Youth-Led Groups Call for Entries for 'Solar Power Nigeria National Youth Competition' to Bridge Energy Gaps
The Network of Youth for Sustainable Initiative, NGYouthSDGs, a youth-led organisation empowering to lead sustainable development in communities, in partnership with the Global Initiative for Food Security and Ecosystem Preservation, GIPSEP, has launched the Solar Power Nigeria National Youth Competition, with a nationwide call for young Nigerians, aged 18 to 35, to design practical solutions that advance energy access in their various communities.
The competition is the second phase of the Solar Nigeria project, which the GIPSEP launched in February 2026, to advocate for improved energy access for poor and vulnerable Nigerians, especially women and people with disabilities. It is intended to scale down the World Bank record, which estimates that more than eighty-five million Nigerians have no access to grid electricity. The World Bank also reports that many of those connected to the grip receive less than twelve hours of electricity supply a day in urban areas and far less in rural communities.
In a statement, NGYouthSDGs noted that the energy shortfall holds back schools, health facilities, and the livelihoods of young people whose works and businesses depend on power. Young Nigerians are already responding. It noted that freelancers, digital creators and small business owners are turning to solar and other clean energy sources to power their homes and work. "The competition builds on that momentum, backing young people to lead with ideas rather than wait for solutions to be handed to them."
The competition invites young Nigerians to design a three-month campaign that advances solar energy access in a specific state or community. Entries may propose advocacy aimed at decision makers and the public, or a practical community solution, provided they show how energy access would improve for real people. Entries open today, 11 November 2026, and closes 24 November 2026. Full details and the entry links are available at...
Seven winners will become Solar Power Nigeria Fellows. Each Fellow receives a N390,000 grant to deliver on their three-month project, expert mentorship, access to sector partners, and media exposure and opportunities to engage with policymakers. In addition, two outstanding Fellows will each nominate a public primary school or government health facility to receive a full solar PV system, procured and installed by GIFSEP in partnership with NGYouthSDGs, with a public handover event to mark each installation.
A five-member Competition Review Panel will carry out a technical review of entries. Shortlisted entrants will present their ideas at pitch sessions, and the Fellows will be announced in late December 2026.
The Executive Director of NGYouthSDGs, Joshua Alade noted that "energy access and decent work are the same conversation, and we have been treating them as two", stressing that "you cannot ask a young tailor, a digital creator or a small business owner to build a livelihood when the power goes off for most of the working day. Reliable energy is not a luxury for young Nigerians but an infrastructure of decent work. This competition is our way of saying: the young people already working around this gap should be the one designing the way out of it, and we will fund them to do it.”
On his part, Dr Michael David, the Executive Director, GIFSEP: Food security, ecosystem preservation and energy access are one agenda, and I Nigeria they rise and fall together. A health facility without power cannot keep vaccines cold. A farming community without energy cannot store or process what it grows. Closing the energy gap is how we protect health, livelihoods and the environment at the same time.
Similarly, Joseph Ibrahim, Nigeria Campaign Director, Secure Energy Project, said: “From the start, the Solar Power Nigeria coalition has been clear that the people hit hardest by energy poverty [women, people with disabilities, and poor and vulnerable Nigerians] must be at the centre of the solution. Young Nigerians are already proving what clean can do for their homes and businesses. This competition puts their ideas, and real funding, and real funding behind that commitment.”