Driving Innovation through Evidence
Supporting UNICEF's global network of innovators with evidence, insights, and tools to drive better, faster, and more informed decisions.
Innovation is a powerful driver toward achieving the child-related Sustainable Development Goals and realizing the rights of every child—especially the most vulnerable. But with new solutions emerging rapidly, it’s not always clear which ones will deliver the greatest impact—or how to manage their risks and trade-offs.
That’s where Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) practices come in. MEL helps UNICEF and its partners understand what works, why, and under what conditions by providing the evidence base for critical decisions throughout the innovation process. Knowledge Management (KM) practices complement MEL by ensuring that insights, evidence, and experiences are systematically captured, organized, and shared — enabling teams to learn faster, avoid duplication, and build on what works.
The Insights Team at UNICEF Office of Innovation helps country offices identify, validate, and scale promising solutions through practical tools like the 5D Innovation Framework and Innovation MEL Toolbox, strategic planning support, and access to tailored data and analytics. By grounding innovation in evidence and connecting efforts across the organization, we help turn bold ideas into lasting change for children.
The 5D Innovation Framework
The 5D Innovation Framework, developed by UNICEF Office of Innovation, provides a structured approach to identifying, validating, and scaling innovative solutions across five dimensions: innovation, business model, impact, scalability, and risk.
Designed as a practical tool for teams and decision-makers, it supports strategic choices throughout the innovation lifecycle, with clear benchmarks, a scoring system, and visual tools—like spider diagrams—to highlight progress, strengths, and gaps. The framework can be embedded into country programming or used to accelerate solutions with partners.
The complementary 5D Web Assessment Tool provides a user-friendly digital platform to guide and document this process, helping teams scale innovations iteratively and with confidence.
“At the Egypt Country Office, we've found that the 5D innovation framework serves as a practical and efficient model for assessing innovations. It ensures that only those innovations with demonstrated potential are integrated into our programs, allowing us to achieve tangible outcomes for children.”
Cherine Kotb, ICT Specialist, UNICEF Egypt Country Office
Innovation MEL Toolbox
The Innovation MEL Toolbox is a practical set of tools that helps teams generate and apply evidence to assess and strengthen innovations. While the 5D Innovation Framework defines what to measure at each stage, the MEL Toolbox shows how—offering recommended methods and tools to guide the process from idea to scale.
It includes cheat sheets with stage-specific recommendations, a searchable tool repository, and a chatbot for UNICEF users. By focusing not just on proving impact but improving solutions, the toolbox enables faster learning, better adaptation, and more informed decision-making.
Fostering innovation is key to accelerating results for children. By strengthening evidence, data, and tools, we can drive smarter decisions and greater impact where it matters most.
Want to learn more about how you can use MEL and KM tools in your work? Get in touch at [email protected]
