Suppport AccLab Zambia with Knowledge Management

Details

Mission and objectives

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the UN's global development network, advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. UNDP is on the ground in some 170 countries and territories, supporting their own solutions to development challenges and developing national and local capacities that will help them achieve human development and the Sustainable Development Goals. Our work is concentrated on three main focus areas: Sustainable development; Democratic governance and peacebuilding; Climate and disaster resilience. UNDP helps countries attract and use aid effectively. In all our activities, we promote gender equality and the protection of human rights. UNDP has enhanced its support to countries to work towards the eradication of extreme poverty, enabling us to build back better and work towards innovative solutions to the complex global challenges. We have refined our service offering through six signature solutions to provide a more integrated response to the development challenges that we are all facing in this complex global environment. This includes a mix of policy advice, technical assistance, catalytic financing and innovative programmes tailored to country specific needs to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals through six our signature solutions on - poverty, governance, resilience, environment, energy, gender equality.

Context

In Zambia, the AccLab has been working with the government to support the National Technology Business Centre (NTBC) implement the National Innovation Initiative (NII) since 2020. This joint initiative has attracted like-minded organizations that joined the NII partnership among whom included the Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA), the Patents and Companies Registration Agency (PACRA), and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). By its third year running, almost 4,000 submissions had been received from across the 10 provinces of Zambia. The NII platform hosts a repository of solutions responding to different challenges and at different levels of development. Cognizant of the great offer presented by some of the innovations, 135 innovators have been identified, awarded with cash prizes, and supported through business acceleration programmes. 12 solutions to climate change and energy challenges, from among NII and a Waste Management Call Innovation Call that had been implemented on behalf of the UNDP Inclusive Growth Unit in the country office in 2019, were invited to test their innovations. Thus, the AccLab launched the Experimentation Programme. The programme opened an opportunity for the AccLab to test a portfolio of innovations and offer innovators access to government research and development support through the National Institute for Scientific and Industrial Research (NISIR) and the Copperbelt University (CBU). During COVID 19 the Lab led the identification of innovative responses to the virus by conducting experiments to develop standardized cloth masks. Results from the experiments led to a scaled effort within the country office and partnerships with the private sector. The Zambia and Zimbabwe Accelerator Labs were awarded a grant by the Africa Borderlands Centre under an innovations challenge to implement digital solutions aimed at improving livelihoods in cross-border trader and trading communities and guarantee business continuity in the face of border closures and travel restrictions. The wealth of data that the Lab has surface from the various initiatives undertaken demand the need to embrace online tools and methods to document the learning and keep track on the repository of innovations that are currently holding in an online database – Airtable. The data are an opportunity for the Lab to share their stories across the accelerator lab network and with the public. For some innovations, their achievement are great opportunities to bring to the attention of impact driven organizations in order to co-create sustainable locally driven solutions with people who think outside the box.

Task description

Knowledge Management • Ensure that monitoring and documentation systems are designed, and data collection and analysis from the field are coordinated and standardized. • Provide review and editorial support of AccLab Zambia knowledge products. • Synthesise mission reports into learning products for publication into newsletters, blogs or articles.