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1. How Youth policy is funded

2. What is funded?

3. Financial accountability

4. Use of EU Funds

How Youth policy is funded

National level

The budget for the youth policy is allocated within the state budget - Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, subchapter For the Free time and Leisure time activities of Children and Youth (Youth work and work with children). 

Subsidies were provided to non-governmental non-profit organizations (hereinafter "NGOs") for the implementation of projects that contributed to the fulfilment of the objectives of the Youth Strategy for the period 2014-2020. The support was focused primarily on regular and long-term activities for the widest possible range of children and youth and on the support of activities and activities that helped develop, expand and improve the activities of individual NGOs.

The above-mentioned programmes supported important national events for children and youth, training and education of workers with children and youth, projects aimed at developing volunteering and voluntary work with children and youth, international cooperation of children and youth, etc.

The structure of the programs has been in 2016 divided into 4 sub-programmes to make projects more comparable in terms of their content and regional impact. It was about:
    1. Programme for ‘NGOs recognized by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports for work with children and youth’ (hereinafter P1 or Programme 1)
    2. Programme for umbrella organizations (hereinafter referred to as P2 or Programme 2)
    3. Programme for NGOs with branch associations (hereinafter referred to as P3 or Programme 3)
    4. Programme for NGOs without subsidiary associations (hereinafter P4 or Programme 4)

The allocations were as followed:

Since 2020, the programmes have been divided into three and for the years 2022 - 2023 there is an internal ministerial Idea Concept for the programmes for the period 2022 - 2023 sustaining this division for programmes for ‘Recognized organizations’, ‘Umbrella organizations’ and ‘Transregional organizations’.

The calls have been issued for support in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024. 

The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports supported in 2020 and 2021 also activities in regard to helping to integrate young people ‘back to normal’ after the COVID-19 Lockdowns with the subsidies for special ‘Summer Camps’. 

Different ministries also covered the performance of the tasks arising from the approved National Youth Strategy for 2014 - 2020 from their budgets.

There are also other public policies targeting young people with their respective budgets but there is no or only limited link to youth policy and its Youth Strategy. 

Within the framework of their cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, the individual ministries used their grant programmes to meet the objectives of Strategy 2020. Projects are currently implemented that are financed by the European structural funds, which are under the responsibility of respective ministries, including activities resulting from the mandatory sustainability of such projects.

Regional level

Since 2000, the Czech Republic comprises thirteen regions and one capital city with a regional status. Regions enjoy a considerable degree of autonomy, which also covers the area of youth policies. All regions have produced regional development strategies and other conceptual documents in which youth issues are included.

To increase the implementation of the National Youth Policy on the regional level, the Ministry of Education Youth and Sports provides since 2016 state Subsidy programme ‘The Support of Youth on a Regional level’ (Podpora mládeže na krajské úrovni). The last call was open in 2019 with the allocation of 24 mils. CZK (between years 2015 - 1018 the allocation was only 7 mil. CZK/year). 

What is funded?

Support for the regular children and youth work

The Funding Framework is provided by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. The support focuses on regular and long-term action determined by the widest range of children and young people and on promoting actions and activities which contribute to the improvement, expansion and development activities of various youth organisations and organisations working with children and youth.

Goals of the programmes:

• Creation of free time and other selected activities within the membership base of individual NGOs;
• Creation of free time and selected NGOs targeted activities intended for non-organised children and youth;
• Significant international and national events aimed at children and young people;
• Training and education of children and youth;
• Creating conditions for the development of non-formal education;
• Development of volunteerism and volunteer work with children and youth;
• Education of children and youth in other fields (e.g. participation, mutual tolerance, healthy lifestyle);
• International cooperation for children and youth;
• Multicultural education.

Non-supported activities (covered by other programmes and policies)

• For NGOs having the area of physical education and sport as their main activity;
• For NGOs promoting and integrating the Roma community and national minorities;
• For NGOs aiming at preventing drug use, crime and other negative phenomena;
• To support NGOs dealing with impact only, single-sided or activities (e.g. only organising children's camps with no relation to the year-round activity, operation or renting of hiking and camp bases or other real estate, equipment, etc.);
• For projects aimed at providing social services under Act no. 108/2006 Sb., on social services;
• To support youth information centres.

Investment Programme no.133710 (Investiční program 133710)

State funding for the development of the material-technical base of extracurricular activities for children and youth varies each year. For instance, in 2016 the allocation was  ca 25 000 000 CZK (ca 926 000 EUR), while for 2020 the allocation was 14 000 000 CZK (ca 560 000 EUR).

Programme Support of Youth on regional level (Podpora mládeže na krajské úrovni)

This programme was devoted for Regions which further multiply the amount and run own supporting calls on their respective regional level. For 2019 the maximum allocation is 42 000 000 CZK (1 680 000 EUR) when up to 30 000 000 CZK is devoted for the work with Children and Youth and up to 12 000 000 CZK for regional rounds of state competitions. Since 2020 the programme is cancelled and the support for Youth Work and Leisure Time Activities of Youth is optional on the region's authorities. 

There was also a state funding programme for support of Youth Information Centres available only for state certified Youth Information Centres which fulfilled the quality criteria adopted by the Ministry in 2011. Each centre could gain support of maximum 350 000 CZK (ca 13 000 EUR) later 200 000 CZK (7 100 EUR). Since 2019 this programme does not continue.

Financial accountability

Financial support from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports is financially accountable to the Ministry and its control mechanisms. Supported Youth organisations and entities need to send a final financial report to the Ministry to gain the award of the subsidy successfully.

According to Czech legislation, all forms of legal entities also need to have their own financial accountability or control mechanisms and independent control bodies within their structures.

The whole financial support scheme of the Ministry is accountable to the Ministry of Finance and the Government as a whole. Independent controls could be carried out at any time by the independent Supreme Audit Office of the Czech Republic. Planned controls of the programmes by the Supreme Audit Office are carried out every three years. The latest regular control was scheduled for the period May 2017 until January 2018. 

The latest Conclusions of the control are available at the Supreme Audit Office website. 

Also, subjects of subsidies (youth NGOs) may be checked by the Supreme Audit Office, and they are from time to time. All general regular controls, as well as case-by-case controls, can be found in the Register of the Supreme Audit Office. 

Legislation applying to the Ministerial Youth Work Support scheme:

• Act no. 218/2000 Sb. on Budgetary rules
• Government Resolution of 1 February 2010, no. 92 on the principles for government subsidies from the state budget of the Czech Republic to non-governmental organisations by central government authorities, as amended by Government Resolution dated 19 June 2013 no. 479 and Government Resolution dated 6 August 2014, no. 657

Use of EU Funds

EU Action programmes:

The Czech Republic is fully involved in the European programme Erasmus+ and its Youth Chapter. In the Financial period 2007-2013, it was similarly involved with the Youth in Action Programme.  

EU Structural Funds:

No special category recognising Youth projects within the Structural Funds of EU in the Czech Republic was created. Thus no central data on EU-funded Youth projects are being collected. However, many projects applied by third parties focus on young people as one of or the sole main target group - but usually it is the decision of the applicant and it is usually connected with a special issue or theme (such as youth employment - see Chapter 3.6, citizenship education of youth,  Czech-German cooperation in the youth field from the Goal3, etc.).

On the system level, the European Social Fund was used to support Youth Policy implementation at a national level by three national projects: 

• ESF national project ‘Keys for Life - Developing Key Competences in Leisure-Time and Non-Formal Education’: 15 298 202 CZK from the EU budget (national co-financing: 2 699 682 CZK) conducted from 1 April 2009 to 28 January 2013, with an additional  4 m CZK annually for follow-up activities.
• ESF national project ‘K2 - Quality and Competitiveness in Non-formal Education’ conducted from 1 October 2012 to 30 June 2015 with 57 m CZK.
• ESF national project ‘Connecting Formal and Non-Formal Education’ conducted from 1 September 2018 to 31 August 2021.

First two projects were focused on the validation and recognition of Non-formal and Informal learning. For details see Chapter 6.4 on the Validation and recognition of Non-formal and Informal learning. 

Regarding the support of non-formal and informal learning and for leisure-based education and their infrastructures, the Youth Departments informs about opportunities from the European Funds and their related calls. 

To support youth employment, the Ministry of Social Affairs initiated several EU funded projects on supporting internships and apprenticeships. The European Social Fund is also linked with the implementation of the Youth Guarantee scheme in respective regions. For more details see Chapter 3.5.

The only possible way how to determine the whole amount of EU funds supporting youth in the Czech Republic would be to assess every single project ever funded separately by various Operational Programmes and Funds.