The Innovation MEL Toolbox

Highlights

Fostering innovation in programming and advocacy for children is a key accelerator towards the child-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to realize the rights of every child, including adolescents, and reach the most excluded. But how do we measure what works and decide which innovations should be leveraged to best shape children’s futures? We need to understand what works, why and under what conditions. 

The Innovation MEL¹ Toolbox is a practical compendium of resources for evidence generation from pilot to scale, sourced and developed by the UNICEF Office of Innovation (OOI). It offers approaches to gather actionable, fit-for-purpose data that helps innovators generate the right evidence at the right time, supporting smarter decisions by offering tailored tools to track progress, improve solutions and ensure only the most impactful innovations move forward. 

Structured around several user journeys – featuring cheat sheets for each stage of innovation and a searchable tool repository – the Innovation MEL Toolbox simplifies the evidence journey. It complements the 5-Dimensional (5D) Innovation Framework, also developed by OOI, which outlines evidence requirements as innovations develop from ideas to scale. 

 Whether you need quick answers, detailed methods or personalized guidance, the Innovation MEL Toolbox provides an essential guide to measuring what matters, allowing you to focus on what counts: delivering transformational change for children. 

_{1 Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL)}