LocationsLocal Roots, Global Goals: How UNDP Is Supporting Youth-led Skills Development, Innovation and Entrepreneurship
August 12, 2025
Those who live the challenges hold the sharpest insight for change because they see it, feel it, and have the strongest reason to solve it. Insights from over 4,000 youth across Asia and the Pacific show that many young entrepreneurs design solutions like inclusive digital tools, accessible healthcare services, and climate-smart technologies for the very communities they belong to. This makes their work not only inclusive but deeply rooted in local realities.
When their communities are tested, young people rise as first responders, standing ready on the frontlines of change. They are building resilient, context-driven models that can be learned from and replicated in similar communities, making their innovations not only locally grounded but also regionally and globally relevant when scaled. Now imagine that potential multiplied across 700 million young people in Asia and the Pacific, a generation of changemakers capable of transforming the future, one community at a time.
Since 2017, youth programmes in the Asia-Pacific region have supported over 580,000 young people across 30 countries and territories in Asia and the Pacific, creating or improving more than 3,200 youth-led enterprises, generating over 155,000 livelihood opportunities to communities they serve, and benefiting 13.8 million people through inclusive value chains. Behind these numbers are UNDP country offices driving change with and for young people.
Local Action Country by Country
Establishing a youth portfolio for climate resilience in frontline regions
In Papua New Guinea, UNDP is laying the groundwork for a dedicated youth portfolio, recognizing that the nation’s greatest asset is its young people. With more than 70% of the population under 35, empowering youth is not just timely, it’s essential for sustainable development and climate resilience.
Reflecting this commitment, the Pacific Green Transformation Project, funded by the Government of Japan, hosted the first-ever Youth Empowerment Bootcamp in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, in partnership with the North Bougainville Women’s Office and YECAP. Young people, primarily from Bougainville’s highly climate-vulnerable atoll communities, were trained in climate resilience, entrepreneurship, and gender equality. Learning to Lead, captures how youth participants are gaining not only technical knowledge, but also the confidence and leadership skills to drive change in their communities. While in Buka, Innovation Hubs are a training ground for young people to be knowledgeable on solar power systems in health centers, schools, and community buildings, boosting energy access and demonstrating how youth can lead the charge in green transformation.
Building integrated youth ecosystems through a national portfolio
In Viet Nam, UNDP is advancing an integrated Youth Portfolio that connects climate action, digital transformation, governance, and entrepreneurship, positioning young people as key drivers of national development. Over the past five years, the portfolio has engaged more than 15,000 youth, from ethnic minority communities in the north through Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI), digital changemakers in urban centers, and climate innovators in the Mekong Delta. UNDP has trained over 700 young entrepreneurs, incubated more than 75 youth-led startups, and supported hundreds of young people to influence public policy, including through local climate dialogues and national negotiations.
In 2024, to emphasize youth-led knowledge and evidence, Vietnamese youth have co-authored key reports such as Strengthening climate change education in Viet Nam and Integrating youth perspectives in Viet Nam's Just Energy Transition, advocating for stronger youth engagement in national climate policy. They also have studies focused on the State of the Ecosystem for Youth Entrepreneurship in Viet Nam and research on the readiness for the public sector in the context of the digital revolution.
Expanding youth digital and AI skilling through peer-led models
In Indonesia, UNDP advances peer-led digital transformation with local impact through the Skill Our Future initiative, in partnership with the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) and Microsoft. The initiative enables young people, especially women and underserved groups, to access digital skills, AI tools, and employment opportunities.
Through projects like LEAD+, implemented by Biji-Biji Initiative and Digital Future Leaders: Future Skills Challenge, co-implemented by Akselerate and supported by Google Indonesia, youth are developing community-based solutions and leading digital workshops. In 2025 alone, the initiative has reached over 38,000 youth, trained 1,587 youth facilitators, and supported more than 50 youth-led community groups. The programme blends self-paced learning, mentorship, and a peer-to-peer model, where trained youth facilitators lead sessions in their own communities.
Localizing climate literacy through youth-led volunteer actions
In China, UNDP, UNV and the China Education Support Programme are raising climate literacy in rural areas through the Movers4Climate Youth Green Action initiative. The programme equips youth volunteers with tailored tools to lead climate education sessions across rural and remote communities. So far, 4,532 volunteer youth trainers from 315 universities have been using customized toolkits that cover the SDGs, climate action, biodiversity, marine conservation, and adaptation to extreme weather. These volunteers are now conducting Green Classes in rural areas across China’s central and western regions, with a target to reach over 50,000 young people by the end of August 2025.
The programme uses a train-the-trainer model, which enables youth volunteers to not only gain climate knowledge but also pass it on within their communities. With UNDP China providing content, coordination, and scale-up support, these young people are bringing the SDGs and climate action into classrooms that might otherwise be left behind.
Scaling inclusive youth entrepreneurship through multi-stakeholder partnerships
In India, UNDP aims to nurture innovation from the ground up. At the national level, their Youth Co:Lab programme has been supporting youth-led innovation and entrepreneurship since 2019 in partnership with the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog, the Government of India’s flagship innovation platform. Each year, a themed innovation challenge offers seed grants, mentorship, and national visibility for promising youth-led ventures. Themes have ranged from fintech for small farmers, upcycling for the circular economy, and tribal entrepreneurship to gender equality and digital literacy.
Over the years, startups supported by the programme have made great strides in impact and social innovation. For example, Digiswasthya Foundation, a primary healthcare platform that began as a telemedicine service, has gone on to impact over 2 million lives through health camps, consultations and a network of standardized clinics across India, with a focus on affordable rural healthcare. This is an example of over 280 entrepreneurs who have been supported by the programme over seven editions. UNDP India ensures that inclusion remains central, focusing on youth from Tier 2 & 3 cities, tribal regions and startups led by women and people from marginalized backgrounds.
Incubating youth entrepreneurship through structured national programming
In Singapore, UNDP is supporting youth to develop entrepreneurial skills, ideate and build their community projects and social enterprises through the Movers Programme and the Youth Action Challenge (YAC), in collaboration with the National Youth Council and Citi Singapore.
Since 2019, UNDP has supported over 360 youth-led initiatives and empowered over 3,100 youth in Singapore. The YAC is a structured six-month programme that allows young people to act on their passions and co-create an inclusive, sustainable and progressive Singapore. During the programme, UNDP brings youth closer to the SDGs and the Social Entrepreneurship concept for sustained impact through targeted hybrid training and mentorship.
Country-specific support is essential to meet young people where they are, align with local realities, and unlock their full potential. When young people are given the proper support and space to grow, the impact they create is deeply rooted in their communities, powerful enough to launch chain reactions that reach far and wide. But meaningful change doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s through local grounding, determination, and a strong sense of purpose that bold ideas take flight, shaping the future and driving human development toward a more inclusive and sustainable world.
UNDP’s youth programming in Asia and the Pacific is built around five key pillars designed to empower young people as leaders of transformative change. Across the region, countries adapt and localize these pillars to their own contexts: Youth Social Entrepreneurship, through Youth Co:Lab, supporting young innovators to build purpose-driven startups and sustainable enterprises; Climate Action, through the Youth Empowerment in Climate Action Platform (YECAP), engaging youth in climate resilience, policy advocacy, and community leadership; Skill Our Future, equipping young people with 21st-century, digital, and AI-related skills to prepare them for the future of work; Youth, Peace, and Governance, encouraging youth to actively shape just, inclusive, and peaceful societies; Leaving No One Behind, a cross-cutting principle ensuring that marginalized and underrepresented youth are not only included but empowered to lead.
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