Innovation Projects run by UN Entities

The Market Profiling Application (MPA) developed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is an online, dynamic, real-time application for the systematic collection, display, and analysis of epidemiologically relevant market data. It informs decisions on preventing or mitigating (zoonotic) disease transmission and ultimately contributes to minimizing the risk of transboundary animal and zoonotic disease outbreaks. http://www.fao.org/3/ca6132en/ca6132en.pdf

The objective of this pilot is to enhance the traceability and due diligence in the cotton value chain through the implementation of blockchain technology, to support a circular economy approach. Working with a range of key industry players, UNECE will develop a blockchain solution for sourcing sustainable cotton. ---- Improving transparency and traceability has become a priority for the garment and footwear industry to increase its ability to manage its value chains more effectively; identify, mitigate and address labour and human rights and sustainability impacts; combat counterfeits; and manage reputational risks. Today, many companies have a limited view of the network of business partners within their value chain. Most can identify and track their immediate (Tier 1) suppliers, but information is often lost about the suppliers of their suppliers – a UNECE study demonstrates that only around 30% of fashion companies implement tracking and tracing in their supply chain – and most of these reach Tier 1 only. Nonetheless, the implementation of traceability in supply chains is a complex issue because it requires the collaboration of all stakeholders and the deployment of shared, reliable technical solutions. The global fragmentation of production is a key feature of the fashion industry which is further complicated by the prevalence of subcontracting and informal work, especially in lower supplier tiers. As a result, it has been difficult to provide consumers with information about product provenance Advanced technologies (distributed ledgers such as blockchains, AI, machine learning, Internet of Things) can enable fashion industry actors to improve supply chain transparency across a variety of ecosystems by making available all information about product origin in a transparent and trustworthy manner by assigning a digital identity to the product. Cotton is a key sector for the textile and garment industry because it is the world’s most widely-used natural fiber, with an approximate yearly global production of 20 million metric tonnes. It is a vital industry and a critical source of economic growth which contributes to the livelihoods of more than 350 million people, mainly smallholder farmers in developing countries. Nonetheless, cotton production has substantial environmental and social impacts which are increasingly interconnected and trickle down to negatively impact cotton producers. Many companies have already engaged with global cotton sustainability programmes and have started to shift from the use of conventionally-grown to organically-farmed cotton. In this context, and in connection with the UNECE project for advancing transparency and traceability of sustainable value chains in the garment and footwear sector, a first pilot will focus on a blockchain solution in cotton value chains. The pilot will be implemented in collaboration with experts from brands, manufacturers, raw material providers, standard-setting bodies and technology providers. It will cover all the production steps of the value chain along with relevant business data and sustainability data elements identified in a mapping conducted by UNECE and UN/CEFACT experts, and a selection of certificates linked to specific hotspots of the cotton value chain (i.e. certificate of origin, certificate of organic cotton, and certificate of zero discharge and hazardous chemicals substances), to ensure the traceability of a product type (i.e: a shirt/a suit, TBC) and assess the pilot’s scalability to other textile fibers.

The United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF) has taken the leap into emerging technologies to help them to streamline service delivery to their clients, the retired UN staff around the globe. The Pension Fund’s Certificate of Entitlement (CE) certifies that retiree beneficiaries are who they say they are, are still living, and still reside at their registered locations. This has always been a cumbersome and manual processes that has been prone to error if not fraud. ICC together with the Fund and the effective partnership of Hyperledger, an open source blockchain technology firm, has created a solution to automate and make immutable the CE process with blockchain, biometrics and a mobile app. The project team created and completed a Proof of Concept prototype that demonstrated that technology could be applied to overcome existing issues with the CE without introducing any major risks that hamper the flow of entitlements.

In Uruguay, there is a gap in the use of the official part-time leave benefit between mothers and fathers. This is mainly due to a lack of information about laws, perceptions about costs associated with taking leave, and social believes that for the care of babies fathers are less necessary than mothers. This project aims to use behavioural interventions to understand how effective communication can help address these barriers and help to design policies to reduce the gender gap in care leave.

UNCDF with technical assistance from Amarante Consulting is partnering with Laxmi Bank, a Class “A” commercial bank and its subsidiary microfinance institution to develop suitable savings and credit products that cater to migrant Nepalis and their beneficiary families back in Nepal. The end goals are: -To direct the flow of remittances into short or long-term savings instruments and/or credit products that help generate income and assets. -To explore credit products to support out-migration costs and meet short-term consumption needs such as payment of school fees. For that purpose, UNCDF and Laxmi Bank will explore the potential of blockchain to facilitate cross border settlements to drive down costs and artificial intelligence-driven credit scoring technologies to originate and gauge customer creditworthiness. Marketing exercises that are adapted to the local context will be deployed to create the link between remittances and access to finance. UNCDF and Laxmi bank will run a pilot in early 2019 for four months. The goal for the pilot is to enrol 400 savings and credit customers, at least 40% of whom are new customers for Laxmi Bank. Activity level in savings/credit accounts, end-use of credit and credit delinquencies are some of the other indicators that this pilot will aim to track. The emerging evidence from this pilot could inform potential course-corrections for a full scale-up in pilot corridors (Nepal-UAE and Nepal-Malaysia) as well as other geographies. The project’s objectives and tracking mechanisms aim to address four SDGs in particular namely poverty reduction (SDG 1), decent work and economic growth (SDG 8), reduced inequalities (SDG 10) and partnerships for the goals (SDG 17).

Currently, there is a lack of visibility and timely availability of shipping documents along the supply chain in Ethiopia and the Djibouti corridor, resulting in delays due to poor planning and rework. These issues make it difficult to know the status and expected delivery of shipments. Blocks for Transport utilizes blockchain technology to create a more visible humanitarian supply chain and reduce delays in transportation, starting with the Djibouti to Ethiopia corridor.

The Atrium is a project that looks to enable any UN agency to experiment with blockchain applications in a sandbox environment. The Atrium is comprised of two components; a storefront to share blockchain applications, and the underlying infrastructure to test those applications. Not only are participants encouraged to share what they are working on, but to build on the existing work of others – a potential solution to increase collaboration and reduce necessary development time by enabling teams to leverage one another’s work.

Pigs play a key role in Papua New Guinea, both culturally and economically. Rising global demand for pork presents new export opportunities, but only if farmers can prove the quality of their product. Together with the International Telecommunications Unit, FAO is creating a distributed ledger system – better known as a blockchain-based system – that can track livestock and allow consumers to buy with confidence by verifying the history of their pigs. Using the system, farmers can record important information about their pigs, including their pedigrees, what they were fed, when they fell sick and what medicine was administered. Before the system was implemented, consumers had no means of verifying this information. The implementation of the new tracking system is vital for establishing consumer trust and ensuring farmers can expand their markets and earn a fair return on their investments.

goMediCAL is a mobile app that allows users to access a list of doctors and clinics and to make appointments with more than 200 health professionals for themselves or others. The app also enables users to share their medical records with doctors and to pay remotely for consultations. The service offered by goMediCAL is complemented by a web app for clinics that allows doctors to manage patients’ files and appointments (e.g., scheduling, cancellation, report and reminder), medical-specialty consultations, and mobile-money and bank/credit-card payments. One year after its launch in the Beninese market, goMediCAL has 60 registered clinics and is used by more than 8,000 customers and about 250 doctors.

Free and open access to national, sub-national, basin and sub-basin aggregated data on water extent

The World Environment Situation Room provides UN Member States open access to knowledge on the environment at the global, regional, and national level, by giving access to the best available data, citizen sciences, communities of practice and case studies. Learn more in this interactive Storymap bit.ly/WESR-StoryMap

Many of us who fight for women’s rights have the privilege of knowing mighty women and girls. They are the courageous ones - those who insist on and fight for a future where women and girls are free from violence and can live out their full potential. Most of these women’s rights defenders are not widely known, yet work tirelessly at grave risk to themselves and their families. Along with UN Women, and the civil society organizations Vital Voices and Global Fund for Women, we identified four women’s rights defenders who are building movements against mass incarceration, human trafficking, child marriage and sexual violence. Their stories are the stories of our virtual reality series, “Courage to Question.”

UN Women and partners have since 2015 jointly identified successful behavioural strategies that help prevent, overcome and tackle violence against women – the so-called positive champions (positive deviants) among women survivors of violence, police officers, social workers, and even former aggressors. In this way, UN Women managed to change the perceptions about the survivors, so they are acknowledged and involved as the key experts in eliminating violence against women at the legislative, policy, institutional and community level initiatives.

UN Women is piloting the Buy from Women (BfW) platform under the Global Flagship Programme on Climate Smart Agriculture, to provide easier access to land, information, markets and finance for women farmers.The platform plays a dual role: it allows women to access pertinent information (prices, inputs, financing) while helping them establish themselves as legitimate commercial entities with records (land/yields, track record of investments/repayments) to secure their financial future or access new markets. Most available market platforms are developed based on the needs of buyers or companies that need to track their suppliers. But the design of Buy from Women is directly based on women farmers’ needs. It uses an open source Enter-prise Resource Planning system developed for the farmers, covering multiple functions, and flexible to integrate third party apps. Pilots are based on value-chain-specific analysis to make sure their features integrate local needs and context.

Using the latest VR technology, UNAIDS partnered with Google to create films in order to demystify HIV testing. With goggles that viewers can wear for a full VR experience, the aim is to reach young people who may want to know their HIV status but are afraid or worried about taking an HIV test. In the films, a group of talented young people re-enact several scenarios of a young woman’s journey to find out her HIV status. Going from her home to a local health clinic, the films allow viewers to explore different settings through a 360-degree experience. The films were released for World AIDS Day 1 Dec. on the UNAIDS website and in South Africa at the big Global Citizens Festival as well as at a VR conference in Amsterdam.

Tanya Marlo is a chat bot designed to simulate conversations with human users, developed by UNAIDS Indonesia in partnership with Nimbly Technologies. The chat bot serves to be the reliable go-to-source for all HIV-related information for young people in Jakarta, who are not reached through traditional HIV outreach programmes. By integrating Marlo into LINE, a chat messaging application popular among young people in Southeast Asia, users are able to ask any questions on HIV and get real time answers. By adding this chat bot in LINE, users can get interesting and relevant information about HIV and be rewarded by answering quizzes. Most importantly, users can book appointments to get tested for HIV with just a tap, as well as be connected to real-life counselors to get a reliable information about HIV. Tanya Marlo was launched in Jakarta on 18 December 2018.

Project Connect is an initiative that aims to map every school in the world. The goal is to provide real-time data assessing the quality of each school’s Internet connectivity, eventually creating an observable metric of society’s progress towards enabling access to information and opportunity for every community on Earth. Technology has increasingly become the focus of education aid with funding focused on interventions in schools with access and steady connection to the Internet. However, while many national governments have committed to connecting their schools to the Internet, few have the capability to monitor where that is occurring and on what scale. In parts of the global south, the physical locations of many schools are difficult to identify. This disparity in school location and Internet connectivity knowledge has the potential to increase the digital education divide, as schools already connected to the Internet will receive more technology-based resources while schools currently disconnected will be left behind. This is where Project Connect comes in. Not only will this platform help governments and international aid actors deliver connectivity to schools currently without or with unreliable Internet, but the data can also be mobilized during emergency response situations to help locate schools, often used as relief centers. This map will remove the current knowledge gap and ensure transparency and accountability in the delivery of education aid and services.

ILO’s TRIANGLE in ASEAN programme launched a new digital service SaverAsia to help migrant workers save when sending remittance home. The web portal helps compare costs and services for sending money through various operators. The application not only features information on financial services, including bank accounts, mobile wallets, micro-credits, insurance, but also financial literacy courses, and a budget calculator. Last but not least, it helps migrants connect with local support organisations. The average cost to send remittances within the region ranges from 3 per cent to 20 per cent, depending on the service provider used. Other challenges include difficulties accessing a bank office and low awareness of available financial services. As a result, many migrants depend on a small circle of friends for financial information, use informal channels, and often queue for a long time each month to send money home by cash. SaverAsia is part of an ILO global strategy to address these challenges. It does so in three ways. First, SaverAsia helps users compare costs and services for sending money home through various money transfer operators, including online services, mobile wallets, branch-based services, and banking. It provides both live rates and full cost comparisons (collected periodically). The website allows users to compare prices and services across each major ASEAN remittance corridor, including: Singapore to Myanmar, Indonesia, or Philippines; Malaysia to Cambodia, Myanmar, or Viet Nam; and Thailand to Myanmar, Cambodia, or Laos. Secondly, it provides information on financial services, such as bank accounts, mobile wallets, micro-credits, insurance, and financial literacy courses, and a budget calculator. This will help users to save for their future and improve their finances. Thirdly, it helps users connect with local support organizations.

The sexual health mobile app – developed by young people, for young people in Myanmar. The app allows young people to find out about sensitive issues confidentially, without shame or privacy concerns. It is targeted to a wide audience of young people in both urban and rural areas. Building on years of experience from a telephone hotline dedicated to the sexual health of young people, the mobile app initiative takes advantage of the evolving IT landscape in Myanmar, which has brought increasing internet access, more affordable smart phones, and reduced censorship. The initiative is a collaboration between UNFPA, the Myanmar Medical Association and the Ministry of Health and Sports.

The use of mobile and wireless technologies has the potential to transform the face of health service delivery across the globe. There are reportedly more than 7 billion mobile telephone subscriptions across the world, over 70% of which are in low- or middle- income countries. In many places, people are more likely to have access to a mobile telephone than to clean water. As a global society, we are also facing a looming threat of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), which kill 41 million people each year, around 71% of all deaths. To address this challenge, the Be He@lthy, Be Mobile (BHBM) initiative was set up by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Telecommunication union (ITU) in 2012. BHBM works with governments to scale up mHealth services for NCDs and their risk factors. Millions of people have already been reached through the programmes and evaluation shows that they are impacting positively on users’ health. The approach is deliberately designed to be scalable: instead of promoting specific products, it provides cross-cutting health content and technical support which can be used and incorporated into other applications. It also works to develop the broader ecosystem within which a national mHealth programme will sit, helping ensure that it is integrated with other health services. In doing so, each programme becomes a sustainable part of the health system whilst also helping to promote health and wellbeing around the world. The initiative’s immediate objective is to continue expanding the number of countries it works with and the variety of diseases it addresses. Longer-term, its objective is to help the global community achieve Goal 3 of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030: “To ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages”. With requests for support from over 90 other countries around the world, the initiative looks forward to seeing mobile phones deliver improvement on a global scale.

Designed for self-assessment, the tool will enable stakeholders responsible for managing World Heritage sites to rapidly and efficiently assess to which degree tourism is managed according to a set of sustainability indicators. By helping site managers establish a tourism management baseline, the tool will support proactive management of tourism. The aim is to promote tourism strategies, planning and management frameworks that protect heritage values, engage a broad set of stakeholders and empower local communities. The tool will be applicable for all types of World Heritage sites.

The Coordination of Assessments for Environment in Humanitarian Action (Joint Initiative) was set up to strengthen the coordination between environmental and humanitarian actors. The project brought together eight humanitarian and environmental organizations to improve the environmental sustainability of humanitarian actors. Following a request from initiative stakeholders, the Nexus Environmental Assessment Tool (NEAT+) was developed as a pragmatic project level tool that can be readily implemented in dynamic humanitarian contexts and provide information that aligns with and informs the humanitarian response. The Nexus Environmental Assessment Tool (NEAT+) is a rapid and simple project-level environmental screening tool for humanitarian actors. It addresses some of the barriers that currently inhibit the uptake of environmental assessment tools such as: technical complexity, time or resource intensiveness, requirement of environmental expertise, cumbersome usage, or incoherence with existing programming frameworks or donor requirements. The tool assesses the current sensitivity of the crisis-affected environment, highlighting and categorizing any underlying risks and vulnerabilities to the environment and affected communities. The tool also identifies potential activity related environmental risks posed by humanitarian relief and recovery projects. It is a first step screening process that identifies key environmental issues for follow up. The NEAT+ assessment process is designed deliberately light and agile and combines the strength of the Kobo Toolbox – an open source data collection tool developed by humanitarians for humanitarians with the analytical capabilities of Microsoft Excel. It takes an existing data collection tool familiar to humanitarians and combines it with the environmental science available within the nature conservation community. NEAT+ brings environmental assessments to humanitarians allowing them to identify and act on priority environmental risks, ensuring a more environmentally sustainable and accountable humanitarian response for the benefit of affected populations and future generations. The language in the tool has also been through a substantial in-house review process to simplify the wording for non-native English speakers and non-technical users. The NEAT+ has been successfully used in a refugee settlement in Zambia by UNHCR, UN Environment and OCHA, where it identified key environmental concerns that subsequently led to changes in planned procurement.

We have 12 years to act on climate change. But how do we connect people to the urgency of climate change when carbon emissions are invisible? Our virtual reality experience brings people face to face with their carbon footprints. Each tonne of CO2 is a staggering 10 meters high - and the average Thai person has a footprint of 9 tonnes! You can also see your water and material footprints, as well as experience the impacts of our consumption patterns - toxic air pollution, plastic waste, and the carbon footprint of different transport options. But this is only our beta version. Next steps are to refine the storylines, explore with interactive components, and move to the scalable impact of Augmented Reality.

GRID3 (Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development) works with countries to generate, validate, and use geospatial data on population, settlements, infrastructure, and administrative boundaries to strengthen the foundation for sustainable evidence-based development and humanitarian decision making. The initiative combines the expertise of partners in academia, government, the United Nations, and the private sector to design adaptable and relevant spatial data solutions based on the capacity and development needs of each country. We are mapping a path to sustainable development for everyone!

UN Environment Finance Initiative and the Natural Capital Finance Alliance have launched the ENCORE tool, a free online platform that connects nature to economic production. Used by financial institutions, the platform supports enhanced risk management at project, portfolio and strategic level. The platform was created with UNEP-WCMC. https://encore.naturalcapital.finance/en Future iterations of the platform can add natural capital impacts, additional data layers and enhanced analytical capacity.

Air quality data in many low and middle-income countries are difficult to acquire and manage. This is because the cost of regulatory grade instruments are prohibitive and equipment are difficult and costly to maintain. UN Environment has advocated for the use of low-cost sensors to fill the data gap and championed the development of an open source air quality monitoring device. UNEP's new air quality monitoring device can spark a data boom to help countries reduce the negative effects of air pollution, potentially saving lives that would have been lost due to air pollution-related illnesses. The device, capable of collecting all the vital parameters of air quality, will cost around $1,500 per unit, allowing governments to establish a countrywide network of mobile and stationary air monitoring stations for as little as $150,000-200,000 (currently, the same amount of money is necessary to set up just one monitoring station). This will allow governments and organizations to assemble or fabricate the units themselves, creating opportunities for innovation, enterprise development and green job creation.

UN Environment and Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture with the support of UN-Habitat, have teamed up to develop an eco-housing module, to highlight the need for innovation and spark public discussion and new ideas on how sustainable design can provide decent, affordable housing while limiting the overuse of natural resources and climate change. Around one billion people worldwide currently live in informal settlements, while millions more live in buildings that are not environmentally friendly. Rapid urbanization and economic growth challenge communities to sustainably expand capacity, heightening the need for innovation in building systems and infrastructure. Engineered to operate independently, the module’s built-in systems include solar energy generation using less than 1 percent of toxic semiconductor materials, on-site water collection, micro agricultural infrastructure, natural day lighting, plant-based air purification, passive cross-ventilation, and a range of flexible, adaptable components for living and working. The first module has been set up at the High-Level Political Forum in New York in July to show people something which is real, which is concrete and brings home the message that affordable and adequate housing can be done with all environmental features being respected as well. People usually think that environmental features add some cost and therefore cannot be affordable, this project wants to prove this is not true. The second phase of this project includes the design and building of an eco-housing module adapted to the East Africa socio-economic and climatic context. In December, UN Environment and UN-Habitat have again joined hands to organize a participatory workshop under the lead of Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture with representatives from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania Architecture Universities to explore needs and opportunities. Outcomes of this workshop will be presented at the Fourth UN Environment Assembly. It will include an exhibit with real life structures as a way to engage people, and brand it as a ‘collective design’ opportunity as well as a first modelization of the East African Ecological Living Module.

The UN Biodiversity Lab is a free, open-source mapping platform designed to inform biodiversity conservation and sustainable development decision-making. The lab has directly engaged 170 countries in creating data-driven Sixth National Reports on their progress towards achieving the 2020 Aichi Biodiversity Targets. Thus far, the platform has increased the level of spatial planning and reporting by a factor of 5 (based on reports submitted by December 2018). The UN Biodiversity Lab is a collaboration with UN Environment, UNDP, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Global Environment Facility. It is powered by MapX.