Accelerating Results for Children with Technology and Digital Innovation
UNICEF (2020), 66 pp.
Series: Digital UNICEF
"At UNICEF, the Technology for Development (T4D) function within the Information and Communication Technology Division (ICTD) provides advisory, implementation and quality assurance services to programmes on technology and digital innovation in UNICEF, and leadership on digital innovation. It helps to identify the most promising technologies and digital innovations for application in different contexts, supporting UNICEF programmes to adopt, adapt and scale up the approaches that are most useful, and to quickly identify those that are not. It also helps to institutionalize those technologies and digital innovations that show promise and are ready to be mainstreamed, in close collaboration with national partners, and in support of national goals and sectoral priorities, the UNICEF Strategic Plan 2018–2021 and the SDGs.
In the first three years of the Strategic Plan, ICTD has had a powerful impact on scaling digital innovation and accelerating results for children across the organization. To date, more than 1,400 T4D and innovation initiatives have been catalogued through INVENT – the global Technology for Development and Innovations Inventory – which provides a view of the universe of T4D initiatives by Strategic Plan Goal Area, Stage and Scale. These initiatives span UNICEF programmes across the world and address children’s health, nutrition, education, protection, access to water, sanitation and hygiene, and inclusion.
In health, nutrition and early childhood development, UNICEF has harnessed the power of ICT to support countries to ensure that every child survives and thrives. That means bringing together a multi-sectoral team to use technology, digital innovation and human-centred design to strengthen health systems and the health system enabling environment. For example, in Pakistan, UNICEF has supported the government to use real-time monitoring to strengthen immunization services. The use of the opensource technology, RapidPro, enabled service delivery that helped providers vaccinate more than 37 million children against measles in 2018, according to government reports." (Executive summary)
In the first three years of the Strategic Plan, ICTD has had a powerful impact on scaling digital innovation and accelerating results for children across the organization. To date, more than 1,400 T4D and innovation initiatives have been catalogued through INVENT – the global Technology for Development and Innovations Inventory – which provides a view of the universe of T4D initiatives by Strategic Plan Goal Area, Stage and Scale. These initiatives span UNICEF programmes across the world and address children’s health, nutrition, education, protection, access to water, sanitation and hygiene, and inclusion.
In health, nutrition and early childhood development, UNICEF has harnessed the power of ICT to support countries to ensure that every child survives and thrives. That means bringing together a multi-sectoral team to use technology, digital innovation and human-centred design to strengthen health systems and the health system enabling environment. For example, in Pakistan, UNICEF has supported the government to use real-time monitoring to strengthen immunization services. The use of the opensource technology, RapidPro, enabled service delivery that helped providers vaccinate more than 37 million children against measles in 2018, according to government reports." (Executive summary)
