The Accountability Lab (USA)
The Accountability Lab engages young people to build the skills they need to improve their communities around the world. The organisation works to support active citizens and responsible leaders, providing them with the tools, knowledge, and networks they need to solve complex development challenges relating to health, education, clean water and much more.
The Accountability Lab’s approaches are solutions-oriented, positive and focused on building the “unlikely networks” that can lead to breakthrough initiatives and ensure a better life for future generations.
The Accountability Lab is a trans-local network, with local Labs registered in 12 countries that share ideas, lessons, values and a commitment to supporting young people from all walks of life. The Lab has won many prizes for its work around the world, including from the UN. The Lab is also supported by a range of governments, international organisations and foundations.
Since 2021/2022, the Eurofins Foundation supports The Youth Incubator, a project that supports 100+ young people across ten countries through a year-long training, networking, knowledge-building and idea generation process to solve health issues, local development challenges and environmental degradation.
Since then, the Accountability Lab:
- Implemented a 14-module curriculum across 13 countries with 196 participants over three years, with their efforts reaching thousands of people. As an example, the Manyatta Youth Forum (Kenya) reached over 10,000 young and vulnerable people with their artistic activism approach.
- Activated a core team of network builders. The Accountability Lab created opportunities for strategic network building beyond the in-country training events with alumni as speakers/facilitators.
- Built a vibrant, global alumni network of “accountapreneurs” to support each other, share ideas, learn, and grow. These 'living connections' are time-consuming but lay the foundation for more profound work. The Accountability Lab’s approach entails a strategic process connecting local change-makers to a growing network of individuals working to improve health, education, and the environment.
Nancy Ongom, one of the Youth Incubator Fellow in Uganda mentions “…since joining, the biggest impact has been the content and learning as well as widening my network. The various content enabled me to improve on my idea of promoting menstrual health and the fellowship enabled me to train up to 200 girls with the skills of making reusable sanitary pads”.
In Kenya, fellow William Tolbert says that “since joining the incubator cohort 2022, my biggest impact has been rebranding my work to focus on the participation and inclusion of women, youths and people with disabilities. Through Promoters of Social Inclusion (PSI), I was able to train and empower 300 grassroots women drawn from ten counties in Kenya”.
The Youth Incubator is co-funded by the Skoll Foundation, the Open Society Foundations and the Eurofins Foundation, which renews its support in 2023/2024.
This project contributes to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
