Innovation

Innovating for Children in Malawi

UNICEF works with public and private sectors to promote innovative solutions to solve problems quicker and more effectively. UNICEF Malawi especially focuses on leveraging digital and frontier technology, such as drones, geospatial technology and the internet of things, and promoting youth-led innovations. UNICEF sees innovation as an important strategy across our various programmatic and operational areas – Education, Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Climate Change, Health, Nutrition, Child Protection and Social policy in both development and humanitarian emergency contexts.

Youth and Social Innovation

• African Drones and Data Academy is a centre of excellence that dually equips young people in Malawi and the African region with necessary 21st-century skills while strengthening the drone ecosystem for more effective humanitarian and development response.
• Youth Innovation Challenge was initiated as a part of a pan-African initiative to empower young Malawian during and beyond COVID-19 by equipping them with problem-solving skills and entrepreneurial mindset.

Drones and Data Innovation

• Drones contribute to speeding up emergency response efforts, including search and rescue and damage assessment.
• The first humanitarian drone testing corridor was launched to accelerate the medical supply delivery to remote communities.
• Together with government and partners, UNICEF is building an early warning system as an adaptive measure for climate change.
• By combining traditional and non-traditional sources of data, geospatial analysis, and artificial intelligence, 4P2C platform develop information products that facilitate planning, prediction, prompting and prodding for change that benefits children and their families.

Innovations in Malawi

Technology for Development (T4D) and Digital Innovation

• U-Report Malawi engages over 140,000 young people on issues that affect them through weekly polls, at an average 54% response rate.
• A real-time platform called Nutrition Commodities Tracking System which monitors stocks in 270 health facilities across 28 districts.
• A Mobile Reporting Tool for police and community victim support units to improve Child Protection in Malawi.
• Revitalizing the mHealth tool called ‘Results 160’, which disseminates results for HIV early infant diagnosis and tracks samples.