01/12/2019
Currently, more than half of the world's population lives in cities and the urban population is expected to double by 2050. Intense urbanization has led us to rethink human socio-economic development on a global scale with particular emphasis on the relationship between human beings, their footprint and the environment. Cities and city regions today are at the forefront in both feeling the effects and fighting to offset the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change.
23/07/2019
The public transport stops locations and schedules have been set based on an assessment conducted some 30 years ago and has not been upgraded ever since. This is compounded by limited knowledge on how residents’ behaviors and habits have changed, and even less data on internal and external migration in the city. These challenges are not unique to Chisinau - increased migratory pressures towards urban centers, combined with deteriorating infrastructure, scarce information and limited resources of municipalities to respond to citizen demands and deal with complexity, are shared across the cities in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
20/03/2019
Forum for the Future opened the first week of educational webinars for the UNDP City Experiment Fund. Anna Simpson, curator of the Futures Centre, and George Harding-Rolls, senior strategist at the Forum for the Future, hosted the workshop with a series of interactive exercises aimed at introducing new methods of understanding the complexity in systemic change in policy-making.
20/03/2019
The complexity of the challenges we deal with - whether it is conflict, climate change or governance - combined with the high value and cost of technological skills and exponential growth of the volume of data requires new approaches, which tap into the potential, talents and skills of different parts of society. It is with this in mind that UNDP, in partnership with the Slovak Ministry of Finance, launched Ministry of Data in 2015 - a challenge to open and reuse data for the public good.
11/02/2019
Cities occupy only about 2% of Earth’s land area, but house between 60–85% of the world population. At a time of accelerated change — and with complex issues such as climate change, migration and inequalities challenging our ability to respond, cities are emerging as leaders. Because cities concentrate development challenges — access to services, participation in decisions, distribution of water and electricity — they also become a laboratory on how these can be addressed.
07/02/2019
Since its launch in 2009, Live Lebanon has implemented 67 projects and raised US$4.2 million from Lebanese communities abroad. From education to environment, it has tapped into various aspects of society through development and awareness projects.
18/01/2019
Best known as the technology behind cryptocurrencies, blockchain is still too new and cutting edge for many industries. Blockchain data cannot be manipulated, it is fully traceable, and offers a highly trustworthy low-cost IT solution.
11/10/2018
Just when we need them most, our governance systems are letting us down. Structures that have been stable for seventy years are cracking under the pressure of social and technological change. Authoritarianism and isolationism are on the rise, populist rhetoric is shaping the public discourse, democracy is in retreat, and civic space is quickly shrinking across the board.
21/05/2018
UNDP AltFinLab partnered with Blockchain.com, UNHCR, and WEF to explore how block chain technology works, but also how it is already being used to pursue conventional ends. The culmination of that partnership is in the form of a white paper titled, The Future is Decentralised.