National Entrepreneurship Forum

In 2022, the startup ecosystem in Viet Nam made significant progress, moving up five places to become number 54 on the new Global Startup Ecosystem Index, a global report that highlights the best places to start businesses and shows where thriving communities of entrepreneurs already exist to support and guide entrepreneurs.

According to the Viet Nam Open Innovation Landscape report, during the first nine months of 2022, the country received a total of USD 494 million in venture capital investments. These impressive figures demonstrate not only the potential of Vietnamese start-ups but also the enormous interest that investors have shown in the Vietnamese market.

Ms. Ramla Khalidi said Youth are a major driver for positive change. They have the energy, commitment, and fresh ideas to create solutions that will accelerate the country's development and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. More importantly, they represent the future and thus investing in young people means investing in a better future. 

Since 2017, UNDP and Citi Foundation jointly implemented the Youth Co:Lab in 28 countries and territories across the Asia Pacific. Working at both national and sub-national levels, Youth Co:Lab Viet Nam leverages public, private, academic and youth organization partners to create an enabling environment and appropriate incentives that support young social entrepreneurs and innovators to accelerate the national achievement of SDGs. Ms. Ramla Khalidi said some of the results include: 

Ms. Ramla Khalidi, UNDP resident representative in Vietnam

First, more than 400 young entrepreneurs and 150 impact mentors from 29 provinces have been trained. 

Second, 45 youth-led impact startups were supported with financial and technical assistance through the SDG Innovation Incubation Program. 

Third, over 700 young entrepreneurs and stakeholders have joined the many sub-national, national and international policy dialogues organized to advocate for social impact business, youth innovation, and entrepreneurship. 

Fourth, in 2019, Viet Nam was also honored to host the Youth Co: Lab Summit, which welcomed over 400 guests from more than 20 countries in the Asia & Pacific region. 

Fifth, in 2022, post-Covid 19, we are also proud to see that the 3 impact startups from Viet Nam, HASU – 2020 champion, Cyber Purify – 2021 champion, and FUWA – 2021 runner-up, were selected to join the Youth Co:Lab 2022 summit in Singapore, together with hundreds of representatives from 20 countries. 

The Youth Co:Lab has indeed created a platform to bring together experts, mentors, investors, and young entrepreneurs, not only from Viet Nam but also from around the world, to exchange information, discuss challenges, and propose innovative solutions for supporting impact startups. They have created their own energy and opportunities to innovate and create.

“I am also pleased to share with you that UNDP, together with the Global Affairs of Canada and the Ministry of Planning and Investment in Viet Nam is implementing the ISEE-COVID project to leverage the social impact businesses ecosystem (including the impact startups) to respond to COVID-19. We are also working with National Agency for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Development (NATEC), Ministry of Science and Technology in the “Youth Digital Citizen Challenge 2022”, to encourage young people to develop technology products, services, and communication initiatives to support local governments in the national digital transformation process and accelerate a sustainable startup ecosystem in Viet Nam”, said Ms. Ramla Khalidi.  

With these concrete commitments, UNDP and partners are looking forward to building the impact startup ecosystem and motivating young entrepreneurs with a simple core objective: to unlock the potential of young entrepreneurs in helping us adopt and adapt new solutions to accelerate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.