Regional Youth Project on Leadership, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Youth Co:Lab) initiative

The Regional Youth Project on Leadership, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Youth Co:Lab) is UNDP’s multidimensional and multi-level response to tackle the challenges of young people, including the most marginalized, face today in the Asia-Pacific region. Its main objective is to “establish a common agenda for Asia-Pacific countries to invest and empower youth to accelerate implementation of the Global Goals through social innovation and entrepreneurship”. Specifically, the project focuses on establishing a network to foster youth-led social entrepreneurship, supporting youth leadership initiatives, and providing implementation support for incubation financial mechanisms to fund youth-led programmes aimed at achieving the SDGs.

Youth Co:Lab Korea led by UNDP Seoul Policy Centre

Since it first launched in 2017, the Korea chapter of Youth Co:Lab has empowered young entrepreneurs from the Republic of Korea and the Asia-Pacific region to contribute to the SDGs by fostering leadership, social innovation, and entrepreneurship. The main mechanism has been the annual acceleration programme for startups contributing to the achievement of the SDGs which has provided mentoring sessions, workshops, networking opportunities, demo days, and grants to support startups not only from Korea but also from countries from the Asia-Pacific region. In collaboration with local partners, the UNDP Seoul Policy Centre (USPC) leads the Korea chapter of YouthCo:Lab. The USPC plays a pivotal role in facilitating knowledge exchange and sharing Korea’s development experience with partner countries. Its focus on private sector engagement has been significant in advancing social entrepreneurship, especially among youth.