18 March 2024

UNICEF Global Sustainable WASH Innovation Hub

Globally, more than 1 in 4 people lack access to safely managed drinking water   Nearly half the world’s population lack access to safely managed sanitation.   Around the world, 3 in 10 people do not have a place to wash their hands with soap and water at home.   In order to achieve universal access to water , sanitation and hygiene (WASH)…, capacity of UNICEF through country partners to innovate, adapt and adopt innovation. Curating a set of solutions that focus on key problems. solving challenging problems for and with children and young people (the WASH, portfolio).  Becoming a center of excellence for facilitating innovation knowledge management, by enabling innovators, academia, the private sector, partners, and countries to connect to facilitate at scale. Learn more about the portfolio projects .   A mother gives water to her son in drought-prone Wajir, Kenya. A mother gives water to her son in…, What does UNICEF expect to achieve through its WASH Innovation Hub?, The vision for the UNICEF Sustainable WASH Innovation Hub is to be a global home for building, accelerating and scaling transformational climate resilient solutions for a WASH secure future of universal and equitable access to services, addressing the full ambition of the SDG6.   , Acceleration - Innovative solutions with growing evidence of potential to accelerate results and for multi-country scale are supported technically, financially and accelerated by shared value partnerships through the WASH Innovation Hub. , Scale-Up - A curated number of priority innovations with a proven scalable business model are included in the global WASH innovation portfolio, accelerated by the WASH Innovation Hub. These innovations have been scored using 8 criteria matrix. Sourcing underground water, Research on the intersection between WASH and Climate, Change  The Hub will also support research and innovation on the links between climate change and water, sanitation and hygiene with the view to improve our understanding of the sanitation sector’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions (and how they can be minimised), or to develop better monitoring mechanisms for the sustainability of aquifers…, Collaboration and Partnership The hub will bring together a passionate community of strategic partners including children and young people, academia, private entrepreneurs, public policy makers, social development and humanitarian actors, and our global UNICEF WASH and innovation colleagues in 150+ countries. , Responding to Programmatic Challenges, How can innovation make a difference in water and sanitation? Universal access to basic sanitation services by 2030 is the goal, but the current annual rate of progress needs to be doubled to achieve that. The provision of safe water, sanitation and hygienic conditions play an essential role in protecting human health during all infectious disease…
21 December 2023

Elevating Childhood Vaccination

One-third of UNICEF's  zero-dose children  in the East Asia and the Pacific Region live in the Philippines, and the challenge of ensuring universal vaccination is significant.   In response, the UNICEF Office of Innovation has proactively supported the development and implementation of an innovative real-time vaccine monitoring toolkit known as …, The Challenge , The Philippines stands among the top five nations globally grappling with the challenge of zero-dose children. With a landscape spanning over 2,000 inhabited islands, despite great strides made by the government and its partners, routine coverage of fundamental vaccines hovers between 70 and 80 per cent.  Old vaccine monitoring processes rely on…, Scaling journey , The Office of Innovation supported the scale-up of the RT-VaMA initiative. UNICEF first used Open Data Kit in the Philippines in 2019 to support vaccination during a polio outbreak. With the Office of Innovation's support, the initiative was scaled up in 2023 to improve vaccination planning and implementation.  Through this support, the …, The Impact , Early results from RT-VaMA are promising, as the tool efficiently pinpointed health centers prepared for the campaign, enabling timely interventions for those lagging before the campaign's launch. Managers received alerts about facility readiness, allowing them to proactively address issues and enhance preparedness.  Throughout the campaign, RT-…, Learning and Looking Ahead , Achieving ownership and sustainability of the process was critical, and necessitated ensuring government support at both the local and national levels. This was made possible through robust coordination between the government and partners, including establishing effective feedback mechanisms.  ​​​The implementation of RT-VaMA highlights the…