Spaces That Shape Urban Narratives 

Cities in Europe and Central Asia are adopting a systemic design approach to urban development. The shift is being spearheaded by two UNDP initiatives – […]

Urban Talks series | Summary and takeaways

Urban Talks is an interactive webinar series that spotlights cities and initiatives that are building new inclusive visions across Europe and Central Asia and wider, […]

Navigating the AI Video Frontier

As an innovation team, we ‘re always looking for ways to use new technologies in our work. Whether that’s enabling digital payments, making urban planning […]

How we’re building Portfolio GPT

Portfolio GPT is an AI-powered tool designed to support UNDP Country Offices in applying the portfolio approach. In this conversation, Andi and Vid, members of […]

Urban Transformation Forum: Cities as future leaders

Hosted by UNDP Europe and Central Asia in partnership with the Ministry of Finance of the Slovak Republic, the Catalyzing Urban Transformation regional forum brought […]

Mind the [trust] gap!

Distrust & Toxic Polarization Powered by Mis-Disinformation Public institutions are losing people’s trust. UNDP’s trends report for 2024 outlines ‘the trust deficit’ as a theme that […]

Green and Just Transition: M4EG launches new course

The Mayors for Economic Growth (M4EG) Facility, a joint initiative of the European Union and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), announced the launch of the Green […]

Catalyzing sustainable urban futures by embracing complexity

Climate change, technological disruption and other issues are profoundly shaping the trajectory of our cities. Interconnected challenges are converging in front of us, creating a […]

A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Portfolios in UNDP

In 2022-2023, I had the privilege of joining UNDP’s Mayors for Economic Growth (M4EG) for a temporary assignment under the Virtual Development Assignment Programme (VDAP). I supported […]

A Tale of Three Cities

Armenian municipalities take ownership of their development Armenia is a country of ancient histories and modern development. Walk through its capital Yerevan and you willpass […]

Six UNDP Crowdfunding Academies to Launch Worldwide

In an effort to strengthen resource mobilization, UNDP kickstarted six Crowdfunding Academies (CFA) across the globe. This initiative aims to equip teams with the expertise required […]

Building back vibrancy in Stepanavan

Stepanavan, in northern Armenia, boasts picturesque landscapes and lush greenery. Just over 100 kilometers from the capital, it is a quiet destination, away from the […]

Green innovation: A biohacking lab opens doors in Skopje

Originally published by UNDP Eurasia. Edited by Karen Cirillo, Digital Communications Specialist, UNDP IRH. Biowaste. It’s not just your average trash. Biowaste – anything from egg shells […]

Embarking on an urban adventure

Children leading co-design for revolutionizing urban spaces in Prishtinë/Priština, Kosovo* Do children in Prishtinë/Priština a have access to public spaces to interact, play, socialize? What kind of […]

An algorithm for more women in STEM

We live in a rapidly changing world where vast technological advancements are announced almost daily – think of the AI developments in just the last […]

Inspiring Solutions for a Greener World

or how UNDP, UNICEF and the City of Skopje established the first Biohacking Lab in Skopje FROM EMPTY LAB TO FIRST PROTOTYPES AND SOLUTIONS Through […]

Urban Talks comes back with a Summer Series

Our UNDP Urban Talks is back with a special summer series edition! Last year we heard from a diverse range of urban practitioners and academics […]

Reimagining Batumi through a startup portfolio of options

Tiko Tkeshelashvili, M4EG Project Manager, UNDP Georgia Irmak Ekin Karel, Strategic Innovation Designer, CHÔRAIgor Izotov, Head of Exploration, UNDP Accelerator Lab, North Macedonia [1]Rusudan Zhozhadze, Head […]

UNDP North Macedonia: Betting on the people

Reposted from UNDP North Macedonia. Collective challenges Droughts in the Horn of Africa, flooding in South Asia, and severe summer heats and droughts in in […]

Community listening is not a luxury

Prototyping City Learning Circle amidst Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine  This blog is based on the experience of Ukraine cities who were part of […]

UNDP Georgia: Learnings from Urban Imaginaries

Reposted from the Centre for Public Impact. The latest developments internationally demand responses that have not been tried before. It requires governments at the central […]

Applying systems thinking in a crisis context

The launch of the EU Response and Renewal Programme for local authorities in Ukraine and Moldova for M4EG  To support the new realities of local […]

Can LinkedIn data help us measure the glass ceiling?

Gender disparities persist globally, particularly in positions of power and higher pay, where women face cultural and professional barriers to advancement, which are often referred […]

UNDP North Macedonia creates biowaste audit dashboard

The biowaste audit dashboard visualizes how commercial entities working in the capital city of North Macedonia – Skopje, particularly in the HORECA (Hotels, Restaurants and […]

From ‘SimCity’ to better urban reality

How “digital twins” of real cities can help guide innovation and transform our lives As a child, I loved playing SimCity, a popular video game […]

World Cities Day: Celebrating the power of cities

Cities: A powerhouse for innovation Throughout history, cities have held a central role in innovation. First, local governments often are more agile than the national […]

Tajik youth driving AI-assisted development

Artificial intelligence (AI), including machine learning (ML), is used across all areas of modern life from voice recognition systems to navigation apps. Scientists and practitioners are […]

3 pathways to apply portfolio thinking

Complex issues – like climate change, inequality or a pandemic – are unpredictable and have cascading and interdependent effects across the environment, economy and society. […]

Digital by default for people and planet

May 17 marks the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD). In today’s age of an ever-evolving array of technologies, it speaks of a revolution, […]

Urban Talks: Virtual Forum on Urban Transformation

As part of the Joint EU & UNDP Virtual Forum on Urban Transformations, we interviewed two thought leaders on how to radically change our urban spaces to become […]

UNDP North Macedonia: A new way forward

We are living in an age of long, interlinked emergencies that cannot be adequately addressed unless nations and governments can look beyond the horizon of […]

Join our Community of Practices #STEM4ALL

To celebrate the International Day of the Girl Child, we at UNDP Kyrgyzstan are reaching out to innovators across Europe and Central Asia to promote our […]

Connecting public voices with public policies

Identifying effective means of increasing citizen participation in decision making is timely and relevant considering the impact of the pandemic on populations and governments preparing […]

A recipe for a good shopping

Public procurement can be positively influenced by open contracting. This type of tendering enables all the interested individuals and legal entities to easily access data […]

A year of NGO empowerment: What we’ve done so far

Starting a platform for civil society development/transformation in 2020 was no easy feat, given the tumultuous state of the world. However, through innovative and community-centered […]

Presence anytime anywhere

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the fragility of the networks linking the world together and challenged us to reimagine how we work together and maintain […]

Beyond bitcoin: Using blockchain to advance the SDGs

Blockchain, an emerging technology often associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, has tremendous potential to tackle this and other challenges, accelerating development progress that truly […]

How to ‘do’ data empowerment

In this post we’re looking at ways to ‘do’ data empowerment. Our aim is to provide those who design, implement, evaluate or fund data for […]

A new year, new perspectives on data innovation

At UNDP we know too well that traditional approaches to development are struggling to keep up with the dynamic speed, breadth and nature of today’s challenges. And […]

Using ‘The Matrix’ to feel climate change

Working with Magic Leap, the German Space Agency and BadVR, we created an experiential visualization, Climate Change Spares No One, that brings to life visceral […]

Forum for the Future

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 […]

Everything we learned from Ministry of Data

The complexity of the challenges we deal with – whether it is conflict, climate change or governance – combined with the high value and cost […]

Adopting a cedar tree brings diaspora money home

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 […]

A fair deal for Ecuadorian cocoa farmers

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 […]

The Future of People Power: Generation Z

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 […]

The Benefits of Crowd Urbanism

Considering that the 21st century is an urban one, key attributes of our cities should be used as assets to harness urban development scenarios, primarily […]

10 Steps to Successful Crowdfunding

UNDP Indonesia experiments with innovative and alternative financing models to tackle development challenges effectively. Here are the ten things that helped their crowdfunding campaign raise […]

Crowdfunding Academy Ukraine 2017

The following piece was first published on the AltFinLab blog and was originally published on July 18, 2017.   Crowdfunding Academy in Ukraine is a three […]

Crowdfunding is not (only) about the money

From conducting a successful campaign to setting up Crowdfunding Academy and UNDP Alternative Finance Lab, helping to launch more than 15 campaigns in 10+ countries […]

UNDPCrowd: A new kid on the block?

The same as for software developers, we, development professionals, need a paradigm shift in how we do work, how that work gets financed and how […]