From 2019 until 2025, the UNDP Lebanon Accelerator Lab was part of a global network established to bring new ways of thinking, learning and experimentation into development practice. In Lebanon, the Lab emerged during a period of profound social, economic and institutional change, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the 4 August 2020 Beirut port explosion and a deepening socioeconomic crisis. Against this backdrop, the Lab sought to help UNDP better understand rapidly evolving realities, identify emerging needs and explore new approaches to complex development challenges.

Over time, the Lab developed an approach grounded in data, behavioural insights, local knowledge and people’s lived experiences. Its work included gathering and connecting data on vulnerability and emerging needs, testing ideas and approaches, and generating insights to inform UNDP programming and support partners in understanding how different communities were being affected by changing circumstances.

The Lab combined experimentation, data, behavioural science and collective intelligence to explore complex challenges and identify solutions emerging from communities, entrepreneurs, institutions and other actors across Lebanon. Rather than starting with predetermined answers, it listened to communities, mapped emerging practices, tested ideas on a small scale and generated evidence on what worked, what did not, and why.

Through this approach, the Accelerator Lab served as a learning and innovation function within UNDP Lebanon, connecting grassroots insights with programmes, policies and institutional action. By working with communities, public institutions, civil society, academia, the private sector and innovators, the Lab helped UNDP adapt to changing realities and explore new pathways towards a more inclusive and sustainable Lebanon.