Launched in 2023, the SDG Accelerator Fund addresses the lack of financial resources available to emerging young leaders globally who are driving intersectional solutions aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their communities.

Through financial support, capacity building, networking, and leadership development, the Fund serves as an early-stage investor to accelerate the launch and scale of innovative solutions tackling key issues such as climate action, gender equity, public health, quality education, and economic empowerment.

Our unique approach:

  • Rooted in local community leadership and engagement

  • Focused on youth leaders from historically underfunded communities

Youth Advisory Committee

The Fund's inaugural grantmaking strategy was shaped by an Advisory Committee of eight youth leaders from Brazil, Nigeria, Mongolia, Peru, Kenya, and Ghana. These leaders played a key role as thought and strategy partners, helping to both develop grantmaking criteria and select grantees, ensuring that the Fund meets the priorities and needs of local changemakers driving innovative solutions towards the SDGs.

2024 COHORT

In our first round, we awarded grants of $5,000 each to 10 emerging leaders focused on climate change and the leadership of women and youth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Grantees are currently reaching over 1,000 community members annually on issues such as food security, gender and sexual violence, road safety and access to quality education through trainings, advocacy campaigns, leadership development programs, cross-sector partnerships and more.

  • Project: Triple Action for Food Security and Nutrition

    As a young woman in a country faced with extreme food insecurity and malnutrition, and an academic background in Food Security and Community Nutrition, Mededode Monique Sognigbe is working to increase households’ dietary diversity, with a focus on economically disadvantaged women. Her three-pronged approach combines nutrition education, participatory demonstrations, and production of healthy foods. She impressed reviewers with her clear vision for growth as a leader and the strong role modeling she is already demonstrating as a mother and community leader.

  • PROJECT: Evergreen Save-Us Environmental Project

    Kohtem Princewil Sambit is an innovator, environmental activist, and scholar with a passion for working with young people. With legal and conservation experience, among other diverse skills, his project will reforest a deforested community, reduce plastic waste, and strengthen the capacity of youth across Cameroon. He will also tell the story of his work through a documentary on climate change, which he hopes will raise awareness on the issue.

  • PROJECT: Walk Safe - Community-Based Road Safety Education for Preventing Child Pedestrian Road Traffic Injuries in Wolkite Town.

    Passionate about sustainability, Esmael Seid Yimer champions social and behavioral determinants of health, safety, and well-being. Working in Southwestern Ethiopia, he developed a program on road safety that engages parents, teachers, and law enforcement to ensure children’s safe school journeys in a context wherein road traffic injuries are emerging as the leading cause of unintentional child fatalities.

  • PROJECT: Developing Youth Green Entrepreneurs in Lubumbashi

    Drawing on a background in both geology and environmental management, Mariam Kabamba deeply understands the harm to communities brought by mining, which promotes environmental degradation, accelerates climate change, and fuels poverty and vulnerability, especially for women and youth. She works with marginalized young people in peri-urban communities in a mining- affected region, joining environmental leadership with green entrepreneurship for impact on unemployment, poverty, and the environment.

  • PROJECT: Market Oriented Mushrooms Farming (MOM Farming)

    With career ambitions focused on entrepreneurship and building strong agri-food systems, Lydia Madintin Konlan is building on existing programming at an organization she founded. MOM Farming is a model that uplifts women who work in the agricultural sector through a mushroom farming initiative with both economic and environmental benefits.

  • PROJECT: Green Vanguard: Blending Traditional Educational Methods With Innovative Sustainability And Digital Literacy Programs For Environmental Responsibility

    A dynamic founder and changemaker, Paul Mensah Amanor uses a multidisciplinary and multidimensional approach to working with his community. His initiative blends traditional educational methods with innovative sustainable and digital literacy programs, advancing environmental responsibility, fostering digital equity, and promoting a more sustainable future.

  • PROJECT: Youth Training on Climate Change Adaptation And Leadership

    Building on experience piloting a youth training on climate adaptation and leadership, Stephanie Eyram Akrumah is working to empower young people by equipping them with skills and knowledge they will need to take meaningful action on climate adaptation. Recognizing the disproportionate impacts of climate change on youth, while simultaneously inspired by their zeal and creativity, she is eager to foster leadership in youth for a more sustainable future.

  • PROJECT: Grassroots Interventions For Intergenerational Justice On Antibiotic Stewardship

    Drawing on a diverse background in communications, sustainable development, and research, Winifred Maduko is enriching her PhD research by exploring effective communication strategies at the grassroots level, with a focus on antimicrobial resistance and antibiotics misuse.

  • PROJECT: Empower Her to Unleash Her Potential

    In conflict-affected Northwest Cameroon, Che Myra Ndum’s advanced training in counselling and experience using storytelling as a methodology are critical to her work creating safe spaces for community members, especially girls, to speak against sexual and gender-based violence. Responding to staggering rates of SGBV, her project also increases the accessibility of legal, medical, and psycho- social support for survivors.

  • PROJECT: Room For Learning Outcomes Improvement

    Driven by a passion to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, Komlan Abalo Braly is working with secondary school teachers and students in the rural community of Togo Tchitchao. His work aims to improve foundational literacy and numeracy skills among students while enhancing teachers’ skills in implementing social and emotional learning techniques.