Innovation Projects run by UN Entities

Data has become the world’s most valuable and powerful resource. MapX, a collaboration between the Crisis Management Branch and GRID-Geneva, supports the sustainable use of natural resources by providing access to the best available geospatial data, technology, and monitoring tools. Backed by the impartiality of the UN, MapX is the first non-commercial platform to power a variety of applications and websites with the best available data, working towards establishing a global public good of environmental data. MapX directly contributes to the Secretary General’s innovation vision by offering a geospatial online platform, built on cloud-based architecture and open-source software, that can be freely used, developed and scaled by any stakeholder. MapX offers a fully customizable toolkit for easy data aggregation, visualization, analysis and communication of spatial data. This includes a story mapping engine, dashboards for monitoring indicators, and customizable links for sharing and embedding views through digital media platforms. Since 2015, MapX has engaged with projects in 8 countries and connected stakeholders to over 1100 key datasets.

The ActNow.bot is a fully interactive and responsive chat bot, located on the UN’s Facebook page that suggests everyday actions – determined by the user’s interaction with the bot – that can be taken to preserve the environment and logged on the platform to be shared with social media followers to persuade them to take action too.

BioStories is a story-driven investigation adventure game. As a proof of concept, the game is planned to be on PC only for the time being, but the team could port it to smartphones and tablets in the future when there is sufficient funding and demand. ​BioStories has an episodic format. Each new episode is set in a different region of the world allowing Players to explore many different regions and challenges.

UNDP is creating a chocolate bar made with Ecuador’s most exclusive cocoa beans and sourced from sustainable farmers in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Thanks to blockchain, European customers will be able to trace every single ingredient. The price of the chocolate bar will reflect its impact on the ecosystem and the real costs of production and export. The profits will be shared fairly, with farmers receiving a significantly greater share than through any other method. UNDP believes that traceability will positively influence European consumers’ purchasing behaviour and hopes to prove that consumers will pay the true price for the chocolate’s socio-economic and environmental impact. If this is true, the model can be replicated in other countries and with other commodities.

Dalili—"my guide" in Arabic—is a smartphone app that helps Syrian and Lebanese families make the most of their money. Without leaving their homes, people receiving WFP assistance can browse hundreds of staple items in local stores and easily find the best prices and deals for the products they want to buy. Customers can also use the app to provide anonymous feedback on their shopping experience to WFP and the retailers. Dalili aims to boost market efficiency, improve competition among shops and ultimately reduce the prices for most popular products.

H2Grow is using low-tech hydroponic units to help Sahrawi refugees grow fresh green animal fodder locally and strengthen food security in the community. Hydroponics is a soilless cultivation technique that enables plant growth in areas that are non-fertile, arid or urban with limited space. It is a cost- and time-efficient method, requiring about 90% less water than traditional agriculture. The semi-nomadic Sahrawi refugees greatly value livestock for milk and meat. However, due to the Algerian desert’s arid climate, agriculture is extremely poor and goats in the camps often end up eating garbage. Thus, WFP and local experts developed a low-tech system to grow barley for use as animal fodder by refugees in camps in Tindouf, south-western Algeria. The fodder increases the refugees’ access to milk and meat, thereby improving food security in the camps. Hydroponics is particularly suited to harsh environments, such as those in which many of the world’s refugee camps are located. The low-cost model can easily be scaled and replicated in other vulnerable communities.

WFP Storytellers is an innovative communication concept that gives people in need the chance to produce and tell their own stories, using their own words and images, through a series of hands-on digital communications training. This involves courses in areas ranging from visual communication, such as photography or filming on a smartphone, to content optimization for social media and best practices in digital journalism. Through the Storytellers project, talented people among refugees, displaced and vulnerable communities will be able to act as communicators on behalf of WFP and share authentic stories with a large online audience.

Delta 8.7 is a global online knowledge platform exploring effective measures to eradicate forced labor, modern slavery, human trafficking and child labor, as set out in Target 8.7 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. It helps policy actors understand and use data and evidence to adopt policy responses that will contribute to achieving Target 8.7. It brings together the most useful data, evidence and analysis through www.delta87.org, an online platform, and offline events. It is a project of UNU-CPR and a contribution to Alliance 8.7, the international partnership working to achieve this target.

UNICEF is investing in the South African start-up 9Needs to develop the open source digital identity and personal information platform “Amply”. The system uses blockchain infrastructure and smart contracts to strengthen the registration, contracting, information and management systems of early childhood development programs. It helps children access services such as education, health care, social benefits. The data stored on Amply includes metadata (e.g. date, time, location) and “seals” of guarantee making it easy for external authorities to check the validity of the data, without accessing the data itself. UNICEF uses the data generated to tailor its services to be more predictive, precise, personalised and preventive.

Take for example what happened in Haiti, after the devastating earthquake back in 2010. While many countries and organisations did their best to help rebuild the nation, a major obstacle kept cropping up… there were thousands of plots of land where the rightful owner could not be identified, and in many instances ownerships were in dispute. These issues have had a big impact on recovery efforts, to this day. Construction projects have stalled, while government and contractors wait for ownership issues to be resolved. Business and homes that are desperately needed to help the citizens of Haiti get back on their feet are not being built. The current land registry system is rife with corruption and inefficiencies, and it is the unprotected citizens of Haiti that are suffering the most. In dozens of cities across the developing world, land registries suffer from similar problems. Many citizens simply don’t have confidence in the system. Some are unsure if they legally own a piece of land, even if they have a legitimate sale deed. Others who want to buy a piece of land are not sure if the seller legally owns it. In a situation like Haiti, where the disaster destroyed paper records, this would be avoided with blockchain. With blockchain, we have a chance to fix many of these problems. The solution we are building incorporates many key benefits of the technology, such as: an immutable history of transactional records, so no one can ever doubt the authenticity; records are permanently linked to the system so no one can ever tamper with or forge a record of their own; and these records can be seen by any party, at any time. It is powerful and validating. For the proof of concept, we’re leveraging the inherent benefits of the Ethereum blockchain, with a focus on smart contracts. This will create a single source of truth of ownership status, and history of a property. The buyer will be assured that the land being bought is the correct plot, and that the seller is unequivocally the owner, reducing the potential for disputes, as well as the costs and time involved, for any given transaction. So how does the proof of concept work? At a high level, it will capture and permanently record each transaction throughout the sale of a property. This means you achieve near real-time traceability and transparency into the state of the property. For example, envision two citizens in the state of Haryana state — a buyer and seller — who have negotiated the sale of a house and wish to now register their sale deed with the local authorities. They would proceed to the government services offices as they normally would to register the sale deed, which they have in their possession.

In 2016, UNOPS launched a project to explore how blockchain can be used to increase the efficiency of aid transfers, specifically of 1) entry to the international aid community, 2) intra-agency transfers, and 3) transfer to the end beneficiaries. Especially the second area offers tremendous opportunities for partnerships among UN Agencies. To identify possible technology partners, UNOPS launched an RFI for blockchain-based international assistance, which received over 70 responses that have been made available to all UN Agencies. UNOPS is looking to establish a proof of concept in five priority areas, i.e. payments, identity, data storage, supply chain, funding platform.

This project is a collaboration between the Sierra Leone government, UNDP, UNCDF and KIVA and aims to help about seven million citizens in the country (making a total of 80% of the citizens of Sierra Leone) who do not have any credit history or formal identity, gain access to financial services. To date, there is only one credit bureau in Sierra Leone that covers 2,000 people - which is less than 1 percent of the population. Kiva will use the system to record the identities of citizens, and keep these identities on the distributed ledger while using the information to generate credit history for customers. Customers will own and control the data. The fact that they do not bank makes it worse since they cannot have future credit histories. The histories for digital identification will be generated from formal and informal financial institutions. The system works via a mobile application or through a local agent. It operates by sending a signed verifiable claim about a loan to a borrower when a lender makes a loan on the platform. The borrower will accept the claim and post it to their private credit ledger in their digital Kiva wallet. The lender will also send a verifiable claim about a repayment that the borrower approves and then posts to their ledger. This way, all credit events can be captured in a single ledger and the digital wallet will be controlled by the individual.

Traditionally, cash transfers have been made available to refugees via third-party financial service providers such as banks. Through the partnership, Syrian refugee women who participate in the UN Women cash for work programme will be able to access their funds directly and the accounts will be kept securely on a blockchain network. Previously women received a monthly entitlement in the form of cash on a set date. Through blockchain, UN Women and WFP are exploring the possibility of providing female refugees with cash back at WFP-contracted supermarkets or pay for their purchases directly. The partnership stems from WFP’s Building Blocks project, which already provides cash transfers to 106,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan through a blockchain based system.

In recent decades, satellite Earth Observation (EO) technology has developed to become a highly effective method of landscape monitoring. In addition, medium- and high-resolution imagery provide an opportunity for WFP to monitor the long-term and large-scale landscape impact of its FFA and engineering programmes, even in areas where access or resources are limited. The ever-growing archive of satellite images allows users to “go back in time”, to compare past and present situations and understand how the landscape has evolved. Finally, satellite sensors are also capable of detecting biophysical variables that human vision cannot, such as groundwater content, temperature surfaces and vegetation cover health. During the pilot phase of AIMS, WFP’s FFA and Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping teams looked at five distinct types of FFA activities - soil and water conservation, water catchments, irrigation canals, forestry and engineering feeder roads - in five countries: Niger: Guidan Roumdji region - soil & water conservation activities for land rehabilitation and improved agricultural productivity Afghanistan: Gamberi desert in the northeast part of the country - reforestation activities, with 1,000,000 trees planted to re-green the area Sudan: Hamesh Koraib - check dam rehabilitation to reduce flood incidence and to harvest sediment load to grow trees and shrubs South Sudan: Pageri-Magwi - engineering feeder road rehabilitation to increase constructions and cultivated land along the road (not FFA) Tajikistan: Vatan - irrigation canal rehabilitation to increase water availability for cultivation and improve productivity during the dry season Satellite imagery acquired before and after FFA interventions show how degraded landscapes have turned into highly vegetated areas, and how new settlements have developed alongside feeder roads. Project results so far demonstrated the value of using satellite imagery to monitor landscape changes induced by FFA activities. This cost-effective and highly reproducible method of monitoring complements existing monitoring tools and can be applied in countries with large-scale FFA interventions.

People who purchase solar cells through the South Africa-based Sun Exchange can lease them out to hospitals, businesses, schools and private residences. The exchange uses SolarCoin, a cryptocurrency introduced by blockchain start-up ElectriCChain. Once all solar cells have been purchased, recipient buildings begin to pay rent for using them, and are charged for every unit of electricity they generate, covering the cost of the equipment, installation and maintenance over a period of up to 20 years. Owners of the solar cells also receive SolarCoins based on the amount of solar energy produced. This alternative finance mechanism will help cities, businesses and potentially private homes to meet their basic needs, knocking off several Global Goals targets at once.

Currently the average cost of remitting money to Serbia is around 8% and there is no transparency on how and where the money is spent. In Serbia, UNDP and AID:Tech are using blockchain technologies to issue a Digital Identity to beneficiaries and thereby enable them to receive remittances directly. This is expected to reduce the cost of individual transfers by more than 2%. Instead of sending cash, the diaspora will be able to purchase vouchers for items such as food, electricity and more. These vouchers will be sent directly to the beneficiaries Digital Identity, which they can use at the point of sale or on a mobile app to pay for their electricity, gas, groceries etc.

UN Global Pulse has developed an open software platform that UN Country Teams can use to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their projects. Qatalog is a user-friendly tool that UN personnel can use to Querry, Assign, Tag, and Analyse data from public radio and public Facebook posts.

OICT provides Blockchain infrastructure (including a sandbox for experimentation) OICT has organized seminars on Blockchain for staff and Diplomats (see https://unite.un.org/techevents) OICT’s Emerging Technologies Team provides advisory services on Blockchain

As part of its Building Blocks pilot, WFP is trialling blockchain as a means of making cash transfers more efficient, transparent and secure. Cash transfers, through vouchers or pre-paid debit cards, allow people to purchase their own food locally and are an effective way to empower them to make their own purchasing decisions to relieve hunger. Cash transfers are an increasingly important means of providing assistance, with the number of people receiving WFP cash transfers growing steadily in recent years, from 3 million people in 2010 to 9.3 million in 2015. Blockchain is a digital ledger technology used as a trusted way to track the ownership of assets without the need for a central authority, which could speed up transactions while lowering the chance of fraud or data mismanagement. Crucially, its peer-to-peer nature removes the need for verification from costly intermediaries such as banks or other institutions. By harnessing the power of the blockchain, WFP aims to reduce payment costs associated with cash transfers, better protect beneficiary data, control financial risks, and set up assistance operations more rapidly in the wake of emergencies.

haze Gazer is a real-time visual analytics tool for enhanced disaster management. The forest and peatland fires, which occur on an annual basis in Indonesia, affect the entire Southeast Asian region resulting in extensive environmental destruction and threatening livelihoods. Indonesian disaster management authorities are looking for more timely and effective means of tracking and managing the impact of fire and haze events. Pulse Lab Jakarta, in collaboration with the Government of Indonesia, developed ‘Haze Gazer,’ a crisis analysis tool that provides real-time situational information from various data sources to enhance disaster management efforts. The prototype uses advanced data analysis of sources including: satellite imagery, information on population density and distribution from government databases, citizen-generated data and real-time data from social media. The capability afforded by the tool can enhance disaster risk management efforts to protect vulnerable populations as well as the environment.