Accelerator Lab

The Future is Calling, We are Answering…

The speed, dynamics and complexity of today’s social, economic and environmental problems are fundamentally different. In 2019, UNDP built the world’s largest and fastest learning network on sustainable development challenges, the UNDP Accelerator Labs. Launched earlier in 2021, the UNDP Accelerator Lab in Egypt acts as an incubator for the future on sustainable development challenges and as a catalyst for change, providing local partners with new approaches to address development problems unleashing the power of local innovations, collective intelligence and experimentation. The Accelerator Lab is working on tackling climate change, poverty reduction and governance aspects to address social and environmental challenges to accelerate progress towards the SDGs and the achievement of Egypt’s Vision 20230. Working hand in hand with a broad range of common and uncommon partners, the Accelerator Lab was able to: test with inclusive solutions, sustainable product innovation, and the power of solution media; commence the exploration journey by collaborating with the Small Grants Project & the Desert Research Center to tackle the issue of salinity in Sidi Salem and come up with innovative ideas for climate smart crops; and form new collaborations with different organizations to leverage the ecosystems and youths’ collective intelligence to support in mapping local grassroots solutions across Egypt.

Solutions Mapping with Greenish & Rise Egypt:

Collective intelligence, solutions mapping, and experimentation is part of UNDPs new offer to governments and the innovation ecosystem. For instance, the UNDP Egypt Accelerator Lab collaborated with Greenish and Rise Egypt during the first Greenish environment festival to:

During the Lab’s First year, they deep dived into learning what is working and what’s not when it comes to strengthening socio-economic resilience of vulnerable communities in Nile-delta, affected by climate change.

-Identify and map out local grassroot innovations across Egypt that address environmental challenges.

-Mobilize a network of solutions mappers across Egypt.

-Inform how collective action can be used to learn, connect, and scale local solutions.