Our results - Projects
Learn More About Our Ongoing projects
Our results - projects
Crowdfunding Academy in Ukraine is a three months project dedicated to entrepreneurs from conflict-affected areas in Donbas. The ultimate goal of the initiative is to rally all available resources to help improve the livelihoods of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and host communities throughout Ukraine. Experts from UNDP Alternative Finance Lab and Terra Hub NGO, who c...
To tackle the challenges and negative impacts of long-term youth unemployment, UNDP together with Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra and the Government of Serbia is designing a Youth Employment Bond pilot with the Social Impact Bond (SIB) mechanism.Social Impact Bond is a result-based financial instrument for impact investing, where private investments are intended to create a posit...
Hardly a day goes by in the development world without hearing the term "platform". Like in the business world, it's becoming harder for any development organization to provide a single service or product that will make broad impact. Airbnb doesn't build homes, it creates a network that brings together host and guest.Likewise, it's impossible to eradicate poverty – a complex ph...
With the arrival of the 4th industrial revolution, new technologies will increasingly enable citizens to engage with governments, voice their opinions and coordinate their efforts. Because of the increasingly changing world of today, governments, citizens and development actors alike need to quickly adapt, get a better understanding of advanced technologies, and learn how they ...
As remittances are an important part of the economic impact of migration, in Serbia we're working on designing a proof of concept for remittance transfers over blockchain. The program's goal is to find a cheaper cross-border transfer system which cuts out intermediaries such as Western Union, and targeted toward specific needs in Serbia. In this project, we are working together...
We have recently started to work on the White Paper with Blockchain - the world's leading Bitcoin software company. Together we are working on better understanding the development space and evaluating how this technological innovation can bring about radical transparency & efficiency in the flow of aid.The paper is exploring six key sectors - trade finance, remittances, dig...
Alternative Finance Lab (AltFin Lab) is helping UNDP Bosnia and Herzegovina and their national and regional partners in the Vrbas region in designing an Forecast Based Financing mechanism that seeks to attract insurance investment into addressing the risk on the basis of the forecast based triggers.Based on the Red Cross/Crescent Climate Center Forecast Based Financing model UN...
By Milica Begovic, Carlo Ruiz, Marina Petrovic and Ruchi Mohanty Can we take a bite out of poverty through the simple act of buying a chocolate bar? UNDP (Country Office Ecuador, Istanbul Hub's innovation team) and FairChain Foundation tested this with The Other Bar- a chocolate bar that comes with a 'digital passport' (tracks cocoa from bean to a bar), and an impact token that acts as a su...
The Day of Big Waves in February in Banja Luka. What? Yes, we have the first successful crowdfunding campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina by "Talas" magazine team. Talas means wave! The campaign name was "Swim upstream" or #PlivajUzvodno. There is no ocean in Banja Luka to make waves or to swim, but Talas magazine team has done their job! They ...
Mateja Kuhar couldn't stop thinking about the idea of developing a pen from recycled organic waste for more than two years. After she noticed how much organic material was being binned by a local coffee shop and flower shops, she finally shaped the idea of ??making Fabula – organic pencil. This pencil is created from the used tea leaves and coffee grounds from cafes, together w...
UNDP'S 1ST GLOBAL CROWDFUNDING ACADEMYUNDP's 1st Global Crowdfunding Academy took place in December of 2015 in Istanbul. Inspiring projects that ranged from community green solutions to peacebuilding and poverty reduction were presented by 11 teams from around the world.Global Crowdfunding Academies are envisaged as 3-6 month service where the team identifies a pipeline of pote...
''Bring Water for Life'' was UNDP Indonesia's first crowdfunding campaign. This initiative is contributing to the achievement of the 17 globally committed Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), particularly in increasing access to clean water and sanitation, to end poverty, fight inequality and climate action. The campaign was launched on World Water day on March 22nd, 2016 and ...
Ana and Maja are two girls whose great passion is manufacturing quality beer. Up to March 2016, their passion was just a hobby, but then they came to an idea of founding the first women-run cooperative craft brewery in Croatia - Brlog. Craft beer is a preservative free, unfiltered and unpasteurized beer. Such a beer has higher nutritional and, most people believe, culinary val...
In Moldova, we are testing to find out if Blockchain can provide a more effective way of managing the United Nations car fleet. On this project we cooperate with EmerCoin - a digital currency and blockchain service platform and with DeePlace company. The blockchain technology is to demonstrate the possibility of a more effective way of managing the UN car fleet in an emergency ...
"How can we finance the next 15 years of development work? In what ways should true innovators be engaged in the development process? How viable is impact investment for business and governments alike?" - these were only a few of the many questions discussed at the very first global summit on impact investment for development, held in Yerevan on March 21-22. The summit, has bee...
Bangladesh is a country with a population of over 160 million people, and millions of youth not in education, employed, or in training. On the other side, the need for good jobs in Bangladesh is high. The Youth Employment through Skills (YES) initiative came up with the solution for this huge problem. YES is an educational programme that works with Bangladeshi youth to teach th...
''STEMI'' is a robot you can make on your own at home. He can teach you much scientific, technological, engineering and mathematical concepts in a fun and easy way. By building STEMI you can learn 3D modelling, electronics, Arduino programming and mobile app programming. STEMI came as a spin-off of a non-profit organisation "Wind of Knowledge". It is an educational technology ...
In Tajikistan, we are working with BitSPark on investigating possibilities to transfer remittances money from Tajikistan workers from Russia to Tajikistan using Bitcoins. Remittances are a growing and critical lifeline for many people and countries around the world, as demonstrated clearly by Tajikistan where 50% of the country GDP relies on remittance income. ...
By UNDP and Magic LeapIn the blockbuster science fiction movie 'The Matrix', after Neo takes the red pill offered by Morpheus, he not only learns the truth about reality, he also discovers how an ecological disaster has led to humans being harvested and enslaved by machines. At UNDP we wondered, what if we 'matrix' our way into tackling climate change, using emerging techn...
Buba bar - extra chromosome for extra coffee'' crowdfunding campaign was launched with the aim of opening the first coffee house in Croatia to employ people with Down Syndrome. The Bubamara Association needed to raise 10,000 USD to make Buba Bar a reality.Their mission was to improve the quality of life for the intellectually challenged and to evolve the Croatian societal views...
''Build the 1st Inclusive Playground in Tirana'' is a campaign that aimed to provide, for the first time in Albania, a playground that is suitable for children with special needs and abilities.United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Albania, jointly with the Municipality of Tirana launched this campaign to advocate for greater awareness towards equality of treatment for ...
Guzgef Solar School project aimed at improving education facilities in rural Tajikistan and provide a better education for children. Almost 70% of the population of Tajikistan live in rural and mountainous areas where electricity is available for no more than three hours a day. The country's lack of consistent grid power means that it is too dark and cold to study in the school...
Taste of Home is a culinary-cultural-research project that introduces the culture, customs and countries of origin of refugees and migrants in Croatia. Taste of Home initiative wanted to help refugees and migrants earn a living and become settled in Croatia. The crowdfunding campaign was launched in November 2015. With the help of over 500 backers, they have raised $ 19,649 and...
Impact bonds, one of the pay-for-success financial mechanisms bringing impact investors, private, public and third sector organizations together to solve social and development issues, have recently faced some criticism about their complex nature, which can lead to a long design phase and high related transaction costs. We, at UNDP Istanbul Hub and Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra, put our heads toge...
Global Crowdfunding Academy is a program aimed at training UNDP staff to learn to conduct their own crowdfunding campaigns and thus contribute to 2030 Agenda and its goals. The interest for this year's academy was twice as large as last year and can be understood as an indication that new funding mechanisms are beginning to gain larger ground in CO operations across the globe....
Global Crowdfunding Academy is a program aimed at training UNDP staff to learn to conduct their own crowdfunding campaigns and thus contribute to 2030 Agenda and its goals. UNDP's 1st Global Crowdfunding Academy took place in December of 2015 in Istanbul. Inspiring projects that ranged from community green solutions to peacebuilding and poverty reduction were presented by 11 te...
The idea of tackling the problem of low fruit intake in Moldova came during a banal lunch. We were intrigued by the paradox that in a country that is a regional "garden", abundant in fruits and vegetables, the average consumption of these goodies constituted only 60% of the minimum WHO recommended quantity.We then thought about connecting the private sector represented by the ...
The Benefits of Crowd UrbanismBased on lessons learned – some of which are mentioned below – crowdfunding can bridge the gap between top-down and bottom-up ways of thinking.The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Alternative Finance Lab has been working and experimenting with crowdfunding now more than five years, by developing campaigns, workshops, booklets and observing how this new ...
Crowdfunding Academy Croatia is a non-formal educational programme on developing crowdfunding campaigns aimed for training cooperatives, municipalities and cities, start-up companies, entrepreneurs, craftsmen and all citizens with interesting and innovative projects. The first Crowdfunding Academy took place in spring of 2015 in Zagreb, Croatia with 14 participating teams. The ...
Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (TIEC), United Nations Development Programme in Egypt (UNDP Egypt) and the UNDP Alternative Finance Lab (AltFinLab) partnered together to foster crowdfunding in Egypt during the week of 3rd to the 7th February 2019. In 2017, $65 billion was raised on global crowdfunding platforms and there is an upward trend in develop...
UNDP AltFinLab partnered with Blockchain.com, UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and the World Economic Forum (WEF) to explore how block chain technology works, but also how it is already being used to pursue conventional ends. The culmination of that partnership is in the form of a white paper titled, The Future is Decentralised.We're excited to share how this technology has brought n...
Who can imagine Valentine's Day without bon-bons, or Easter without chocolate eggs? Yet generations-old cocoa farming businesses are on the verge of collapse in the Amazon because cocoa farmers don't receive fair pay for their work. Using blockchain technology, the United Nations Development Programme in Ecuador, AltFinLab and Amsterdam's FairChain Foundation are developing one of the world's firs...
Panama, August 31, 2018- With a financing gap of 2.5 billion dollars to implement the Sustainable Development Goals and two out of every six people in the world without access to a formal bank account, innovative financial mechanisms represent an alternative to close the financial gap and promote sustainable development.This is said by the team of experts in alternative finance...
This blog series takes a look at the new landscape of financing for development, the focus of our upcoming Istanbul Development Dialogues, an annual a global development forum where policy-makers, business leaders, and experts discuss issues of our time.Islamic finance, a method of financial system which complies with sharia law and forbids charging interest, has beco...
Crowdfunding Academy Croatia is a non-formal educational programme on developing crowdfunding campaigns aimed for training cooperatives, municipalities and cities, start-up companies, entrepreneurs, craftsmen and all citizens with interesting and innovative projects. The second Crowdfunding Academy took place in summer of 2016 in Zagreb, Croatia with 19 participating teams. All...
Imagine losing your legal identification and other official documents in a natural disaster, as thousands of Haitians did in the deadly 2010 earthquake. Without land title, rebuilding your home or business becomes impossible: Why invest in rebuilding at all when someone else can come along and claim your property?Imagine trying to register for school, open a bank account, secure health care or oth...
Elderly centre in Balykchy town in Kyrgyzstan was set up by a local non-governmental organisation to provide a gathering place for retired and elderly people who don't have relatives or access to a social network. But, with temperatures dipping way below zero, the centre is largely inaccessible during late fall and winter season due to the poor heating system. This created a br...
In 2018 the UNDP Innovation Facility issued a Call for Proposals to promote development through the innovative use of Artificial Intelligence, big data, behavioural insights and impact financing. A record of more than 195 proposals were received, and 29 winners chosen from 35 countries. UNDP Lebanon, UNDP AltFinLab and its partners won with a proposal which will help ...
Lisbon, 18 March – The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), together with mayors from eight countries - Moldova, Serbia, Georgia, Tajikistan, Croatia, Somalia, Lebanon and Portugal - today launched a new initiative to boost financing for solar energy in cities across the world.The Solar Mayors platform will connect cities around the topic of energy transition ...
Many people around the world say they don't contribute to social causes for fear that their contributions will be wasted. So how is it that a board game on Kickstarter mangadom managed to collect over $12 million in funding, with almost 20,000 pledges?That's the beauty of crowdfunding: people from all walks of life supporting a cause they believe in. We at UNDP's AltFinLa...
"We are using distributed ledger technology to help the cooperatives better market and differentiate their products on the back of their sustainability certifications, creating products with provable certification claims and traceability back to their origin. This traceability is then being leveraged to sell "proof packages" containing all this information to downstream b...
Alternative Finance Lab (AltFin Lab) is an internal startup, run out of UNDP Istanbul Regional Hub for Europe and CIS