The Youth Cafe’s in-person side event during the Fourth Conference on Finance for Development in Spain has been approved by the United Nations, and will be included in the official programme of side events. The event, titled Youth 360 ~ Hackathon on Innovative Financing for Sustainable Development has been allocated to room Auditorium 3 with a capacity of 400 for Thursday 3 July 2025, 12:30 pm -2:00 pm in the FIBES Sevilla Exhibition and Conference Centre. The unique ID number for this event is 1984469.
This side event will employ a dynamic, fast-paced hackathon methodology designed to foster collaborative, youth-led innovation in response to urgent financing challenges highlighted in the FFD4 Outcome Document.
The African Youth Café is a leading youth-driven organization committed to advancing sustainable development through financial inclusion, economic empowerment, and policy advocacy. For over a decade, The African Youth Café has been at the forefront of driving sustainable development, implementing more than 45 large-scale projects spanning service contracts, consultancies, and accountable grants across 22 African countries.
Our work is deeply aligned with all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a particular focus on fostering inclusive economic growth, financial resilience, and youth empowerment through six core pillars: Democracy, Human Rights and governance; Education, Research & Social Services; Economic Growth; Health & well-being: Agriculture and Environmental Sustainability; Talent Development, Leadership and innovation.
Our organization’s expertise in economic empowerment, financial inclusion, and policy advocacy is directly relevant to the objectives of FfD4. We actively promote youth-led entrepreneurship, impact investment, digital financial literacy, and sustainable economic growth, ensuring that young people—especially those in marginalized communities—have access to the resources and opportunities necessary to thrive in today’s global economy.
Through high-level engagements with multilateral institutions, governments, and the private sector, we have influenced policy dialogues and implemented evidence-based solutions that enhance economic justice, drive responsible investment, and amplify youth voices in global decision-making.
BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION
The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4) comes at a critical juncture for the global community. The world is facing "profound transformation, rising geopolitical uncertainty, and growing systemic risks". These challenges are compounded by the persistent and widening gap in financing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), threatening the promise of equitable and inclusive development for all.
According to the 2024 United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Financing for Development, the SDG financing gap has ballooned to $4.2 trillion annually, a sharp rise from $2.5 trillion before the COVID-19 pandemic. This increase is attributed to multiple factors, including climate shocks, debt distress in developing countries, shrinking fiscal space and rising global inflation. Furthermore, 60% of low-income countries are either in or at high risk of debt distress, limiting their capacity to invest in health, education and economic opportunities.
Young people, who represent more than 1.8 billion individuals globally, with 90% residing in developing countries, are disproportionately affected by these financing shortfalls, particularly through limited investments in education, skills development and job creation. This lack of targeted financing contributes to persistently high unemployment rates among youth, which are consistently higher than those of adults. As of 2024, the global youth unemployment rate stood at 13%, more than three times the rate for adults. In sub-Saharan Africa, youth unemployment and underemployment remain chronic, with an estimated 10 to 12 million youth entering the workforce annually but only 3 million formal jobs created.
Youth also face systemic barriers in accessing financing, including credit, investment, and donor funding. These challenges often stem from a lack of collateral, limited financial literacy, and insufficient proof of concept at scale. Additionally, many financing mechanisms are designed without youth-centered perspectives or inclusive policy frameworks. This disconnect results in non-inclusive financing mechanisms, which in turn exacerbates youth unemployment, expands informal economies, and limits young people's participation in decision-making processes related to financing for development and broader sustainable economic growth.
In this context, innovative, youth-led solutions are more necessary than ever. The FFD4 Outcome Document First Draft calls for “additional and innovative financing from all sources, including public, private, domestic and international”. Yet, young people are rarely meaningfully engaged in shaping these financial solutions—despite their unique insights into the needs and aspirations of their communities.
This hackathon provides a timely and vital platform to empower youth to address the pressing issue of financing their communities’ futures. By focusing on real-world challenges that directly impact their livelihoods, such as access to education, employment, health services, and climate finance, participants will co-create actionable solutions that align with the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the broader FFD4 goals. In essence, this hackathon is not just a call to innovate, it's a call to reclaim the future. By bridging the global financing gap through youth-led innovation, we create a pathway for resilient, inclusive, and sustainable development.
This Hackathon will bring together youth from diverse sectors—fintech, entrepreneurship, academia, grassroots movements, and policy—to ideate, prototype, and pitch solutions around four core challenge tracks/ themes below:
Youth and local government debt
Digital tools for financial literacy
Youths in local budgeting & Inclusive financing for marginalized youths
Innovative financing, access to private finance and capital for young entrepreneurs i.e. Youth-Led Community Investment and Impact Bonds
EVENT OBJECTIVES
To generate actionable, innovative youth-led solutions to financing for sustainable local development challenges through a dynamic hackathon format.
To foster collaboration and knowledge exchange among youth from diverse regions, promoting cross-continental partnerships.
To explore and co-develop innovative financing models that address barriers to youth access to finance and contribute to SDG advancement, drawing on key themes from the UN Youth Office webinar.
To align youth-driven solutions with the FFD4 Outcome Document's core action areas related to financing for development.
To provide a platform for youth voices to be heard by key stakeholders, including delegates and experts at the FFD4 Conference.
To help achieve the event objectives, the following guiding questions have been developed.They are intended to frame discussions and focus participant contributions, and steer the event toward the expected outcomes.
GUIDING QUESTIONS
How can youth-led innovations unlock new financing pathways for sustainable development in underserved communities, especially in the context of growing global economic uncertainty?
What transformative financing models can be co-developed to overcome systemic barriers faced by young people—particularly those from marginalized backgrounds—in accessing capital and resources?
In what ways can cross-regional collaboration among youth amplify impact and accelerate the implementation of SDG-aligned financial solutions at the local level?
How can youth-driven solutions directly inform and influence the implementation of the FFD4 Outcome Document’s priorities, ensuring that financing for development is inclusive, equitable, and future-proof?
EXPECTED OUTCOMES
A set of innovative, youth-led solutions to financing for sustainable local development challenges, documented in a post-event report.
Enhanced capacity of youth to develop and advocate for financing solutions.
Increased awareness among FFD4 delegates and stakeholders of the potential of youth-led innovation.
Strengthened networks and partnerships between youth, UN agencies, development banks, the private sector, and civil society.
Recommendations for integrating youth perspectives into financing for development policies and practices.
Selected solutions will be shared with FFD4 stakeholders, and youth participants will be invited to join a follow-up working group to support implementation and advocacy or Top solutions will be shared with relevant UN agencies and development partners, with opportunities for ongoing mentorship and support to pilot or scale these ideas in participants’ home communities - select the one that reads better.
More about the target audience, format and methodology of the hackathon is explained in the next sub-sections A and B.
TARGET AUDIENCE
The targeted audience for this side event comprises purpose-driven youth leaders aged 18–35 with a demonstrated interest or expertise in finance, technology, policy, entrepreneurship, or sustainable development. The event prioritizes inclusivity by actively engaging underrepresented groups, including young women, indigenous youth, and those from rural or low-income communities. It also seeks to attract youth innovators, social entrepreneurs, researchers, and changemakers committed to shaping financial solutions that drive local development. In addition, the event welcomes policymakers, development partners, and private sector stakeholders interested in leveraging youth-led innovation to advance the Financing for Development (FFD) agenda and accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
FORMAT AND METHODOLOGY
This side event will employ a dynamic, fast-paced hackathon methodology designed to foster collaborative, youth-led innovation in response to urgent financing challenges highlighted in the FFD4 Outcome Document. Participants will be grouped into diverse, interdisciplinary teams, strategically mixed by region, expertise, and lived experience to maximize creativity and peer learning.
Each team will choose one of four critical thematic areas, youth and local government debt, digital tools for financial literacy, youth in local budgeting, and access to private finance for young entrepreneurs, and define a specific challenge within that theme, rooted in local realities. Drawing on design thinking approaches, teams will co-create actionable, scalable solutions by integrating technology, stakeholder perspectives, and SDG-aligned financing models. Guided by experienced mentors, teams will iterate their concepts, receive real-time feedback, and refine their ideas for maximum feasibility and impact.
The hackathon culminates in rapid-fire pitches, where each team has 5 minutes to present their innovation, followed by 2 minutes of Q&A with a panel of expert judges. These judges will evaluate the solutions based on innovation, feasibility, potential impact, and alignment with SDGs and FFD4 priorities. The most promising ideas will be recognized during the closing session, with select solutions featured in a post-event report shared with FFD4 stakeholders ensuring that youth-driven innovations influence the broader financing for development agenda.
About The African Youth Cafe
The African Youth Cafe (TAYC) is a Non Governmental Organization and a network registered under section 10 of the Non-Governmental Organizations Coordination Act. The African Youth Cafe is Africa's largest convening community of professionals harnessing youth advocacy, policy and research for social impact, engaging over 4,500 member organizations, 1,200 subject matter experts, and over 947,000 individuals aged 18 to 35 virtually from every country in Africa. Its broad membership enables TYC to fill the role of incubator and trusted centre of excellence for best practices, tools, and standards for youth development.
TAYC’s vision is a socially just Africa propelled by youth-led innovative solutions. Its mission is to mobilize young people for socio-economic transformation through inspiration and collective movements. For over a decade, The African Youth Cafe offices have executed more than 45 development cooperation programs backed by 14 distinct donors through service contracts, consultancies, and accountable grants. These initiatives directly engaged civil society organizations in 33 countries.