SDSN Youth saw a year of growth as well as active engagement and partnership building with the UN Office of the Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth and other organizations in the youth x SDG space.
2021 has been year with a number of achievements and new ambitions. We continue to expand and actively engaged with global summits and events, amplifying youth voices and actions for sustainable development, while cultivating partnerships with the UN Office of the Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth and other organizations.
As the year nears its end, we look back on some key highlights of various teams at SDSN Youth.
In mid-2021, Brighton Kaoma joined SDSN Youth as the new Global Director.
SDSN Youth welcomed SDSN Youth USA, Afghanistan and Bolivia to its Networks Program.
The Membership Program expanded to 672 members in 112 countries as of September, and held its first 2-day Global Networking Event in November.
The SDG Students Program hosted its first Global Virtual Summit in April, which brought together students from 66 campus SDG Student Hubs across 25 countries. 36 SDG Coordinators joined in 2021, amounting to a total of 91 SDG Coordinators. To date, there are over 3,800 Hub members all over the world who engaged in 509 hub initiatives in 2021.
The Local Pathways Fellowship launched its first mentorship program in May. 79 fellows from 35 countries in the 2021 cohort successfully graduated in December, with a graduation rate of about 80%. It continues to bring together fellows and experts at city councils, C40, World Bank, UN Environment Programme, Hack for Earth Foundation, Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance, etc. in its webinar series.
The Solutions Program just opened its call for applications for the Innovation Readiness Program 2022, a 16-week acceleration program run in collaboration with Babele.
SDSN Youth and its members participated in and hosted side-events at various summits and conferences, such as:
Together with the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, SDSN Youth hosted the eighth annual Vatical Youth Symposium in December, attracting 800+ registrations and 400+ active participants with 742k reach and 3.1M impressions on Twitter alone for #VYS2021.