The world's most urgent challenges—food insecurity, climate disruption, biodiversity collapse—cannot be solved in silos. C3 Labs is a UNDP-led global initiative that tests and scales a new way of working: deep, cross-sector collaboration designed to drive lasting systems change.

Co-developed with FAO, UNEP and Wageningen University & Research, and supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), C3 Labs brings together leaders from government, civil society, the private sector, and academia to tackle complex challenges at their roots—not just their symptoms.

The Challenge

Most responses to today's interconnected crises still happen in isolation. Broken relationships, misaligned incentives, and rigid institutional structures prevent the kind of coordinated action that real systems change requires. Technical solutions alone are not enough — the way we work together must change too.

The Approach

C3 Labs are live, experimental spaces where collaboration is not just talked about — it is facilitated, piloted, and scaled. Each Lab convenes a curated cohort of 30 systems change leaders across sectors and institutions, working together over 12 months through:

• Residential, in-person retreats and peer learning
• Cross-sector exploration of partnership and collaboration opportunities
• Coaching and support from facilitators, researchers, and policy advisors
• Virtual touchpoints that sustain connection between sessions

Fellows are systems thinkers in positions of significant leadership — practitioners and decision-makers who leave the lab equipped to drive change within their institutions and beyond.

Focus & Foundation

C3 Labs operates at the nexus of food systems, climate, and biodiversity—areas where transformation is both most urgent and most complex. Pilot labs are currently underway in Kenya and Thailand, testing this deep collaboration methodology in real-world contexts.

The approach builds on more than a decade of UNDP's experience in systems thinking, and draws directly from a landmark co-inquiry process (2020–2022) in which over 150 representatives from multilateral donors, development agencies, civil society, and academia explored how to accelerate systemic change in food systems. The findings—captured in Navigating Complexity in Food Systems: From Clockwork to Cloudwork—inform every dimension of the C3 methodology.