YOUTH LEADERSHIP,
SOCIAL INNOVATION AND
ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN ASIA
AND THE PACIFICThe 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognizes theimportant role of youth in achieving Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) and calls for action against the challenges faced by young
people that limit their economic, social, and political inclusion.
Today, young people are connected, creative, informed, and persuasive and are responding to challenges
with innovative approaches and contributing fresh ideas. They strive to create the world they want anddrive human development for themselves, their communities, and their societies. At the same time, ofover 600 million young people in the region, around 160 million are not in employment, education, ortraining (NEET), facing dire economic insecurity. In addition, many young people are left out of decisionmaking processes, further contributing to their marginalization and exclusion.

PROJECT OBJECTIVE
Co-created in 2017 by the United Nations Development Programme(UNDP) and the Citi Foundation, Youth Co:Lab aims to establish acommon agenda for Asia-Paciﬁc countries to invest in and empower
youth to accelerate the implementation of the SDGs throughleadership, social innovation, and entrepreneurship.

PROJECT OUTPUTS
Strengthened entrepreneurial
skills of young peopleŸ

National and regional dialogues, social innovation challenges, andother events across the region are organized to develop 21st-century
skills, foster social entrepreneurship, provide leadership training
opportunities, and raise awareness about the SDGs, among youngpeople in the Asia-Paciﬁc region.

Catalyzing youth-ledsocial enterprises
Ÿ

The Springboard programme is a startup support platform
providing ongoing support for young SDG innovators by facilitating
mentoring, knowledge exchange, networking and showcasing.
Springboard Plus is a six-month virtual pre-accelerator programme
dedicated to enhancing investment readiness for youth-led socialenterprises.

Strengthening the ecosystem foryouth social entrepreneurshipŸYouth Co:Lab connects ecosystem stakeholders through its key partnership structure, Youth
Empowerment Alliance. The Springboard Ampliﬁer programme provides a peer-to-peer learning
platform for entrepreneurship support organisations across the Asia-Paciﬁc region to connect andstrengthen their capacities to support young social entrepreneurs and innovators.

ŸYouth Co:Lab is a founding member of the Strategic Intelligence Hub, which serves as a nerve centre
for regional development partners such as UNDP, Citi Foundation, The Commonwealth, ILO andUNESCAP to organize thought leadership initiatives and build a community of practice consisting ofregional and national policy and programmatic leaders. Youth Co:Lab produces action-oriented
research studies and toolkits in collaboration with its partners to support evidence-based programme
development.

PROJECT RESULTS & WHAT'S AHEAD
Since 2017, Youth Co:Lab has supported young aspiring and inspiring social
entrepreneurs in 28 countries and territories in Asia and the Paciﬁc. The National
dialogues, regional summits, social innovation challenges and the workshops
organized by the Movers volunteers have reached over 280,300 participants.
The national youth social innovation and entrepreneurial skills development
activities have beneﬁted over 19,000 young people and launched or improved
over 2,600 youth-led social innovation and entrepreneurship teams
strengthening their SDG solutions and investment readiness through theregional Springboard Plus pre-accelerator programme.
Youth Co:Lab has established a network of over 300 ecosystem stakeholders
through a Youth Empowerment Alliance and built the capacities of more than 50
entrepreneurship support organizations through the Springboard Ampliﬁer
peer-to-peer learning programme, to make their services more inclusive foryoung entrepreneurs. There are action-oriented publications produced by YouthCo:Lab, supporting the project's contribution to system-level changes at thenational and regional levels.
With a comprehensive Leave No One Behind agenda, Youth Co:Lab has curated
programmes to continue supporting some of the most marginalized youth fromunderserved communities and strengthen the capacities of entrepreneurshipsupport organizations serving young social entrepreneurs across the region.

@YouthCoLab | https://www.youthcolab.org/ | info@YouthCoLab.org