News
UNDP releases 2025 Slovak Transformation Fund Annual Report
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Europe and Central Asia has published the 2025 Annual Report for the Slovak Transformation Fund (STF), highlighting how cities across the region are strengthening their capacity to manage complex urban transitions and connect…
M4EG: Leading cities when the compass fails
Originally posted at M4EG’s website, read the full article here. When familiar maps no longer work and the compass starts to spin, leadership is about learning to navigate the unknown. Tools alone are not the answer; if anything, cities have…
M4EG: What if the project is not the point?
Originally posted at M4EG’s website, read the full article here. Cities rarely move in straight lines. A tourism problem is also a skills problem, a public-service problem, a business-confidence problem and often a community-belief problem.…
UNDP and DFINITY Foundation Collaborate on Exploring Sovereign Cloud Infrastructure and Decentralized AI Deployment for Public Good
New York, Istanbul, Zurich, 25 August — The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the DFINITY Foundation today announced a new partnership to explore the deployment of sovereign cloud infrastructure and decentralized artificial intelligence to…
UNDP AltFinLab invites UN teams to apply for the 2026 SDG Blockchain Accelerator
The UNDP Alternative Finance Lab (AltFinLab) has launched an open call for the third edition of the SDG Blockchain Accelerator, inviting UNDP Country Offices and other UN entities to submit development challenges linked to active…
UNEP provides US$1.95 million to scale up Armenia’s circular bioeconomy transition
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), through its Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), has approved over US$2.2 million in funding to accelerate Armenia’s transition towards a circular bioeconomy – strengthening municipal systems, reducing organic…
UN Blockchain Talks #7 | Environmental sustainability and blockchain: where does it actually help?
Environmental sustainability has become one of blockchain’s favorite talking points. Even so, carbon credits, drought insurance, climate adaptation loans, renewable energy certificates, and biodiversity finance do not usually occupy the same conversation for long. In…
UN Blockchain Talks #6: What real supply chains demand from traceability systems
By the time a product or service reaches the end user, most of the difficult work has already been done elsewhere. Someone had to collect the right data and keep it attached to the right…
UN Blockchain Talks #5: What Bhutan’s national digital identity tells us about privacy and implementation
During the fifth session of the UN Blockchain Talks series, the discussion moved beyond whether blockchain can support digital identity. A more useful examination was what kind of identity system would give people greater control…
Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future – Yoda
Recent crises demonstrate that the future will not necessarily mirror the past. We face a multitude of possible, probable, and preferable futures that we need to anticipate, imagine, and work towards. This claim, borrowed from…
Clearing the Skies: UNDP’s Portfolio Work in the Garden City
Edited for brevity by Arianna Friedman and Svetla Baeva. See full article on the UNDP Kazakhstan website. 99% of the global population is exposed to harmful levels of industrial emissions, vehicle exhaust, or other pollutants…
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 to as “the glass ceiling”. For example, the latest WEF Global…
UNDP Serbia at the 2022 Data Science Conference Europe
Big data from satellites, mobile phones, and social media, among other tools, allows researchers to build on or replace traditional methods of acquiring socioeconomic data. In his talk for the 2022 Data Science Conference Europe,…
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 Catering) sector, and not limited to that group, are producing…
SafeYOU, an Armenian app, is taking on gender-based violence around the world
Two years ago, Mariam Torosyan, a human rights lawyer and social entrepreneur, founded SafeYOU, a social impact startup, in a bid to curb domestic and gender-based violence by supporting women who have experienced or are experiencing…
Ministry of Data: A digital launch of UNDP IRH’s handbook on data innovation challenges
UNDP Europe and Central Asia is launching the Ministry of Data (MoD) handbook – a guide to run successful data innovation challenges, co-created and tested with UNDP Country Offices across the RBEC region. The Innovation…
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 to lead their people through post-pandemic recoveries. Accelerator Lab team…
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 on public procurement, ensuring higher transparency and allowing user-friendly business…