Commonwealth Innovation Hub is dedicated to connecting, harnessing and unleashing the innovative potential of its 56 member countries and 2.5 billion citizens to overcome the most critical challenges on the path to sustainable development.
56
2.5 billion
Commonwealth SDGs
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The Commonwealth SDG Tracker provides a year-on-year snapshot of the progress the 56 Commonwealth countries are making towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
Digital Commonwealth
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Innovation resources for Commonwealth member countries.
Commonwealth countries
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Discover innovation across Africa, Asia, Caribbean and Americas, Europe and Pacific.
Partner resources
Bloomberg Climatescope – Global Clean Energy Outlook
Climatescope is a snapshot of where clean energy policy and finance stand today, and a guide to what can happen in the future.
Climatescope’s unique country-by-country assessments, interactive reports and indices evaluate the investment conditions for clean energy in emerging markets. It profiles 104 markets worldwide, including 23 Commonwealth countries, and evaluates their ability to attract capital for low-carbon energy sources while building a greener economy.
GSMA Online Courses on Digital Transformation
The GSMA Capacity Building programme offers an extensive range of free training courses for policymakers and regulators.
Policymakers and regulators play a key role in shaping the way the industry responds to key issues and challenges. This means it is vital they keep pace with the latest developments. The GSMA’s courses help students understand the implications of different policy and regulatory approaches and how they affect the delivery of mobile services to consumers, by emphasising real-world examples of regulatory best practice from different regions around the world.
ILO digital toolkit for quality apprenticeships
The International Labour Organisation toolkit is a resource to improve the design and implementation of apprenticeship systems and programmes. It provides a comprehensive but concise set of key information, guidance and practical tools for policy-makers and practitioners who are engaged in designing and implementing quality apprenticeships.
International Solar Alliance Programmes
Many countries face gaps in the potential solar energy manufacturing eco-system. Absence of universal energy access, energy equity and affordability are issues common to most of the solar resource rich countries.
International Solar Alliance (ISA) is conceived as a coalition of solar resource rich countries to address their special energy needs and will provide a platform to collaborate on addressing the identified gaps through a common, agreed approach.
The International Trade Centre (ITC) is the only development agency that is fully dedicated to supporting the internationalisation of small and medium-sized enterprises.
The ITC has developed a suite of online tools to make global trade more transparent and to facilitate access to markets. These tools enable business actors to identify export and import opportunities, compare market-access requirements, monitor national trade performance and make well-informed trade decisions.
The suite covers the world’s largest databases on trade statistics, tariff data, and rules of origin related to applicable free trade agreements. Additional tools offer export potential estimations, market price information, regional trade and investment data and much more.
Digital technologies and data are transformational. People, firms and governments live, interact, produce and work differently than in the past, and these changes are accelerating rapidly. An ecosystem of interdependent digital technologies – the Internet of Things, next generation networks (5G), cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, blockchain and quantum computing – underpins digital transformation and will evolve to drive future economic and societal changes.
The Going Digital Toolkit helps countries assess their state of digital development and formulate policy strategies and approaches in response. Data exploration and visualisation are key features of the toolkit.
Pacificdata.org is the central repository of open data and knowledge products about the Pacific region. Anyone can access the public data on the Pacific Data Hub.
The Pacific Data Hub offers a large and diverse collection of data, data insights, publications, and knowledge products on the Pacific across key development sectors including population statistics, fisheries, geoscience, agriculture, aquaculture, energy, education, human rights, climate change, and oceans.
Partnership Accelerator: 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
Direct partnership training support and advisory services for member states wishing to foster stronger collaboration and enhance their capacities in forging new multi-stakeholder partnerships and partnership platforms.
The 2030 Agenda Partnership Accelerator is a collaborative initiative aiming to significantly help accelerate effective partnerships in support of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) and The Partnering Initiative, in collaboration with United Nations Office for Partnerships (UNOP), UN Global Compact, and the UN Development Coordination Office.
The objectives of the Partnership Accelerator are to support effective country driven partnership platforms for SDGs through research and direct support of effective multi-stakeholder partnership platforms, and building partnership skills and competencies to support development of policy and strategy, systems and processes, legal agreements and culture to support collaboration.
Social Innovation: The Social Ideas Podcast
The University of Cambridge Judge Business School’s Centre for Social Innovation shares the impact of social innovation and its capacity and necessity to challenge the status quo, through the The Social Ideas Podcast.
Highly committed change makers in business, civil society, policy and academia talk about their work, ideas and motivation to strive towards to a more equitable and sustainable world throughout the series. The Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation acts as a platform for research and engagement with social innovators, academia and policy in UK and across the world.
South-South Galaxy is a digital platform for knowledge sharing and partnership brokering to address transnational challenges among the Global South.
It acts as a needs broker and aims to facilitate connectedness between countries and regions for knowledge sharing, capacity development and creating partnership and entrepreneurship opportunities. Its development was based on the consultation with over 15 UN entities.
Southern partners can publish their development solutions and needs, exchange knowledge, foster partnerships, access cutting-edge research, feature and engage in capacity building initiatives, and connect to the UN system and South-South partners.
The UN Biodiversity Lab (UNBL) is a data portal with a wide array of global public good datasets used by policymakers to take action for people and planet.
UNBL provides the best available spatial data for decision makers to put nature at the center of sustainable development
Available popular data collections that unlock the power of data to generate insights to address critical issues for nature and sustainable development include:
- Nature-based solutions for climate change
- Protected areas
- Green recovery
- Post 2020 global biodiversity framework
If you are working to conserve nature and foster sustainable development, or you have national data you would like to visualise and analyse, the UN Biodiversity Lab offers free workspaces for diverse stakeholders to use UNBL tools in a secure environment.
The speed, dynamics and complexity of today’s social, economic and environmental problems are fundamentally different from previous eras in history.
Many of these challenges are growing exponentially. The impact of artificial intelligence on unemployment. The potential for disinformation to spread on social media. The need for policies that keep up with and drive innovation, while protecting human rights.
60 United Nations Development Programme Accelerator Labs serving 78 countries will work together with national and global partners to find radically new approaches that fit the complexity of current development challenges.
The labs will transform our collective approach by introducing new services, backed by evidence and practice, and by accelerating the testing and dissemination of solutions within and across countries. Sense-making, collective intelligence, solutions mapping and experimentation will be part of the new offer from UNDP to governments.
UNDP Accelerator Labs Scale Innovation for Development Toolkit (PDF)
A hands-on scaling toolkit for the UNDP Accelerator Labs which was developed by Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).
To accelerate progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), UNDP established one of the world’s largest and fastest learning networks focused on development challenges – the UNDP Accelerator Labs. Currently, 60 Accelerator Labs are established, supporting 78 countries facilitating grassroots innovation to tackle development challenges in different country contexts with a bottom-up approach.
This toolkit aims to provide a hands-on strategy to help Accelerator Labs scale social innovation in the grow stage.
UNICEF policy guidance on AI for children (PDF)
Artificial intelligence (AI) is about so much more than self-driving cars and intelligent assistants on your phone. AI systems are increasingly being used by governments and the private sector to, for example, improve the provision of education, healthcare and welfare services. But while AI is a force for innovation, it also poses risks for children and their rights, such as to their privacy, safety and security.
UNICEF has developed this guidance to promote children’s rights in government and private sector AI policies and practices, and to raise awareness of how AI systems can uphold or undermine these rights.
UNIDO Industrial Analytics Platform
The UNIDO Industrial Analytics Platform (IAP) is an innovative tool featuring data on select indicators of industrial development and relevant research by leading experts in an accessible format.
The IAP provides data on a set of tailored indicators relevant to industrial development. Data are derived from internal and external databases to identify trends at the industry level. While regional/development status aggregates cover all available countries, some countries and territories that do not feature both trade and national accounts data, have a population of less than 300,000 in 2018 are not considered in the country-level analyses. By default, countries are compared to the largest economy in their home region.
The UNIDO Knowledge Hub is the directorate of digitalisation, technology and agri-business enhancing local productive capacities and advancing economic competitiveness.
The Knowledge Hub offers a training academy with different online training courses related to trade, investment and innovation; offering certificates upon successful completion. The knowledge hub tools include a resource guide on trade capacity building, the innovative laboratory network database provides information on different conformity assessment services around the world, the standards compliance analytics provide export information on major global markets, and the eco-industrial parks tool provides policymakers with advanced transformation guidance. The latest UNIDO technical publications on quality and standards, innovation, investment and environment are also available for users.
UNCTAD Database of National Trade Facilitation Committees
A collection of trade facilitation data is now directly available to traders, investors, researchers and key partners worldwide.
UNCTAD’s Database National Trade Facilitation Committees is now available online to provide real-time insights on how countries are implementing their commitments under the Trade Facilitation Agreement. The database has several new features and allows users to explore information on country-based NTFCs. Users can also compare global and regional statistics to understand the differences in trade facilitation progress between different country groupings, or how a country is performing compared to others.
UNESCO Science, Technology and Innovation Observatory
Science, technology and innovation (STI) are increasingly important for social, economic and sustainable development. Achieving the 2030 Agenda by reaching the sustainable development goals will require policy instruments such as laws, competitive grants and public subsidies to be effective.
The UNESCO Global Observatory of Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Instruments (GO-SPIN) provides key information on STI governing bodies, legal frameworks, policy instruments and a long-term series of indicators for evidence-based policy analysis, design and foresight studies.
GO-SPIN is an online, open access platform for decision-makers, knowledge- brokers, specialists and general-public, with a complete set of various information on STI policies.
UN Global Humanitarian Data Portal
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs dashboard that visualises raw data on where humanitarian actors are working by sector and location around the world.
UNOCHA is visualising raw data of global humanitarian actors on the Global Humanitarian Operational Presence Who, What, Where (3W) Portal. The dashboard shows where humanitarian actors are working by country, sector, organisation type and location. Reference datasets are available to support operations and decision-making for all actors in the humanitarian response. Users can explore data and see products developed by field offices as well as humanitarian action in each country.
The United Nations System Staff College applies a unique combination of in-house e-learning expertise and knowledge of the UN to create customised web-based learning solutions and knowledge tools for UN partners.
Learning and training activities focus on the thematic areas of:
- Leadership and management
- Peace and security
- Sustainable development
The UN Innovation Network Webinar Library
The UN Innovation Network and many other UN entities regularly host webinars and discussions to uncover emerging good practices, showcase successful projects and learn about opportunity areas for innovation, data and digital transformation.
Browse the living library of innovation webinars hosted on the system or submit your own webinar to the library.
Rotary’s Emergency Response Kits
New Zealand’s government has encouraged Rotary’s Emergency Response Kits and often provided transportation, logistical and financial support over many years.
The Emergency Response Kit is a ‘first response’ resource distributed to affected families immediately following catastrophic weather and environmental events in Polynesia and Melanesia to support them through the first days after a disaster. With a kit and a little ingenuity, a family can construct basic shelter, keep themselves protected from the elements and utilise the immediate survival items that are included.
The main beneficiaries of Emergency Response Kits are the people of Oceania/South Pacific including Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Western Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Kiribati and the Cook Islands who are all affected by cyclones and other natural disasters.
WIPO (UN) Intellectual Property and Mobile Applications
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is the global forum for intellectual property (IP) services, policy, information and cooperation. They are a self-funding agency of the United Nations, with 193 member states
Mobile applications have become an indispensable part of daily life in the digital world driven by a vast software development community. The WIPO Committee on Intellectual Property and Development (CDIP) considers the enhanced use of IP by software developers as a topic of particular interest and has launched a specific project to this end.
World Bank Open Learning Campus
Learning is key to solving development challenges, and to meeting the World Bank Group’s twin goals of ending poverty and building shared prosperity.
Whether it is food security or pandemic outbreaks, development progress is often challenged by multiple interdependent factors. Mitigating these factors requires change that can be harnessed through continuous learning.
Inspired by the success and credibility of proven approaches to online learning, the OLC is a learning ecosystem that is open, interactive and networked.
World Trade Organisation COVID-19 Trade Facilitation Repository
The COVID-19 Trade Facilitation Repository is a joint platform of actions and initiatives adopted by organisations that aims to consolidate information on trade-facilitation measures.
It provides ready access to this information by making it user-friendly, easily accessible, searchable and unified in one single database (avoiding multiple searches in different engines and platforms). It contains a useful listing of all such initiatives and is broken down by organisation, type of measure, and subject matter.
WTO Gender Provisions Database
World Trade Organization database compiles provisions on gender equality and women’s empowerment in Regional Trade Agreements.
Database provisions can be filtered by parties and regions, type of gender issues they address, the implementation instruments they provide and their location in the Regional Trade Agreements. These are either bilateral or plurilateral agrrements. Information about the mechanisms for the monitoring and evaluation of the provisions or the dispute settlement is also provided.
PATH’s Vaccine Cost Calculators are new tools and resources for those involved in decision-making around new vaccine introduction or product selection.
They provide an easy way for users to assess and compare costs of certain vaccination programmes over a period of 10 years with each vaccine product available in the global market.
Users include decision-makers for national immunisation programmes, implementers who organise action plans and resources for vaccine introduction and put them into practice, as well as technical assistance partners aiming to maximise the sustainability of national immunisation programmes by examining vaccine cost data to inform and influence decision-makers.
