Global

Around the world, 1 in 5 children are missing out entirely or partially on routine immunization, leaving them unprotected and vulnerable to diseases.  Limited access to healthcare services, conflicts, displacements, and vaccine misinformation and hesitancy are some of the barriers children face to living healthier lives. Children and young people…

Around the globe, a silent crisis unfolds, jeopardizing the futures of millions of children. Despite the universal right to education, too many children and young people lack access to adequate learning opportunities. Globally, 70 per cent of 10-year-olds in low and middle-income countries are unable to read a simple statement . The repercussions…

UNICEF Innovative WASH Portfolios focus on specific programmatic challenges with a combination of innovative solutions and approaches, depending on the nature of the problems addressed and their potential for scale.  The Hub’s work spreads across geographic and programme areas:  More Water More Life: Deep water drilling in the Horn of Africa In…

Over the last decade, the UNICEF Venture Fund has identified, tested, and grown 149 open technology solutions from start-ups and UNICEF offices across 87 countries.  By applying a philanthropic approach, the Fund has made equity-free financial investments, providing mentoring and access to markets to frontier tech start-ups based in emerging…

For millions of adolescents in the world, the promise of education and the hope for a career and a bright future is abruptly shattered by unexpected pregnancies and early marriage. In 2022, an estimated 13 per cent of women worldwide gave birth before age 18 , and each year, about 21 million adolescent girls become pregnant in developing countries…

Problem Statements, Problem statements are used to guide the selection of key projects and initiatives for innovation portfolio management. They represent significant challenges to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6  and help highlight areas UNICEF can add value to the existing landscape, offer support or management for existing solutions and…

The first five years of a child’s life are marked by a celebration of ‘firsts’—the first birthday, first tooth, first step, and first word. Caregivers know the feeling, from conception to birth and even long after, of watching and waiting for a child to reach milestone after milestone as confirmation of good health, well-being, and development.  …

Globally, more than 1 in 4 people lack access to safely managed drinking water   Nearly half the world’s population lack access to safely managed sanitation.   Around the world, 3 in 10 people do not have a place to wash their hands with soap and water at home.   In order to achieve universal access to water , sanitation and hygiene (WASH)…, capacity of UNICEF through country partners to innovate, adapt and adopt innovation. Curating a set of solutions that focus on key problems. solving challenging problems for and with children and young people (the WASH, portfolio).  Becoming a center of excellence for facilitating innovation knowledge management, by enabling innovators, academia, the private sector, partners, and countries to connect to facilitate at scale. Learn more about the portfolio projects .   A mother gives water to her son in drought-prone Wajir, Kenya. A mother gives water to her son in…, What does UNICEF expect to achieve through its WASH Innovation Hub?, The vision for the UNICEF Sustainable WASH Innovation Hub is to be a global home for building, accelerating and scaling transformational climate resilient solutions for a WASH secure future of universal and equitable access to services, addressing the full ambition of the SDG6.   , Acceleration - Innovative solutions with growing evidence of potential to accelerate results and for multi-country scale are supported technically, financially and accelerated by shared value partnerships through the WASH Innovation Hub. , Scale-Up - A curated number of priority innovations with a proven scalable business model are included in the global WASH innovation portfolio, accelerated by the WASH Innovation Hub. These innovations have been scored using 8 criteria matrix. Sourcing underground water, Research on the intersection between WASH and Climate, Change  The Hub will also support research and innovation on the links between climate change and water, sanitation and hygiene with the view to improve our understanding of the sanitation sector’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions (and how they can be minimised), or to develop better monitoring mechanisms for the sustainability of aquifers…, Collaboration and Partnership The hub will bring together a passionate community of strategic partners including children and young people, academia, private entrepreneurs, public policy makers, social development and humanitarian actors, and our global UNICEF WASH and innovation colleagues in 150+ countries. , Responding to Programmatic Challenges, How can innovation make a difference in water and sanitation? Universal access to basic sanitation services by 2030 is the goal, but the current annual rate of progress needs to be doubled to achieve that. The provision of safe water, sanitation and hygienic conditions play an essential role in protecting human health during all infectious disease…

FunDoo is a digital life coach that equips young people with 21st-century, employability, and green skills and provides information on mental health and immunization. Available on a wide array of platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger, Viber, Telegram and SMS, FunDoo prepares young people for the future.   Since its launch in 2021, FunDoo…, Dimension and results  , Recommendations , Iteration , Innovation: FunDoo is a new and valuable concept.    FunDoo stands out because of the Fundoo character/persona, which is friendly, empathetic, and encouraging for a young learner.         FunDoo has gamification features like badges, points, and certificates and uses byte-sized activity-based learning modules, which are 30 to 45 minutes long, to…

A lot of ink has been spilt making a case for investing in women, even more so calling for equity and diversity in the tech sector. It's a forgone conclusion, investing in women is not just the right thing to do, it makes business sense and the outcomes can transform millions of lives.   Women and girls represent half of the world’s population and…

Ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being at all ages is a cornerstone of sustainable development. Advances in life sciences, medicine, and technology open opportunities to find new ways of keeping people healthy.  The emerging field of precision health offers a different model of healthcare, one that considers differences in people’s genes…

Air pollution has long been a global health concern due to its detrimental impact especially on children's well-being. The World Health Organization estimates that air pollution causes more than 2.2 million deaths in the Asia Pacific region every year, and scientific evidence solidly connects air pollution to adverse birth outcomes, infant…