Resource Category: DATA INNOVATION

The Ministry of Data (MoD) Handbook is a guide to run successful data innovation challenges, created and tested by UNDP IRH’s Innovation team and UNDP Country Offices across the RBEC region.

The MoD Handbook allows UNDP Country Offices and anyone else working on data innovation projects to scope, design and run their own data challenges. It has been designed to help teams plan their challenge in the most efficient manner, while taking into consideration all the important aspects of running a data challenge. It consists of four sections, each containing specific information that will help teams build a well-designed, impactful data innovation challenge.

The handbook is meant to be read in a non-linear manner, allowing organising teams to jump directly to the sections they need or find useful. Users might only make use of one or two of the handbook sections depending on their prior knowledge and specific needs. Taken together the sections provide a comprehensive set of resources, guidelines and tools for teams to design their own data innovation challenge. The handbook references a number of tools that you can use with the document or on the specifically designed Miro board.

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The handbook was co-created with UNDP Country Offices from Europe and Central Asia. It contains stories and experiences from some of the past challenges and their journeys, lessons learnt and resources. Its creation is possible thanks to the generous support of the Slovak Ministry of Finance under the framework of the Transformative Governance and Finance Facility II.

The UNDP Regional Hubs in Istanbul and Amman, together with Country Offices from the Europe & Central Asia and Arab States regions, have over the past several years invested in efforts to adopt and apply innovative data-informed approaches to better understand development challenges and the impact of our collective interventions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

The Data Innovation Clinic that took place in Istanbul from 9 to 11 July 2019 was intended to reflect on the work done so far, introduce new data innovation approaches, frameworks and methods, and chart a way forward, both for the individual Country Offices in attendance as well as for UNDP’s data innovation work as a whole.

Read out report on the outcome of the event.

It’s been ten years since open data first broke onto the global stage. Over the past decade, thousands of programmes and projects around the world have worked to open data and use it to address a myriad of social and economic challenges. Meanwhile, issues related to data rights and privacy have moved to the centre of public and political discourse. As the open data movement enters a new phase in its evolution, shifting to target real-world problems and embed open data thinking into other existing or emerging communities of practice, big questions still remain. How will open data initiatives respond to new concerns about privacy, inclusion, and artificial intelligence? And what can we learn from the last decade in order to deliver impact where it is most needed? The State of Open Data brings together over 65 authors from around the world to address these questions and to take stock of the real progress made to date across sectors and around the world, uncovering the issues that will shape the future of open data in the years to come.

The State of Open Data is an ambitious 18-month research project designed to reflect on 10 years of community action and review the capacity of open data to address social and economic challenges across a variety of sectors, regions, and communities. The project has been funded by the International Research Centre with the support of the Open Data for Development (OD4D) Network. In the spirit of the OD4D Network, work on this project is intended to be transparent, inclusive, and gender balanced.

The main goal of this project is to learn in order to help shape the future of open data based on information and evidence gathered from the community. With over 65 authors, an Editorial Board, and a development methodology that allows for flexibility and community feedback, The State of Open Data – Histories and Horizons brings a myriad of perspectives to the task of reviewing the state of open data.

Read the chapter on Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

The manual introduces data and how it is used to create public service stories by journalists. To begin with, this manual explains what open data is, and how it impacts policy. Subsequently, journalists will be introduced to several strategies for identifying story angles and then practice those skills through the analysis of a number of case studies that will demonstrate how data from various sectors have been used to create data-driven stories. Finally, we look at investigative journalism and its relationship to data journalism.

‘A Guide to Data Innovation for Development – From idea to proof-of-concept,’ provides step-by-step guidance for development practitioners to leverage new sources of data. It is a result of a collaboration of UNDP and UN Global Pulse with support from UN Volunteers, led by UNDP innovation teams in Europe and Central Asia and Arab States.

The Guide builds on successful case trials and provides practical guidance for jump-starting a data innovation project, from the design phase through the creation of a proof-of-concept.

The guide is structured into three sections – (I) Explore the Problem & System, (II) Assemble the Team and (III) Create the Workplan. Each of the sections comprises of a series of tools for completing the steps needed to initiate and design a data innovation project, to engage the right partners and to make sure that adequate privacy and protection mechanisms are applied.

See here for more information.

As the pace of change outside UNDP grows, we continue to witness new ways of addressing complex development problems by organizations that are smaller, faster and more agile than our own (the so called ‘development mutants’). Complex development problems are being addressed by organizations that are smaller, faster and more agile than our own. If we want to remain relevant, we need innovation to become “the way we do things.” The Istanbul Regional Hub partnered with Nesta and four country offices (fYR Macedonia, Moldova, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan) to develop a product that can help us bring innovation closer to the center of the organization by embedding it in key project management business processes – the Project Cycle Hackers’ Toolkit.

Culture change is not achieved just through a toolkit, but by facilitating a different conversations and interactions between management and staff, staff and our partners and clients. Worked on and tested with over 25 project teams in our regions, the toolkit provides structure that supports these new conversations, principles and tools to better manage the clients’ demand, tease out citizens’ needs, and come up with fresh solutions to key policy priorities in our region.

The Hackers’ Kit, which supports different types of discussions around project and program design, includes:

WALL MAP: Provides an overview of the UNDP project management cycle and potential entry points for doing things differently. It explains these entry points and the tools useful to support activities at different stages in the project cycle. A team can use it to support informal conversations with colleagues on innovation to point out where and when they can use fairly accessible tools (“If you do one thing…”) or use more advanced tools. Download here.

QUESTION CARDS: The cards prompt one to challenge current thinking, reflect on action, and shift the conversation in how you might do it differently. If a team is ‘stuck’ during implementation of a project or is developing a new concept note to address an emerging issue, the cards can help facilitate a discussion with the senior management about the way forward. The reverse sides are references to the tools that might be helpful to support doing projects in a different way. Download here.

DESKTOP MAP: Provides an overview of the project cycle in a more playful, non-linear way, reflective of how projects are run in practice. It includes the key decision moments of the UNDP Project Cycle, as well as potential entry points for innovation. Download here.

TOOLKIT: A collection of 19 tools that supports innovation activities throughout the project cycle. With them, one can capture insights and analyse, support decision making, challenge thinking and assumptions, plan activities, prompt discussion, and stimulate reflection. These tools can be used in group sessions, or by individuals. Download here.

FACILITATOR’S GUIDE: A short “how to guide” for the tools that are considered essential and brief instructions on how to use them. Written for session facilitators, who may have little to no experience using these tools, it can also be used by those who want to experiment. Download here.