Portfolio Solutions

Our ongoing global projects

A man monitors a water drill in Kenya

A UNICEF innovation portfolio contains solutions that use new approaches, tools and technology to address key problems UNICEF is trying to solve for and with children and young people. Solutions within the innovation portfolios are selected based on their potential to accelerate results for children across multiple countries and regions. The innovation portfolios ensure that innovation is strategic and programme-driven, with a focus on evidence building and scaling across multiple geographies.

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. 

UNICEF’s Office of Innovation moved to a portfolio approach to innovation in 2019 in response to the Evaluation of Innovation at UNICEF, and to deliver against the 2022-2025 Strategic Plan. The problem-centered portfolio approach was formalized in the Global Innovation Strategy, to ensure that all investments UNICEF makes in WASH innovation fit with its global aim of ensuring that every child can survive, thrive and live in a safe, inclusive space and that innovation is applied to the most pressing problems faced by the most vulnerable children and young people. 

A UNICEF innovation portfolio contains solutions that use new approaches, tools and technology to address key problems that UNICEF is trying to solve for and with children and young people. Solutions within the innovation portfolios are selected based on their potential to accelerate results for children across multiple countries and regions. The innovation portfolios ensure that innovation is strategic and programme-driven, with a focus on evidence building and scaling across multiple geographies. The WASH Hub’s portfolios governance structure involves guiding the iterative portfolio development process, overseeing the support plan to increase the ability of the solutions to deliver impact for children, periodically reviewing projects to be included or removed, and interacting at key moments with the innovation governing bodies.

The Hub’s work spreads across geographic and programme areas: 

More Water More Life: Deep water drilling in the Horn of Africa

In east and southern Africa, millions are vulnerable to water shortages, with children being particularly so. Without clean water, communities are more susceptible to conflict, disease, and food insecurity. By mapping deep aquifers - bodies of permeable rock that can contain water - using satellite data, the More Water More Life groundwater drilling project can improve drilling accuracy by up to 90-95%, directly improving water access for 1.2 million } people, with 740,000 of them being children.

Girl and UNICEF getting water
UNICEF Ethiopia

Urban Wastewater Treatment in Bangladesh


Informal, high-density low-income settlements in metropolitan areas in Bangladesh provide homes for tens of thousands of children and their families, often lacking access to basic amenities, particularly WASH services. Often, local authorities struggle to provide inclusive, safely managed sanitation to all city dwellers to maintain a clean and sustainable environment, particularly to protect urban water bodies, which are often polluted by tonnes of untreated human waste. The WASH Hub, along with UNICEF Bangladesh, has supported the government in an innovative approach, incorporating nature-based WASH solutions to provide sustainable, cheaper, climate-resilient wastewater treatment services.  

Children in the water
UNICEF Bangladesh

Rotating Sanitation Fund: Blended finance models for household sanitation in West Africa


In West and Central Africa, 372 million people lack access to basic toilet facilities, with financial barriers worsening the issue. Households require more affordable loans for sanitation, and businesses contend with high interest rates of up to 30 per cent. The Sustainable WASH Innovation Hub's innovative blended finance model in Nigeria, Ghana, and Togo addresses this by leveraging microcredit funds for households and small- and medium-sized enterprises, promoting community sanitation. This model has achieved repayment rates of 73-90 per cent, offering a sustainable solution to the region's sanitation financing challenge.

A mother and son add water to plants
UNICEF Malawi

Sanitation in Cold climates: 

Winter in Mongolia sees temperatures as low as -50º Celsius, with permafrost throughout most the country for most of the year. In these extreme weather conditions, access to basic services is constrained for the most vulnerable populations, and this is particularly true for water and sanitation. Latest surveys show that only 27.3 per cent of the population use improved sanitation facilities, which excludes individual household outdoor latrines. Access to improved sanitation stands at 39.1 per cent in urban areas, but only at 6.8 per cent in rural areas. Open defecation practices remain significantly high (25.2 per cent) in rural areas, compared to urban areas (0.5 per cent). In Mongolia, UNICEF supports with the procurement and demonstration of innovative wastewater treatment technology in remote communities and public institutions (schools, kindergartens, health centers etc.). This includes small-scale wastewater treatment facilities that can operate at below freezing temperatures and improve access to essential WASH facilities.

Two students smile behind the doors.
UNICEF Mongolia

Managed Aquifer Recharge in Timor-Leste:

Climate change is leading to rising sea levels and more extreme weather events, which can destroy WASH facilities and lead to saline intrusion of coastal freshwater aquifers. In response to this, UNICEF scaled Managed Aquifer Recharge, a technique which collects and treats water from ponds and roofs (rainwater) and injects it underground for storage and future use. Each system can be maintained by the communities with periodic external support.  

Employees examine the tanker.
UNICEF Timor-Leste