UPSHIFT Bhutan — UNICEF's Schools-Based Youth Social-Innovation Programme

UPSHIFT is UNICEF's global social-innovation and entrepreneurship curriculum for adolescents aged 10–24, teaching human-centred design, problem-solving and leadership through mentored, project-based challenges. Bhutan adopted the programme in 2022 through UNICEF Bhutan working with the Ministry of Education and Skills Development, initially rolling it out in 65 schools plus one skills centre in Gelephu.

The programme aims to build youth social-innovation and entrepreneurship skills nationwide, embedding a human-centred-design curriculum in the school system and supporting adolescents to develop their own solutions to local problems.

By 2024–25, UPSHIFT had expanded to 264 schools across all 20 dzongkhags (districts) and four municipalities. A parallel Adolescent Skills and Employability (ASE) project trained 4,639 "UPSHIFTERS" across 65 schools and 10 youth centres via 75 trained focal persons. The programme also runs an annual National Innovation Challenge with the Loden Foundation, where school teams pitch ideas for scale-up funding, and Bhutan is one of four countries (with Ghana, Armenia and Uzbekistan) featured in a UNICEF case study on making UPSHIFT more inclusive for youth with disabilities.

The programme reached more than 27,000 young people and supported the development of over 1,500 youth-led solutions to local problems such as waste management, water shortages, bullying and substance access. Of the 4,639 ASE participants, 2,496 were female, close to gender parity.

As a UNICEF-funded and technically supported initiative embedded in the national school system, UPSHIFT Bhutan has strong institutional backing and multi-year continuity. Its longer-term sustainability once donor support tapers, and the extent to which youth-led "solutions" translate into lasting local enterprises or jobs rather than one-off school projects, have not yet been independently evaluated.