Kofi Annan NextGen Democracy Prize | Call for Nominations

Introduction

The Kofi Annan Foundation and the Democracy and Culture Foundation are currently accepting nominations for the second edition of the Kofi Annan NextGen Democracy Award.

Nominees must fall within the age bracket of 18 to 30 years old.

The nomination window for the 2024 Kofi Annan NextGen Democracy Award runs from January 15, 2024, to March 31, 2024.

Notification of the selected awardee will be communicated by July 2024.

Keep reading to find out about the requirements and how to apply!

The Foundation

Formed in Switzerland in 2007 by the late UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Kofi Annan Foundation is a nonprofit group.

Its Board has important people from different areas, and its small team works in Geneva, Switzerland.

The foundation in particular focuses on including everyone, having different people, treating genders equally, and also taking care of the environment.

These ideas are at the center of all its work, guiding how it helps make the world better.

What is the aim of the Kofi Annan NextGen Democracy Prize?

The Kofi Annan NextGen Democracy Prize has three main goals:

It wants to acknowledge when young activists do great work defending, promoting, or making democracy better.
It wants to help the winner by giving them support, like a year of mentoring with someone who knows a lot about democracy.
It hopes to encourage other young people to get involved in making democracy better too.

The prizes

The Prize comes with a $10,000 cash award. The winner will receive the prize at the Athens Democracy Forum, and also all costs for their travel and accommodation will be paid for by the organisers.

Winners will also get the chance to play a big part in arranging a discussion on youth and democracy at the next year’s Forum.

The requirements

Nominees need to be between 18 and 30 years old.

In particular, when choosing the winner, the Selection Committee will look at a few things:

Impact: They’ll see if what the nominee did actually made a difference, like changing a law, getting more people to vote, reaching lots of people with a campaign, or educating students about democracy.
Innovation: They’ll check if the nominee’s actions were creative and new.
Sustainability: They’ll see if the nominee has been working on democracy and human rights for at least a year and if what they did can keep going and work in other places too.
Values: They’ll look at the nominee’s behavior and see if it matches good values.
Benefit: They’ll think about how winning the award could help the nominee get more famous internationally and get support for what they’re doing.

Notice that nominations must come from an organisation. Also, there are no restrictions in terms of nationality, gender, or occupation.

How to apply?

Nominations must include all of the following:

The submission form
A Cover Letter of support (max 500 words)
Short video testimony from the nominee (2 minutes max).

Do you want to know more?

Finally, if you need more information and you want to apply, visit the project website.

The deadline is 31 of March 2024.