Global

FunDoo is a digital life coach equipping young people with 21st century, employability, and language skills and preparing them for their future. By 2030, about 825 million children are expected to leave school without basic secondary-level skills. With a prevailing global skills shortage, worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting from…, Our Approach, In 2021, FunDoo launched in India to address vaccine misinformation during the pandemic. Since then, the platform has evolved to become a global skills and knowledge building solution for young people.  FunDoo has multiple distinctive pedagogical and technical features:  Learning by doing_Icon Learning by doing The platform content is based on the…

As a young student, Alexander Mtambo was passionate about technology. Graduating with honours in Electronics and Computer Engineering from the University of Malawi, he gained practical experience working with Telkom Networks Malawi Limited in the Radio Access Network department.  Working with the team that installed 4G networks in more than ten…

Around one in five children worldwide are not protected against vaccine-preventable diseases. Data from UNICEF’s new report on global immunization stress the need for urgent action – and innovation.  A total of 67 million children missed out on vaccinations between 2019 and 2021, with vaccination coverage down in 112 countries. The new and…

The challenge, In recent years, multiple crises have quickly overwhelmed health care systems, leaving them unable to cope with the sudden surges in patients, let alone provide essential health services. In countries where health systems are already fragile, the rapid escalation of an infectious disease outbreak disproportionately increases the vulnerability of…, The response ​, UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO) and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), with support from the  Téchne Network  are developing a family-friendly Health Emergency Facility (HEF) which can be rapidly deployed and equipped in the event of future disease outbreaks. Using guidelines and a digital planning tool, emergency programme staff will be…, Digital decision tool, for inter-agency procurement planning and coordination, including pre-designed layouts and products lists that emergency staff can selected based on the needs for each location. Products icon, Products, equipment and structures, needed for establishing and operating HEFs, including new and innovative products to support the response. family friendly icon, Layouts with guidance, for setting up family-friendly surge facilities that ensure safe case management.   The development of a rapidly deployable HEF began in 2020. In 2022, UNICEF, alongside WHO and Médecins Sans Frontières, integrated the HEF into the Ebola response during Uganda’s worst outbreak in two decades.          "The 2022 Ebola outbreak provided an…, The impact​, With epidemics occurring more often and spreading faster and further than ever, having rapidly deployable health emergency facilities available will help prevent small disease outbreaks from becoming global pandemics, potentially saving millions of lives. This initiative will help prevent existing heath systems from being overwhelmed by the vast…, Resources, Stories and media coverage

The COVID-19 pandemic poses an extraordinary challenge to the world, our societies, health care systems, and economies. Currently the virus has been confirmed in more than 200 countries and territories.   In this context, many countries are using physical distancing policies (from school closures to travel restrictions or full lockdowns) as tools…, Magic Box, Through data and data science partnerships with private sector companies and leading research groups,  Magic Box  — UNICEF's big data initiative — is working to provide data, tools and insights that allow timely monitoring of physical distancing, evidence on the suitability and sustainability of mobility reductions for low income settings, and…, Reports, Countries are colored according to the first day of maximum policy stringency. UNICEF Countries are colored according to the first day of maximum policy stringency. 10 Oct 2020 This report investigates how the timing of physical distancing policies introduced by governments to mitigate COVID-19 transmission affects both human mobility (measured…, The MagicBox Science Team, Manuel Garcia-Herranz, Chief Scientist  Dohyung Kim, Principal Researcher and Remote Sensing Lead  Vedran Sekara, Principal Researcher and Machine Learning Lead , Our Collaborators and Partners, Frank Schlosser  Humboldt University Berlin & Robert Koch Institute  Laura Alessandretti  Section for Cognitive Systems, Technical University of Denmark   Sune Lehmann  DTU Compute, Technical University of Denmark   Rachel Oidtman  Perkins Lab, University of Notre Dame  Alex Perkins  Perkins Lab, University of Notre Dame  Kelton Minor  Center…

This report presents the existing and emerging renewable energy solutions for low resource settings, the challenges and barriers faced by companies and organizations expanding energy solutions to rural communities in the developing world, approaches and business models that have been developed to provide long-term sustainable solutions in these…

“Analyses of governing documents from 194 countries could help people fighting for human and environmental rights.” Scientific American UNICEF’s Office of Innovation has applied network science and machine learning to national constitutions to better understand how laws develop to protect vulnerable populations. New research by scientists from…

  Inequitable distribution of information sources and content leads to a generation of children who are not able to access the ideal mix of information necessary for them to be successful in life. These systemic challenges stem from lack of infrastructure (there are not enough mobile phone towers in a community), lack of appropriate content (kids…, Measuring a child’s information health., 1500 calories per day is enough for a child to be nutritionally healthy. How many kilobytes (and of what type) could provide us a measure of a child’s information health? What if we could determine the minimum amount and type of kilobytes a day a child should consume to be ‘information healthy’? UNICEF is motivated to determine and establish some…, The work we do., UNICEF is building an open source tool that will measure community and individual level information poverty and identify the main barriers, providing actionable insights to advocate for optimally positioned resources. For example, it can benefit children who live in remote communities in Amazonas and lack connectivity and qualified teachers by…, A Closer Look:, How are we doing it?  Information poverty  is a complex system that depends on many variables and dimensions: Availability: Is the source/service/content available where the child lives? Access: If the source/service/content is available, can the child access it? Usage: If the source/service/content is available and the child has access to it,…

Although countries and regions prone to natural disasters can be mapped, they are often not equipped to prevent or respond comprehensively. Exogenous shocks like earthquakes, floods, landslides, and other natural occurrences often occur without any early warnings.    Such disasters often have tragic consequences, affect massive populations, cause…, Changes in human behavior., At the time of an emergency, people change behavior, we change our mobility patterns, our consumption habits, our daily routines. Often, the instant reaction is to reach out to a safe zone, notify others who may be concerned or in danger, or turn to social media for information.  These changes can be observed directly throughout various social and…, The work we do., UNICEF combines different datasets donated by private sector partners such as satellite imagery, population density, population movements and basic infrastructure. This allows first-responders to estimate, in real-time, where the population that require most help are, permitting a dynamic adaptation of the response. We also build mathematical…, A closer look. , UNICEF Innovation is partnering with the private sector to obtain information that can play a critical role in responding to a disaster in a country or a region. In partnership with Telefonica and Facebook, we are using aggregated data from phone usage to identify in almost real-time communities affected by a drastic shock such as an earthquake, a…

Humanitarian organizations, governments, and policy-makers in low and middle income countries are usually forced to make decisions based on limited data typically collected by means of household surveys. , New approaches to estimating demographic factors., With information becoming more accessible, we are now able to overcome some of the limitations of traditional surveys by collecting data in faster, cheaper, more reliable and dynamic ways– which can be used effectively for policy advocacy and in identifying areas in most need of development and support. These data sources have also led to new…, The work we do., Multiple studies have shown that we can leverage new sources of data to estimate human characteristics such as literacy, poverty, and unemployment. At the Office of Innovation, we look into combining traditional household surveys and untraditional unstructured data to achieve results faster and to bridge the gap for years where official estimates…, A closer look., Using machine learning, UNICEF is involved in mapping poverty in Iraq. In collaboration with a local telephone service provider, UNICEF aims to create robust,  real-time maps of various social indicators, enabling the government to monitor vulnerable communities and identify where to invest their scarce resources. Below are a some (but not limited…, A practical example: measuring child poverty in Iraq, Satellite mapping visuals of iraq The UNICEF Country Office in Iraq is exploring innovative and alternative ways of regular monitoring of child poverty and deprivation to strengthen responses to the rapidly changing context in the country. UNICEF is partnering with one of the main mobile network operators (Zain) in Iraq to conduct the analysis of…

There is an increasing number of children who don’t have access to education. It is estimated that by 2030, 60 million children won’t have access to primary education and since 2007, the global rate of school enrollment has stagnated. Climate change and global conflicts are only exacerbating this issue, by increasing the number of children who are…, What we are working on., UNICEF Innovation is building a tool using high-resolution satellite imagery and applying Deep Learning techniques to map every school in the world. The data generated and visualized through an online platform will help identify where the gaps and information needs are, serve as evidence when advocating for connectivity and help national…, A closer look., We currently have data on schools from several countries such us Brazil, Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritania, with over 100,000 data points collected. To support this work, UNICEF has also conducted research and case studies in few countries (i.e. research in the Amazonas region, showcasing the use of satellite connectivity to bring…

The increasing trend for international travel and population mobility have led to increased global interconnectivity and along with that global pandemics. The 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak – the largest recorded in history –  illustrated how these features along with a community unprepared for a sudden outbreak can turn a situation into a…, The work we do., UNICEF is developing an open-source platform to collect, combine, analyze, and display real-time information based on contributions from academic, private sector and open source data. Data sources include, among others: high-resolution population estimates, air travel from Amadeus, regional mobility estimated using aggregated anonymized mobile…, The larger ecosystem., At UNICEF we believe that these efforts should not be carried out in isolation. There is still much work to do and all UN agencies should join forces. This is why we are actively working to share knowledge and co-create with other UN partners, so that in the future systems can be connected and knowledge transferred more easily. This is facilitated…