direct engagement with young people in the community. Through this discussion, we envision learning from each other, and from other stakeholder’s perspectives towards funding initiatives by youth-led organizations.