News
UNDP launches global AI Foundations for Municipalities course
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has launched AI Foundations for Municipalities, a self-paced online course open to municipal staff and public servants worldwide, regardless of their role, technical background or prior knowledge of artificial intelligence (AI). Artificial intelligence is…
The (In)Visible Effects of the M4EG Mission Journey: A Balcony View of the Region
The Narrative of Transformation How we speak about change fundamentally shapes the change itself. In development, it is easy to default to reporting in templates with indicators, inputs, outputs, efficiencies, and deliverables. But working with human systems and our capacity…
UNDP and Exponential Science Foundation launch the Government Blockchain Academy in El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and Argentina
Istanbul, Lugano, 26 October 2026 — The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), through its Alternative Finance Lab (AltFinLab), and the Exponential Science Foundation (ESF) have launched the Government Blockchain Academy in El Salvador, the Dominican…
On foot or by bike: Four new tourist routes to explore in Sireți
Just 17 km from Chișinău, Sireți invites visitors to slow down and discover the village from a different perspective. Four new tourist routes, two for walking and two for cycling, connect the locality’s better-known landmarks…
BOOSTCamp in Warsaw: Innovation ecosystem builders come together
Twelve organisations from Moldova and Ukraine, selected for the BOOST: Innovation Ecosystem Accelerator, will meet at a BOOSTCamp in Warsaw from 13–15 October. Held at the CIC Warsaw Innovation Campus and hosted with Venture Café Warsaw, UNDP BOOST’s…
GrantsFund4Aid concludes successful on-chain grant management pilot
GrantsFund4Aid, an on-chain grant management platform developed by Innofund, has concluded a pilot testing how blockchain technology can support more transparent, traceable and efficient grant management. It successfully disbursed test grants to ten teams participating…
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…