Harare 25 November 2019 - UNDP Zimbabwe has launched the UNDP Zimbabwe Accelerator Lab as part of the UNDP Global Accelerator Lab Learning Network initiative.

The speed, dynamics and complexity of today’s challenges are fundamentally different from previous eras in history. The aim of launching the lab in Zimbabwe is to tackle frontier challenges in development that the world is facing the 21^st century such as climate change, migration, artificial intelligence and the informal economy.

The Accelerator Lab is embedded within UNDP Zimbabwe’s operations, and will bring in new expertise in exploration, solutions-mapping and experimentation to UNDP’s front-line work. At UNDP, we are disrupting the way we think, invest, deliver and manage to perform faster, better and at scale.

The UNDP Zimbabwe Accelerator Lab will be part of a platform that connects the Lab network to the large ecosystem of partners and external expertise that have signed up to collaborate with UNDP and support this new approach on the ground. Together with these partners, the Labs will analyse, in almost real time, the local context challenges to identify connections and patterns to anticipate new avenues of work and act effectively tackle complex sustainable development problems.

The accelerator labs will provide a set of new approaches for addressing complex development issues which are outlined below:

Sense-making: Together with partners, the Labs will analyse, the local context challenges to identify connections and patterns to anticipate new avenues of work and act effectively to accelerate development.

Collective intelligence: Collective intelligence is the ability of large groups and machines to think and act intelligently in a way that amount to more than the sum of its parts.

Solutions mapping: Solutions mapping finds things that work and expands on them. The Accelerator Labs will identify local innovators who have already developed solutions for their own needs or those of their peers.

Designing and Testing: The Labs will simultaneously test approaches to tackle a singular complex development problem. This systematic process allows learning to happen in weeks or months rather than years.

The Accelerator Lab Global Learning Network would not have been made possible without the support of our donors: the Qatar Fund, the Italy Agency for Development Cooperation and the German Cooperation

For more information contact:

Anesu Freddy
UNDP Zimbabwe Communications Associate
Anesu.Freddy@undp.org