Starting with data and process mapping, a team of experts used the database from the Republic of Armenia’s Road Police to create an analytical platform for real-time road crash data updates and high-risk spots identification, known as black spots. "Our primary mission is to save lives by identifying high-risk spots and employing intelligent solutions," noted Valerik Harutyuntan, road expert under the project.

For the first time, this new tool is providing the Government and other agencies with a geospatial mapping of road crashes and an analysis of high-risk spots and trends. "By analyzing traffic data, we can pin-point dangerous areas and take action to make streets safer," explained data scientist, Nelli Muradyan.

The decision-makers are now using evidence from the analytics tool in policy-making. Arayik Arakelyan, Head of the Operational Management Center of the Police, stated, “this road crash data analytics tool is very important for monitoring our actions and seeing the impact of our interventions.”

Based on the analyzed data, the project has also been able to introduce new behavioral interventions nationwide targeting speeding, one of the leading causes of road deaths in Armenia.

Within the framework of two behavioral experiments, targeted messages and nudges were sent out to over 21,000 drivers to encourage safer driving practices. "Behavioral experiments carry the potential to improve daily decisions for the common benefit," said behavioral expert, Vardan Baghdasaryan.

Furthermore, within the project framework, a joint behaviorally-informed education program involving the police, government ministries and UNICEF was implemented. This program incorporates practical and interactive elements, such as games, quizzes, and at-home tests, designed to encourage children and parents to adopt safer road practices.

These initiatives are enabling evidence-based policy-making on road safety in Armenia. The results of the project have paved the way for national partners to use innovation to accelerate the implementation of the National Road Safety Strategy.

Building on the results of identified black spots in Armenia, the project is in the process of implementing a pilot intervention on one of the biggest black spots in the country, causing the loss of lives in between 2019 and 2023. This intervention aims to meticulously redesign and refurbish two pedestrian crossings, fostering an environment that encourages and ensures safer road practices.

"Reframing Road Safety in Armenia" Project is the joint project of UNDP's SDG Innovation Lab, UNICEF Armenia and United Nations Road Safety Fund to help our country achieve a 50% reduction of road deaths by 2030. 

President of the Republic of Armenia Vahagn Khachaturyan, UNDP Resident Representative in Armenia Natia Natsvlishvili, Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports Vahram Dumanyan and Minister of High-Tech Industry Robert Khachatryan addressed the participants of the event: representatives from the Government of Armenia, UN institutions, private sector, academia, CSOs, and public sector innovators.

The world moves fast and changes at an unprecedented rate, but public policy and services remain rigid constraints in a slow-paced system with established practices and ways of working. This is a widespread challenge around the world but one way for going the distance is for public servants to alter their mindset and revise the “business-as-usual" practices by adapting lifelong learning skills, innovative technologies, approaches, and practices.  

UNDP’s SDG Innovation Lab blazed into public sector five years ago with a mission to mainstream public sector innovation. The Forum was also a celebration of the 5th anniversary of the UNDP’s SDG Innovation Lab, which has grown into full-fledged innovation facility that is translating global signals and trends into knowledge and evidence, for the Government to keep up with the rapidly changing world and the current pressing issues.  

“Today, we are marking five years of this partnership with an impressive track record of innovative projects implemented by UNDP with so many government counterparts, international and local partnerships established, but most importantly learnings and knowledge generated from applying innovation in a developing country setting. All of this in Armenia has only been possible thanks to the generous support of Government partners. We also thank the donor organizations who have made the leap of faith in directing funds toward public policy innovation and experimenting with more flexible approaches to accommodate innovation,” said UNDP Resident Representative in Armenia Natia Natsvlishvili in her welcome remarks thanking the Government partners and donor community.

To navigate through turbulent waters of tomorrow and flourish in uncertainty it is important to redefine innovation ecosystem by bridging various sectors, including public and private, and increasing the collective capacity for building new response systems to complex problems.  

“At the beginning of this year, Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports started circulating the Education Development Strategy 2030, at the core of which is the development and realization of human capital through the promotion of knowledge and creativity.  This choice of focus is not accidental: after implementing numerous programs and interventions over the years, the point of the reference of our Ministry is the ability of the individual and his development through lifelong education. On this journey, innovation is the most important prerequisite for meaningful progress and for withstanding the challenges of the future", said RA Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports Vahram Dumanyan in his opening remarks.

The Minister of High-Tech Industry Robert Khachatryan mentioned that: “The Digitalization Strategy for 2021-2025 once again reiterated the leading role of the Ministry of High-Tech Industry in digital transformation aiming to promote data-driven, efficient, and transparent government sectors. There is no alternative to innovation and mainstreaming it in all sectors is imperative. It is an arduous journey requiring human-centered, evidence-based and flexible policies, and close collaboration of private and public sectors. And this is where the professionals who share a similar passion for innovative experiences — everyone in this room today — come into play. We need you, the core of the innovators’ network, to lead the process and carry the responsibility for mainstreaming innovation.” 

Dmitry Mariyasin, Deputy Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Europe delivered a keynote speech highlighting the importance of innovation policy and policy innovation for Governments and how both can be integrated to effectively manage complexities and achieve transformational impact.  

Additionally, he noted how “The SDG Innovation Lab’s model served as an inspiration for the world’s largest and fastest learning network on sustainable development challenges globally — UNDP Accelerator Labs as well as laid foundation for mainstreaming innovation in public administration of Armenia by having the ambitious goal of building a community of open-minded and creative public servants to transform decision-making in the public sector.” 

UNDP’s SDG Innovation Lab Lead Tigran Tshorokhyan reflected on the Lab’s journey and outlined the importance of building and extending the network of innovators to uncover the full potential of innovation for public good.  

The Forum was joined by Marco Daglio Head of OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation to stress the importance of institutionalization of innovation and OECD’s readiness to play a key role in the efforts of embedding innovation into public systems in Armenia and shared some insights from other countries on developing sustainable innovation environment.  

To further explore the topic of trends and challenges in the public sector innovation, a panel discussion took place with the participation of Yerevan Deputy Mayor Tigran Avinyan, First Deputy Minister of Health Lena Nanushyan, Deputy Minister of MESCS Zhanna Andreasyan, First Deputy Minister of HTI Gevorg Mantashyan and Tatevik Koloyan, UNDP Armenia Innovation and SDG Finance Portfolio Lead. 

The event was the first in a series of events celebrating and mainstreaming public sector innovation and will prepare the innovation ecosystem for the Public Sector Innovation Festival.   

This maternal and child health platform was developed as a result of joint efforts of the UNDP in Armenia, through SDG Innovation Lab, the Ministry of Health and Viva-MTS. Throughout two years of implementation of the project, Viva-MTS provided financial support of USD 100,000.

The mission, benefits, and main features of the BarevBalik platform and mobile application were presented at the official launch event which was attended by representatives from the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Armenia, UNDP as well as representatives of three mobile network operators Viva-MTS, Ucom and Team Telecom Armenia — participants of the project.

BarevBalik is targeting couples involved in family planning, pregnant women, people with infertility issues, and parents of children of up to 6 years old.

BarevBalik is aimed at making health information and services more accessible for target groups. The platform ensures protection of private data through mobile ID technology — mobile digital signature system as an identifier for a website or mobile app.

During the event, Konstantin Sokulskiy, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative in Armenia, welcomed the guests and highlighted the importance of decades of cooperation between UNDP and Ministry of Health in contexts as diverse as infrastructure development for public health, development of preventive healthcare investment cases, and capacity building for emergency situations.

“BarevBalik is a product of extremely valuable partnership of UNDP, its SDG Innovation Lab, and Ministry of Health and Viva-MTS as the donor. I would like to thank Government partners and the private sector for being open to incorporating evidence-based and citizen-centric approaches into the healthcare sector in Armenia,” mentioned Mr. Sokulskiy.

BarevBalik platform is the product developed within the framework of BarevBalik project which was conceptualized in response to the priorities of the Ministry of Health in the maternal and child healthcare sector. It addresses the main issues in this sector which includes the current maternal mortality ratio, child mortality ratio, prenatal and postnatal complications, and rising infertility cases.

Deputy Minister of Health Artak Jumayan said: “I am happy that this project became a reality through the joint efforts of the Ministry of Health, UNDP’s SDG Innovation Lab, and Viva-MTS. It is of high importance that there is an online one-stop shop for providing all the necessary evidence-based and Ministry-approved content to all the parents and parents-to-be. This is a great achievement both for catalyzing the modernization of maternal and child healthcare sector as well as for implementing the strategic goals of our government.”

As a result of joint efforts, this platform was developed to provide citizens with up-to-date health information in Armenian and modern tools for proactively navigating their prenatal and post-natal health journey and making informed decisions.

“This joint project is the result of combining efforts for developing digital technologies and strengthening public health. An effective public-private partnership has great potential to continuously improve quality of life. Digital transformation unavoidably brings positive changes to almost all sectors of social life including public health,” mentioned Kim Avanesyan, Manager of the Internal Control and Audit Department at Viva-MTS.

The welcome remarks were followed by demonstration of the platform and mobile app as well as presentation of the key results of the project by Nayiri Shorjian — the Project Lead of BarevBalik project at SDG Innovation Lab.

The platform pilots digitalized personal service — children's digital vaccination record — and incorporates evidence-based health information for informed decision-making for preventive healthcare and treatment.  Other features on reproductive health, pregnancy and children’s health and development piloted by BarevBalik include:

• Financial eligibility checker
• Map of health services nearby
• BMI tracker
• Sleep and breastfeeding trackers
• Menstruation and ovulation tracker
• Information on health conditions, prevention, and treatment
• Information on children's healthy development and childcare

Apart from the web version, BarevBalik is also available on App Store and Google Play.

BarevBalik platform is developed under the auspices of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Armenia.

One of the biggest challenges facing many of the SDGs, and SDG 16 on promoting peaceful, just and inclusive societies in particular, is the lack of available data on many of the indicators. In 2021, only two indicators under the goal had a coverage above 75%, five indicators had a coverage between 50% and 75%, two indicators had a coverage between 25% and 50%, and thirteen had a coverage below 25%. Time, cost, political will and the relative newness of many of the indicators (e.g. SDG 16.3.3 on access to dispute resolution mechanisms was added to the indicator framework in 2020) all pose additional strain on many data producers and especially National Statistics Offices responsible for collecting this data.

SDG 16 Data Innovation

A wide range of official and unofficial data actors are stepping up to fill the gap on SDG 16 data by building new partnerships, identifying technological innovations for real-time data, moving towards full digitalization of their data collection methods, identifying innovative data sources to complement official statistics as well as innovative data collection tools and methodologies. This is now even more relevant in the new reality of COVID-19 where many traditional, paper-based methods is no longer possible. To capture some of these examples, UNDP OGC is launching a collection of stories on SDG 16 Data Practices featuring a wide range of innovative SDG 16 data initiatives led by National Statistics Offices, national data producers as well as independent data actors.

Two examples from UNDP support in this area come from Armenia and Tunisia. UNDP has been working with national actors to test out how using big data can complement our understanding of the different dimensions of SDG 16 in the two countries.

Data Innovation for measuring inclusive and responsive decision-making– an example from Armenia

Alternative data sources, innovative data collection methodologies and tools, have been extensively used in UNDP Armenia’s National SDG Innovation Lab. In one of its first projects, SDG 16, and particularly the indicator measuring the proportion of the population who believe decision-making is inclusive and responsive (SDG 16.7.2 indicator) was selected for the SDG Monitor pilot for which a SDGmonitor.live platform was initiated.

Facebook/META — the most popular social media platform and the main channel of informal communication between the citizens and public officials in Armenia, and E-draft — the Government’s official website on the publication of draft legal acts - were identified as the primary non-conventional data sources. 

Combining official data sources with state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms, data was analyzed from 8 public institutions, 30 Facebook profiles of current and former public officials, 45000 FB posts, and 469264 comments, as well as public feedback on 2226 draft legal acts. Based on the collected data, the analysis reveals trends in government and public activity levels. As a result, the  SDG Monitor pilot, a user-friendly, AI-powered, open-access interactive online data analytics tool for real-time SDG 16 progress monitoring in Armenia which couples conventional and non-conventional data sources was developed. 

Lessons

From the onset of this journey, a successful model of cross-sectoral partnership among various public institutions and development agencies was established. A Task Force composed of representatives from the Deputy Prime Minister’s office, various prominent public institutions, and UN agencies was set up to provide necessary field expertise and support the SDG Innovation Lab team through each stage of platform development — from idea generation to the validation of the ongoing processes. 

Where to next?

Following the development of innovative methodologies of in-depth country-level data collection and success of implementation of SDG Monitor pilot, the SDG Innovation Lab team started working with Data4Now global initiative led by UNSD, to support the National Administrative Department of Statistics of Colombia with integration of unconventional data sources in their national statistics monitoring efforts. The knowledge gained through this process and multi-stakeholder collaborations will be utilized to scale-up the SDG Monitor as well as expand engagement in mutual learning and solution sharing for more rapid and sustainable development progress in Armenia and beyond. 

Analysing sentiments for corruption-related offences – an example from Tunisia

In Tunisia, as part of contextualizing governance indicators and identifying proxies to complement SDG 16 indicators, the Tunisian National Statistics Institute (INS) experimented with the use of social media analysis to monitor corruption. The aim was to explore whether non-traditional sources of SDG 16 data, including social media, can be used to assess perceptions of corruption. The exercise also compared the data to the baseline established by the official data on corruption collected by the INS. The objective was to find a way in which social media and non-conventional data can complement traditional statistics to monitor citizens’ perceptions and attitudes.

UNDP Tunisia worked with the INS and UN Global Pulse on “sentiments” on social media platforms to measure SDG 16.5.1 on the proportion of persons having been in contact with bribery. A network analysis on web and social media was conducted, which searched for content that included pertinent corruption-related keywords in Arabic, French and English. A content analysis was subsequently done to determine the relevance of the posts and whether these had a positive or negative annotation. 

The results were encouraging, showing fairly strong convergence between results obtained through social media analysis and survey data generated by the Governance, Peace and Democracy household survey conducted by the INS of Tunisia.

Lessons

Sentiment analysis, often referred to as opinion mining and emotion AI make use of natural language processing to assess affective states of particular topics. Social media analyses can be regarded as a sort of heart rate monitor providing a diagnosis based on parameters like variability and activity over time. From this perspective it can provide a significant value-added to complement traditional data sources. However, there are still challenges to confront including concerns over privacy issues of data harvesting. In addition, the reliability of data is also questioned, given the limited technical rigor compared to traditional household surveys (e.g. lack of representative sample of those who have access to the internet or predominance of negative opinions, etc.).

Where to next?

UNDP Tunisia will continue to work with the INS to institutionalize the use of social media analysis for official statistics and SDG monitoring. To this end, it will support the development of capacities and tools, including a methodology, to conduct social media sentiment analysis on trust as part of the Technology for Democracy initiative, with the objective to complement official measurement of SDG 16 progress.

This blog has been developed by Ulrika Johnsson, UNDP Oslo Governance Centre, Eduardo Lopez-Mancisidor, UNDP Tunisia, and Elen Sahradyan, UNDP Armenia

This blog was first featured on SDG 16 Hub.

Cover photo: Unsplash.com

More than 300 people, including children, die on the roads of Armenia every year, which represents a significantly higher per capita rate than in neighboring countries. At the same time, unlike the trend in the European countries, the numbers of road accidents, fatalities and injuries are on the rise. The underlying causes are many, ranging from low quality and maintenance of growing fleet to road infrastructure and law enforcement - all exacerbated by unsafe road user behavior, particularly being unaware of traffic safety rules, speeding, and drunk driving.

The overall objective of the “Re-framing road safety in Armenia: connecting data, people and policies for safe roads” project is to help inform and implement the National Road Safety Strategy in the country through data analytics and behavioral science, and facilitate coordination, planning, and evaluation of road safety interventions, thus contributing to achieving a 50 percent reduction of road deaths by 2030.

"Every 24 seconds, a life is lost because of preventable road traffic injuries globally. In Armenia, more than 300 lives are lost each year to road accidents. It is our collective responsibility to prevent this from happening. Through this project, UNDP in Armenia's SDG Innovation Lab will introduce evidence-based and experiment-informed policy making practices in Armenia to support the implementation of the National Road Safety Strategy," mentioned UNDP Resident Representative in Armenia Natia Natsvlishvili in her welcome remarks.  

The data analysis tool developed within the framework of this project, will help identify black spots and root causes of accidents through systemic and continuous data analytics, thus providing the opportunity to design evidence-informed measures in specific locations. These insights will allow for more targeted behavioral and educational interventions.

The project will be implemented in close collaboration with the RA Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure, and the RA Police. Additionally, SweRoad - Swedish National Road Consulting will be engaged in the project as a responsible party bringing its extensive expertise and experience of data-driven road safety practices to Armenia.

Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures of Armenia Kristine Ghalechyan welcomed the project and highlighted the importance of the event as a unique platform for establishing new collaborations and applying novel solutions and approaches to improving road safety.

Head of the RA Police Headquarters, Police Colonel Armen Mkrtchyan pointed out that one of the goals of the current police reforms is to extend the use of IT solutions in different aspects of their operations, with the end goal to increase work efficiency.

“Within the scope of this project, UNICEF will design behaviorally-informed educational materials for community stakeholders and children, integrate road safety issues into parental education and counseling through the health system, as well as organize edutainment sessions for parents of young children and for adolescents,” noted Silvia Mestroni, UNICEF Deputy Representative.

The project was launched with a welcoming message from UNRSF Head Nneka Henry.

SDG Innovation Lab Lead Tigran Tshorokhyan presented planned activities in detail, followed by a round-table discussion on road safety situation in Armenia that helped to identify potential areas of collaboration among stakeholders.

During the event, people could attend one of two parallel sessions taking place in different halls. Apart from the event speakers, participants from audience also had a chance to share their ideas and make a presentation signing up on the free agenda slots.

Our team's Public Sector Innovation Task Lead Elen Sahradyan talked about the uses of data in the public sector and elsewhere.

During DataFest Yerevan, we had a chance to have a quick catch up with the Founder and Leader at Neural Networks and Deep Learning lab Mikhail Burtsev and the co-founder of Intento Grigory Sapunov.

We shared our experience of using DeepPavlov models in our modeling pipeline as well as discussed potential collaboration with Intento.

Learn more about our collaboration with Neural Networks and Deep Learning Lab: https://bit.ly/3tGwvpB

We are excited to share the news of joining our efforts with the French University in Armenia for new academic projects and joint scientific events as well as to develop practical knowledge and skillset of the students by conjoint use of the best innovation experiences.

Louise Skarvall, the Liaison officer of the Lab, presented the SDGs in general, the environmental issues, emphasizing the importance of preserving natural resources. 

Ruzannna Baldryan, the UX and Communications officer at SDG Lab talked about the current projects and activities, told about certain experiments we carried out in the past, including the projects that ameliorate citizen-government correspondence, improve maternal health, and the results thereof. She stressed that the Lab applies behavioral experimentation, data science, and design thinking to derive valuable insights for public policy.  

Vahan Martirosyan from the Data Science Team talked about the AI industry innovations and trends, and the future perspectives in that field, ”persuading ” the participants that regardless of the profession, all of them will have to deal and get familiar with data science, sooner or later. The attendants witnessed how it is possible to write a random topic and get an essay derived from internet resources through the AI which was quite exciting. Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing are widely used for the major projects undertaken at the Lab.

According to Interaction Design Foundation:

Design Thinking is an iterative process in which we seek to understand the user, challenge assumptions, and redefine problems in an attempt to identify alternative strategies and solutions that might not be instantly apparent with our initial level of understanding. Design Thinking revolves around a deep interest in developing an understanding of the people for whom we’re designing the products or services. It helps us observe and develop empathy with the target user. Design Thinking helps us in the process of questioning: questioning the problem, questioning the assumptions, and questioning the implications. Design Thinking is extremely useful in tackling problems that are ill-defined or unknown, by re-framing the problem in human-centric ways.

Some of the world’s leading brands, such as Apple, Google, Samsung and GE, have rapidly adopted the Design Thinking approach, and Design Thinking is being taught at leading universities around the world, including d.school, Stanford, Harvard and MIT. 

It’s amazing how design thinking debunks the myth that only experts are entitled to play along all the chains that make development happen. Essentially, as the myth dictates, they are the ones who should be defining, designing, and deploying projects. However, in the past decade or two, renewed attention has been given by experts themselves to human-centered approaches in defining and solving big issues. Subsequently, terms like student-centered classrooms, client-centered therapy, human-oriented leadership, and human-centered design have been coined and used excessively in both professional and non-professional environments. The self-evident shift of focus from ‘how things should be’ to ‘what people actually need’ has gone viral in both developed and lesser developed parts of the world. 

We have been constantly sharing that journey via various platforms. To make it easier for you to get immersed in the world of Design Thinking, we have collected all the pieces in one place. 

• Five Ways People React to Design Thinking
• Doing User Research in times of COVID-19
• Bridging the Government Citizen Divide in Behavior-Changing Policies; What’s there and What’s Missing

Follow us on Medium for more exciting stories.

The exhibition showcased the dynamics of publlic opinion since 2005 on the following topics:

• Internal political panorama
• Trust towards public institutions
• Artsakh conflict
• Public and COVID-19 pandemic
• Local Democracy
• Media perception in Armenia
• Corruption perception
• The value system of the society
• Migration

Within the framework of the exhibition a side-event showcasing presentations on data and research was held. SDG Innovation Lab's Learning and Development Lead Anzhela Movsisyan was among the speakers of the side-event. She shared the story and methodology behind the data collection for our Edu2work platform.  

Watch the side event (available only in Armenian).

Edu2Work platform was developed within the framework of Edu2work project. The project is implemented by the Institute of Public Policy in partnership with SDG Innovation Lab․ This project was funded with UK aid from the UK Government.

On one hand, there is a vast amount of (mis)information available online, which can lead to information overload or wrong positive affirmations if not scientifically backed. On the other hand, doctors are assigned to too many patients to be on high alert 24/7 and answer all the questions that patients have. Sometimes, they end up answering those very private questions in a room full of other patients (to make time for everyone). This can result in people feeling lost and developing trust issues, or worse — making irrational choices relying on “collective wisdom” which might not necessarily be backed by evidence and is sometimes even harmful to the mother and the baby.

According to our stakeholders — the policymakers at the Ministry of Health — one way to address the issue could be empowering parents by providing them with the basic knowledge on maternal and child health, a solution that has been implemented in many developed countries. This way, parents can make evidence-based decisions and help lessen the burden on the overwhelmed health system: identify mild symptoms that can be treated at home and see the doctor when it is really necessary.

Contrary to the needs of policymakers and users, doctors think that leaving people to their own devices might result in misinterpretation of information and wrong choices, including avoiding going to the doctor at all.

Following a thorough literature review and numerous interviews with our end-users, policymakers, and doctors, several observations, and a co-creation session with parents, we came up with a concept that addresses the sweet spot where the needs of all parties intersect.

This is how the idea of BarevBalik — a one-stop-shop powered by evidence-based information and adjusted to the Armenian cultural realities for all the parents-to-be and parents out there seeking guidance on pregnancy and parenthood — evolved.

Want to learn more about the platform and don't know where to start? We have done the heavy lift for you and shared some stories from our BarevBalik platform journey:

• BarevBalik: How a child and maternal healthcare app brings business closer to the public sector
• Enhancing the Quality of Choices in Projects: The BarevBalik Experience
• Why user design needs to be at the heart of public-facing projects

BarevBalik is a two-year project currently in the making. It is implemented by Armenia National SDG Innovation Lab in cooperation with Viva-MTS and the Government of Armenia.

For the first time, UNDP SDG Innovation Lab is conducting a Digital Readiness Assessment in Armenia. The assessment aims at unveiling the level of digital readiness of Armenia, in other words what stage of digital transformation the country and its separate sectors stand at. 

As part of the research, the team will study the goals and existing challanges on the road of digital transformation, measure the level of digital maturity of the country, reveal the strong and weak points in the digital sphere. The assessment is created for the Government, CSOs, private sector, and citizens. 

The assessment is developed based on the UNDP's Chief Digital Officer's methodology and toolkit, which have already been used in more than 10 countries. The results of the assessment will help improve the projects being implemented in the digital sector and develop more targeted policies for digital development. The assessment is an opinion study.

Check out and fill in the Digital Readiness Assesment. 

• Edu2work.am
• Travelinsights.ai
• SDGMonitor.live

DM of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of the Republic of Armenia Arthur Martirosyan and Director of DVV International Armenia Office Esther Hakobyan delivered opening remarks during the forum. They highlighted the role of youth and adult education as a tool for implementation of Agenda 2030. The aim of the "Adult Education for Sustainable Development Goals" campaign is to increase the level of awareness of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Armenia among young people and adults, as well as discuss the challenges while implementing SDGs in Armenia.  

Various events, including forums in Yerevan and Kapan, research initiatives, and community projects implemented by DVV regional adult education centers are expected to be held within the framework of the campaign. The campaignwill be wrapped up in October 2021 in the Youth Capital Kapan. 

In many areas, successful outcomes in the UN’s work depend on changes in human behaviour - for instance, making healthy choices, taking medicine, allowing a child to go to school, finding decent work and saving money. Behavioural science can improve outcomes through facilitating understanding of:

• the barriers that prevent people from engaging in or following through with their intended actions,
• the enablers that assist people in in establishing and achieving their goals, and
• the impact of interventions based on an understanding of those barriers and enablers - all premised on commitments to human dignity, transparency and respect for ethical requirements.

This year, within the framework of UN Behavioral Science week, UN Secretary General launched his new Guidance Note on Behavioral Science encouraging UN colleagues to apply Behavioral Science in policy, programme and administration. Along with the Guidance Note, the UN Innovation Network launched the UN Behavioral Science Report:  25 UN Entities and 100's of applications of behavioral science at the United Nations. The Report outlines approaches and experiences from across the UN and shares practical steps to create an enabling environment for the application of behavioural science.

We at the SDG Innovation Lab started applying Behavioral Science in 2018 to better understand human nature and improve lives of Armenians. Since then we have trialled various interventions. We are excited that one of those interventions was featured in the new Behavioral Science Report. You can find the details of how our behaviorally informed intervention to increase the take-up rate of cancer screenings in Shirak region of Armenia went on the page 36 of the report.

The aim of the Lab was to bring 10 youngsters and 10 policymakers and stakeholders together to discuss youth employment policy development and implementation issues, and try to look for joint solutions. As a result of these discussions various issues were voiced, and user-centered solutions were developed.

This Policy Lab was the first out of several expected meetings. The Policy Lab is implemented within the framework of EU-funded EU4Youth project. 

KASA Gyumri Training Centre and Guesthouse hosted our Lab's Public Policy Innovations Researcher Arpine Mazhinyan. Arpine shared the story behind the Edu2Work project, the Edu2Work platform and its features, the everchanging demand of the labor market and the need to bridge it to education system. 

Watch the recording of the online event.

Edu2work project is implemented by the SDG Innovation Lab in partnership with the Institute of Public Policy and funded with UK aid from the UK Government.

Our Lab's UX and Communications Associate Ruzanna Baldryan discussed the behavioral side of the COVID-19 crisis — how governments around the world and in Armenia used behavioral science research to fine-tune their COVID-19 advocacy efforts. We looked into various messages and techniques used to nudge desired preventive behaviors according to one's profile.

The event was organized by PKN Yerevan team together with Kiraki Foundation and Armavir Development Center NGO with financial support from the US Embassy.

Edu2Work platform is one of the solutions for the above-mentioned challenges: it helps making evidence-based decisions about education and work.

During CareerTalk event organized by CareerLab, SDG Innovation Lab's Learning and Development Lead Anzhela Movsisyan presented Edu2Work platform during the Career Lab event and answered the hottest question of the day among youngsters: "How to navigate through the changing labor market?"

Edu2work project is implemented by the SDG Innovation Lab in partnership with the Institute of Public Policy and funded with UK aid from the UK Government.

Our Lab's Public Policy Innovation Task Lead Elen Sahradyan shared our Lab experience in institutionalizing and localizing the SDGs based on the example of the SDG Monitor platform. The platform was developed as a result of collaboration between the UN and the government aiming to use big data sources to provide real-time information on the progress of SDGs implementation. The SDGs platform will soon include a COVID-19 dashboard to publish SDGs progress pre- and post-pandemic. 

Watch the panel discussion.

This session is part of Civil Society Program of the 54th ADB Annual Meeting. 

The SDG Monitor platform was developed by the Armenia National SDG Innovation Lab team in cooperation with the UNDP's "Rule of Law and SDGs in Armenia Reform Agenda" project within the framework of "Innovative Solutions for SDG Implementation in Armenia" project funded by the Russian Federation and implemented in close partnership with the Government of Armenia. 

The meeting was attended by Acting Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan, Chief of Staff of the acting RA Deputy Prime Minister, Deputy Chairman of the board Bagrat Badalyan, UN Resident Coordinator in Armenia, Board Co-Chair Shombi Sharp, Acting UNDP Resident Representative in Armenia Michaela Stoikoska, representatives from the Russian government and embassy, the RF-UNDP Targeted Development Fund and others.

SDG Lab Lead Tigran Tshorokhyan presented the activities, including the data platforms and behavioral experiments conducted by the SDG Innovation Lab througout 3 years.

Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing are widely used for the major projects undertaken at the Lab, including the projects that ameliorate citizen-government correspondence, improve maternal health, develop sustainable tourism, bridge education to the labor market, and so much more. We use predictive models for language classification, data mining, time series forecasting, etc, and continuously enhance the SDG Lab’s data team’s capabilities through independent research and mapping of existing open-source data repositories for relevant machine learning datasets and models.

As machine learning and natural language processing are gaining momentum in almost every sector imaginable, companies realize the importance of having a whole team of people instead of the lone “unicorn” data scientists. Additionally, many realize the importance of collaborations with other data science teams to exchange discoveries, build shared know-how, and spot opportunities for improvement.

Tackling big challenges requires huge efforts, but there are just way too many problems to be handled alone. Ever since its inception, Armenia SDG Innovation Lab has been reinventing development sector practices by acting as a catalyst for brewing evidence-based and data-driven policy solutions via cross-sectoral collaboration. SDG Lab has been transforming the way that the private sector contributes to the public good. To determine how data can be leveraged to tackle some pertinent challenges as well as develop mechanisms to assist decision-makers in setting out large-scale policy questions, we came up with a new collaboration model that converges all our stakeholders, including other data science teams, around a common shared outcome.

Collaboration with other data science teams is critical because it enables a mutually rewarding opportunity to leverage community knowledge and open-source datasets for positive public change. Moreover, in our case it also means doing cutting-edge public policy analysis and having unprecedented data access for experimentation.

Building on our experience and recognizing the private sector as a driving force for sustainable development, the Lab came up with a new partnership initiative with the DeepPavlov project team — the Neural Networks and Deep Learning Laboratory at Moscow Institute Physics and Technology.

DeepPavlov researches in the field of deep neural network architectures for working with text in natural language and is open to sharing their NLP/NLU tools with a wider data science community. Our data scientists use the resources made available by the DeepPavlov project team daily, and DeepPavlov’s open-source repository as an invaluable facilitator of the work at the SDG Innovation Lab. We make extensive use of the DeepPavlov multi–language BERT Named Entity Recognition model, using it in combination with the Stanford NLP morphological parser to extract information from Armenian — language text.

Furthermore, the SDG Lab team takes advantage of the Transformer Classifier Model implemented by the DeepPavlov team using Pytorch, in combination with the most robust multi–language transformer model entitled XLM-RoBERTa. DeepPavlov provides access to end-to-end vanguard NLP pipelines, including modules for preprocessing, that render our workflow much more streamlined and object oriented.

The partnership with DeepPavlov helps to make the Lab’s machine learning workflow much more streamlined and object-oriented. Notably, the resources of DeepPavlov will pave the way for a more sustainable and institutionalized partnership between the two institutions. The shared passion of pushing the boundaries of AI in both teams is something we are building on to partner with technology pioneers and apply their know-how in the Lab’s pursuit of SDGs and beyond.

What lies ahead?

• Using the resources made available by DeepPavlov, we are currently building tools to automate real — time citizen-Government written correspondence classification and beyond.
• Temporal knowledge graphs: a new exciting area for collaboration coming in the future.

Private institutions are converging towards the achievement of development results and one of the SDG Lab’s priorities is to facilitate this convergence, leading to a shared responsibility in development challenges.

We are just getting started, and we have already learned heaps along the way: our commitment to enhance the reach and impact of our projects can be enhanced by shared passion and enthusiasm. So if you think you are with us on this, join us on this journey and get in touch!

This piece first was featured on our Medium page.

Today Edu2work, the labor market navigation tool, was publicly presented during its official launch event.

Edu2work platform was created in response to rapidly changing workplace and continuous mismatch between the labor market demand and supply in Armenia. The platform is coupling innovative technologies such as scraping thousands of online job postings from a wide variety of commercial websites and analyzing it through machine learning technology to provide the best labor market data available.

Edu2work platform was developed within the framework of Edu2work project and is aiding the initiative of the Deputy Prime Minister’s office “Work Armenia” to bridge the gap between educational institutions and labor market by using evidence-based and human-centered methodologies.

“Our labor market is transforming rapidly: the genome of jobs and skills required by the employers is changing,” mentioned Mesrop Arakelyan, the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs of Armenia. “It is of paramount importnace to have a tool like Edu2work in these challenging times to get a real-time overview of the labor market trends and make evidence-based decisions in regards the workforce re-skilling opportunities and economy recovery and development,” he added.

The far-reaching goal of the Edu2work project is to help reduce the youth unemployment by helping them be more prepared to enter the job market.

The UK Chargé d’Affaires ai Victor Clark mentioned.

“Today many countries and peoples across the world are experiencing post-pandemic recovery challenges, exacerbated by structural shifts in global economy. However, these shifts are also opportunities. Edu2Work aims to fill that gap and help people adjust their skills to tap into these emerging opportunities to ensure sustainable growth with decent and productive work for all.”

Within the framework of Edu2work project, new partnerships were established at the international level with teams that are moving the frontiers in their industries, including the Behavioral Insights Team, the first in-Government unit to use behavioral insights for policy-making, and Burning Glass Technologies, a world leader in labor market analysis through big data. Highlighting this in her speech, UNDP Resident Representative ai Mihaela Stojkoska mentioned:

“I would like to thank UK aid from British people for investing in public policy innovation. The experience and knowledge gained through the collaborations with various UK experts and organizations will rest within the Government to further mainstream innovation in the public sector. I would also like to thank our Government partners for being open to using such innovations within the Government.”

The welcome remarks were followed by the demonstration of the platform by the SDG Innovation Lab Lead Tigran Tshorokhyan. The platform is created with three main user groups in mind: policymakers and research centers, students and career navigators, and universities and other educational institutions. The platform offers solutions tailored to each of the above-mentioned groups.

Edu2Work project is implemented by the Institute of Public Policy in partnership with the Armenia National SDG Innovation Lab․ This project was funded with UK aid from the UK Government.

A lot of letters (requests, complaints, and recommendations) addressed to the Government are circulated and processed inefficiently in the internal electronic document management system of the Government called Mulberry. This in turn, leads to decreased operational performance and productivity.

AI4Mulberry project was aimed at improving citizen-government correspondence and optimizing the letter flow and resources in the Mulberry system.

In parallel to developing the AI algorithm to automate real–time document (requests, complaints, and recommendations addressed to the Government) classification and labeling in public institutions, Design Thinking approaches were taken into consideration to the introduction of a centralized and sustainable model of collaboration between Mulberry users and VxSoft — the company managing the Mulberry system. 

Recently, we held a co-design session dubbed “Improving the written correspondence with the citizens by applying human-centered design principles" within the framework of our AI4Mulberry project — aimed at improving the citizen-government correspondence process and resource optimization. During the session, we identified the top challenges in this process and came up with solutions with the representatives from the DPM office, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, Science, Culture, and Sport, and VXSoft.

The co-design session is implemented within the framework of the “Innovative Solutions for SDG Implementation in Armenia” project which is funded by the Russian Federation and implemented in close partnership with the Government of Armenia.

The experiment was carried out in 2019 in cooperation UNDP in Armenia, State Revenue Committee and Armenak Antinyan (Zhongnan University of Economics and Law), and Zareh Asatryan (ZEW Mennheim). The randomized controlled trial was testing the impact of low-cost behavioral interventions on tax compliance in Armenia. We focused on 28,503 small and medium enterprises operating in Armenia who are eligible for paying a turnover tax. We assessed whether behavioral notifications sent through e-mail can increase the total turnover declarations by these companies. We also checked whether increased turnover declarations eventually result in declaring more taxes.

We tested 5 different types of email notifications. We later juxtaposed the results against the control group, which was not exposed to any treatment. This way, we aided the authorities in developing a dialogue with the citizens and changing their perceptions on taxes. The experiment was carried out within the framework of "Innovative Solutions for SDG Implementation in Armenia" project funded by the Russian Federation and implemented in close partnership with the Government of Armenia. 

You can find the experiment results on our projects page.

Within the framework of BarevBalik project a platform and app dubbed BarevBalik will be developed. BarevBalik will be a one-stop-shop powered by evidence-based information and adjusted to the Armenian cultural realities for all the parents-to-be and parents out there seeking guidance on pregnancy and parenthood. The app/platform is making science-based information accessible to parents online and is piloting a digitalized vaccination service. Through the app/platform pregnant women, parents-to-be, people with infertility issues, and parents of children of up to 6 years old can get:

• Ease of access to health information on prenatal, postnatal, and pediatric care
• Tools that support in tracking health status of pregnant women and newborn children
• Financial support eligibility tool
• Services near me (hospitals, clinics, laboratories)
• Digitalization of vaccination record for children based on the National Immunization Program of RA.

The project will bring together healthcare experts, ehealth data, and the mobile ID technology of Vivacell MTS to develop a database, understand user interaction, and monitor and evaluate the progress of the project. Additionally, findings from the project will turn into policy recommendations.

The project will be implemented by Armenia National SDG Innovation Lab in cooperation with Viva-MTS and the Government of Armenia, particularly the Ministry of Health.

The Lab sent personalized letters signed by general practictioners to women inviting them to the screening at a given date. The experimental groups were exposed to 3 types of interventions (nudges) and the results were juxtaposed against the control group that received no invitation.

The experiment was carried out within the framework of "Innovative Solutions for SDG Implementation in Armenia" project funded by the Russian Federation and implemented in close partnership with the Government of Armenia. 

The paper is available here.

The report, published on the UN official website, presents the initiatives of Armenia towards the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals for 2018-2020. It consists of following five grouped sections: human capital promotion, providing infrastructure access and economic development, fight against corruption, human rights protection and justice, environment protection and fight against climate change, and cooperation for SDGs implementation.

SDG Implementation Voluntary National Review Report will also be presented at the UN High-Level Political Forum in July.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought many new challenges to the society, authorities and the economy. As challenging as it is, the pandemic also presented opportunities for governments to tap into technology for a more effective and inclusive response to the crisis. In order to facilitate sharing of good practices, encourage learning and accelerate knowledge-based digital transformation in the public sector, British Embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina co-organised a conference titled “Governments in Bosnia and Herzegovina on the Digital Transformation Journey.” It offered opportunities to hear about successful approaches by governments globally, as well as from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and gathered policy-makers and practitioners from the country to present developments and future priorities in the digital transformation arena.

During the panel discussion our Lab Lead Stepan Margaryan shared the details of our Lab's innovative solutions for fighting COVID19 with our UNDP and UN colleagues as well as policymakers.

The dynamic panel was a great opportunity to learn about good practices from around the region as well. 

Prior to the National Lockdown, Armenia National SDG Innovation Lab had teamed up with professionals from various walks of life: marketing specialists, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, designers and policy advisors. The working group has conducted a primary mapping of the messages being circulated by the officials in Armenia as well as the most effective messaging used around the world. As a result, the working group came up with a package of COVID-19-specific text messages tailored for different age groups using behavioral insights. The messages were provided to the Office of Deputy Prime Minister – Commandant’s Office and to the Ministry of Healthcare to be channeled through mobile operators to the citizens as a text message (SMS). Based on this research, the need to develop a wider communication campaign was identified.

Building on our unique behavioral science capacity, we developed video materials for the campaign. The campaign was implemented in close collaboration with the RA Commandant’s office and was part of the COVID19 Communication Strategy developed by the Governments Communication Task Force. As a result dozens of videos capturing human stories of those infected and frontline workers were developed along with documentaries from hospitals. 

Public service announcements were used for the government’s mainstream information campaign during the first weeks of the Emergency Situation.

The COVID19 text and video messages were part of UNDP efforts to navigate uncertainty through innovation in Armenia. 

Watch all the COVID19 advocacy videos. 

Keeping up with consumer needs is difficult. Nowadays — or at least before COVID-19 put the majority of the world in some form of lockdown — people tend to spend money on attending art exhibits, doing outdoor activities, learning new skills, and going to places that offer experiences they’ve never had before. This is when real-time, trusted, online recommendations by peers come in handy, while also helping to save time and maximise our experience.

Every month, 456 million people visit TripAdvisor and more than 200 new stories are posted on the platform every minute, providing an up-to-date portrait of the world. Booking.com has around 192 million reviews from verified guests (as of April 2020). Using these crowdsourced insights, hotels, restaurants and other businesses maintain their reputation and create novel travel experiences.

However, this has its drawback. The data out there is so immense, it might take hours (or days) to scroll through all the reviews to get the bigger picture. The data is not analysed and visualised into easily digestible information that could save time.

At Armenia’s SDG Innovation Lab, we thought if making informed decisions has become a regular part of our digital lives, can we use the same ample reservoir of unexplored data — online reviews — to inform public policy and advance data-driven governance in the tourism sector.

Why tourism?

Tourism is one of the fastest-growing economic sectors that create jobs around the world. It is responsible for 10% of the global GDP.

The tourism sector is recognised as playing a critical role in reducing unemployment rates, promoting entrepreneurship and eliminating societal problems, this way accelerating the implementation of the 2030 Agenda of the SDGs.

At 16%, tourism is one of the major contributors to the GDP in Armenia as well. Despite its long history, Armenia is a relatively new player in global tourism. The Economist’s Country of the year 2018, Armenia, has a great potential to become an appealing spot on the global map of weekend gateways and must-visit places for gastrotourism and ecotourism in the region. According to UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, Armenia is the 12th fastest growing destination in the tourism industry.

But new waves of tourists pose novel challenges for sustainable tourism development. Addressing the challenges of tourism, including overtourism, requires integrated policies that fully consider tourism’s cross-cutting impacts on the SDGs. To manage industry vulnerabilities, develop destination marketing and invest in new markets and services, the policymakers need up-to-date information, which is based on real experiences and needs of tourists.

An app to fit your needs

Last year, our team at the SDG Lab began sifting through thousands of reviews on different hospitality-related platforms. For months, our team of data scientists, together with programmers, tourism agencies and businesses, tourism experts, and the Tourism Committee of RA developed a new tool from scratch, and in March 2019, we launched the demo version of Travelinsights.ai.

This AI-based online tool collects, analyses and categorises tourist sentiments about Armenia from popular travel websites and reveals real travel preferences and on-the-ground issues in real-time through visualisation.

With one scroll, policymakers or businesses can explore insights from all over the world about different regions and locations of Armenia. They can customise data to their interests by choosing a specific region, location, time, category and aspect. Features include comparing two regions by using different filters, as well as the review and price heat-maps. If users need customised data for a report, they can simply download that data in different formats.

The tool has already analysed more than 165,000 reviews from TripAdvisor, Booking.com and Facebook.com to generate more than 476,000 insights. Based on the feedback from our users, we have added Russian reviews, the origin of the countries of the reviewers, insights for a specific location, and many other functionalities. This way, policymakers can identify the needs of the tourists and provide policy recommendations for community-based sustainable tourism development in sites tourists are more interested in, on experiences they are satisfied with or expect more diversification or improvement.

So, what have we learned?

Always ask the user

At the SDG Lab we use design thinking to address complex problems and create solutions with the user in mind. Knowing the real needs of the user seems to be self-evident, but often it is unintentionally omitted in policymaking.

For us, design thinking is more than merely methodology or framework, it is a way of thinking. We engaged our primary users — policymakers and businesses — in every step of the development of the tool. Together with them we identified their real needs and motivations, brainstormed over a user journey, tested the features of the prototype, and iterated a lot before we could launch the final product.

Build your in-house capacity

This might sound logical, but when we just started working on the project back in 2018, we didn’t have the big team we have now. We had to outsource our technical team (data scientists and programmers) for our data-related projects. For any type of product development, it is important to have a team of diverse experts: social researchers, policy advisers who are familiar with the peculiarities of the sector, as well as data scientists, programmers, designers and many more.

It is one thing to gather those people and another to have them work in unison towards the end goal. This is where a project/product manager comes in and takes responsibility for the teamwork and final product development. You can either hire such a person or, if you are an agile management practitioner like us, you can assign one of the team members who can keep track of the bigger picture in the best sense of agile management.

Prepare to fail and become resilient to change

To develop our algorithms that can label data, do sentiment analysis, and most importantly classification of categories for this specific product, we had to endure several failed attempts, manual labelling by team members and sleepless nights. Be ready to experiment and prepare to fail a lot during this process.

What’s next?

Version 2.0 of the app became publicly available in March 2020.

The positive and negative insights gained from reviews will help the government to shape marketing strategy based on evidence, improve services that tourists love the most, and eliminate those challenges that prevent people from having a perfect vacation.

The perfect holiday formula and, ultimately, tourism development also depend on businesses and their services. With the incoming tourism boom, the market needs to re-orient itself towards catering to tourists’ needs. Travelinsights.ai is a perfect tool to inform businesses on how to best improve their services and environment to better meet the needs and expectations of the tourists. This will eventually lead to fiscal growth and development of the country, resulting in the rise of the GDP in Armenia.

As the next step, we plan on nudging businesses to encourage tourists to write reviews on any experience they get while staying in the country. 

This piece was first featured on Apolitical platform.

(Picture Credit: Unsplash)

The tool was created with financial support from the Russian Federation, in co-operation with UNDP in Armenia and the Tourism Committee of the Republic of Armenia. 

Armenia Nation SDG Innovation Lab was featured in the latest publication of the Asian Development Bank for disrupting traditional policy making in Armenia and mainstreaming innovation in public policy.

Also, in the publication you can find the innovation and foresight work of the UNDP and its partner in Sri Lanka, which is modeled after Armenia's SDG Lab.

Enjoy the read.

504 × 652

The experiment kicked off in the end of January of 2020 and lasted six months. We randomized 5809 participants of the experiment and tested  types of nudges. 

Compared with the control group (with no intervention), both the financial bonus and the environmental nudge serve as effective policy instruments to reduce disposable plastic bag purchase. Moreover, reusable bags in combination with the environmental nudge or the financial bonus are more effective than the environmental nudge or the financial bonus alone. The financial bonus is substantially more effective than the environmental nudge, irrespective of the absence/presence of reusable bags.

The working paper on the results of the experiment was published under the auspices of the Department of Economics of the Università Ca' Foscari Venezia.

The funding for the experiment was provided by the GEF Small Grants program.

If you happen to search the word «innovation» on Amazon, the search will return around 100000 results. To save you some time on scrolling through reviews, we have collected a list of the books that can help you set a foot on the land of our innovation. 

1. The Nudge - Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler

We keep talking about behavioral insights. But what is nudge theory? Does it actually work? And why should we care? Here's the Behavioral insights 101 guide for those interested in how the human brain works and how we can encourage people to make decisions that are in their broad self-interest.

2. Fact fullness: Ten reasons We're Wrong About The World -- and Why Things Are Better Than you Think Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Hans Rosling, and Ola Rosling

When asked simple questions about global trends we tend to choose the worst-case scenarios. Factfulness offers radical take on instincts that tend to distort our perspective. We think Bill Gates sums up the book the best: 

3. The biological mind – Alan Jasanoff 

Did you know that what you eat might affect the decision you will make afterward? MIT’s Alan Jasanoff looks at the influence of the environment, from chemicals and bacteria to the weather, sights, and sounds on the brain.

4. Outliers: The Story of Success - Malcolm Gladwell

This is an intellectual journey to the world of high-achievers. The book rotates around the questions: what makes high-achievers different? From Beatles to software billionaires, immerse yourself into the world that will delight and illuminate. 

5. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking - Malcolm Gladwell

This is a great book about how we think about thinking, about choices that we make and the processes that lead to the decision-making processes.

6. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable - Nassim Nicolas Taleb

The book focuses on the extreme impact of rare and unpredictable outlier events — and the human tendency to find simplistic explanations for these events, retrospectively. This is what Thaleb calls the Black Swan Theory. 

7. Design Sprint- Jake Knapp

You have only five days to develop a solution and test your MVP. This sounds like an impossible task. The Design Sprint is a five-day process for solving problems and testing new ideas. Use the proven step-by-step checklist to test the reaction of the users before investing time and resources on the actual product development. 

8. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life - Anne Lamott

Whether you are writing blogs about the work that you are doing or want to tell a story with numbers, this is one of the best step-by-step guides on how to write and on how to manage your time as a writer. 

9. This is Service Design Doing: Applying Service Design Thinking in the Real World Adam Lawrence, Marc Stickdorn, and Markus Edgar Hormes

Our team of Design thinkers is currently redesigning one of the public services in Armenia. And they are obsessed with everything related to user experience and user-centered design. This is Service Design Doing is a practical guide for putting knowledge and solutions into practice and getting hands dirty. This book is great for learning how to instill design thinking and human-centered approach into team operations. 

10. The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design - IDEO.org

This Guide has everything you need to understand the people you're designing for, to have more effective brainstorms, to prototype your ideas, and to ultimately arrive at more creative solutions.

RA Minister of Education, Science, Culture, and Sport Arayik Harutyunyan, Chargé d'affaires at British Embassy Yerevan Alison Chick, and UNDP in Armenia Resident Representative Dmitry Mariyasin welcomed the participants of the workshop during the opening event.

The renowned Behavioral Insights Team (BIT) is in Armenia within the framework of the project. BIT is designing and implementing behavioral experiments to inform policy and improve public services. The Team has grown from a seven-person unit at the heart of the UK government to a global social purpose company with offices around the world. They have more than 500 randomized control trials in dozens of countries, which often at low or no cost have managed to change people’s behavior or save public spending. For instance, during one of their RCTs, they saved the Courts Service £30 million a year by encouraging people to pay fines. 

Being at the intersection of psychology, sociology, and neuroscience, behavioral science allows to generate insights about human emotions, cultural context, and the decision-making process. Armenia National SDG Innovation Lab is using behavioral science to inform public policy in Armenia to achieve better outcomes. They have recently successfully finished their first behavioral intervention in healthcare and have several ongoing experiments in the sectors of environment and taxation. 

In parallel to creating an online platform, which will inform on the labour market trends and realities in Armenia, SDG Lab and Institute of Public Policy teamed up with BIT to make the data from the platform more actionable. To design nudges that will best communicate the labour market signals toschool children and university students, it is important to understand the behavioral bottlenecks and motivations for two particular breaking points: 

(1) Transitioning from school to university

(2) Transitioning from university to the labour market

BIT has joined efforts with the Armenia National SDG Innovation Lab and Institute of Public Policy to design behavioral interventions for these policy challenges. BIT and SDG Lab have carried out fieldwork in Armenia in December 2019, during which initial meetings were held with key stakeholders and beneficiaries in the country.

During this workshop, participants will be introduced to the selected policy challenge (transition from university to the labour market) and will learn about the findings from the BIT scoping mission. 

As the SDG Lab Lead Stepan Margaryan mentions: “We are focusing our efforts on mainstreaming innovative public policy making within the Government by providing policymakers with the necessary tools and analytical frameworks to experiment with and assess the effectiveness of different policy options. 

During the workshop participants will come up with intervention designs for the pre-selected policy challenge by using BIT methodology. At the end of the workshop, several behavioral intervention ideas will be pitched to the jury panel and the winning idea will be implemented following the workshop. After the workshop, BIT and SDG Lab will continue collaborating on the implementation of two experiments of Edu2Work.

Edu2Work project is implemented by the Institute of Public Policy in partnership with the Armenia National SDG Innovation Lab․ The Project is funded with UK aid from the British people. 

1. Intelligence Squared

Intelligence Squared is the world’s leading platform for debate and intelligent discussion. A panel of four people, with a moderator and live audience discuss issues spanning the mindfulness business, nanotechnologies and climate change. 

2. Hidden Brain

Some of our team members adore learning about how our brains function. It’s not surprising, we work with human behavior and spin behavioral science into experiments.  Using facts and data Hidden Brain deep-dives into our decision-making processes and information processing, our thoughts, and deepest beliefs. 

3. Future Curious by Nesta

If you are a curious mind and wonder about what the future holds, this podcast is for you. Leading experts, radical thinkers, and troublemakers discuss the challenging issues of our time, explore the bold ideas that will affect us in the future, and presume what we can do about it.

4.Invisiblia by NPR

These episodes will change the way you think. The tagline of the podcast can be “the invisible things that control our thoughts, behaviors, and assumptions. The podcast helps to explore topics from a variety of different angles. Topics vary from people's individual 'frame of reference' that informs experiences to empathy, online life and our future selves and more. 

5. Radiolab

Listening to episodes on Radiolab is like being on a delightful journey of discovery. The questions they discuss in different episodes may seem boring at first glance, but if you give it a try, they prove that the world around us and our biology are jam-packed with fascinating stuff.

6. The Argument by The New York Times

There are a bunch of excellent political podcasts, but we think the Argument makes a compelling case for great journalism. The New York Times columnists debate every week on a different topic. Although some opinions might make you furious, it’s always eye-opening to learn how the other side thinks.

7. People fixing the world

Easily digestible 20-minute long engaging stories from BBC World Service. The podcast explores big global challenges and potential brilliant solutions to topics like the gender pay gap, affordable housing, Universal Basic Income and so on. 

8. Upstream

Upstream is aradio documentary and interview series offering themed episodes that explore a wide variety of topics pertaining to our economy. Although crafted around new ideas for a more democratic, just and sustainable future economy, it also intersects history, politics, beer, and the fundamentals of human existence. Their heartfelt stories challenge traditional assumptions and invite to imagine a different world.

9. Ology

We wouldn’t miss a chance to present something scientific. Funny and educational science podcast on, you guessed it, anything ending with ology: from cheloniology (studying sea turtles) to mixology (cocktails) to biogerontology (aging).

10. EVN Report

EVN Report is a local independent magazine that aims to bring a new and exciting narrative to the events shaping our lives in Armenia, the region, and throughout the world. Podcast series deep-dive into various timely topics ranging from cybersecurity and social inclusion to road accidents in Armenia. Some episodes are available only in Armenian. 

11. The Jordan B Peterson Podcast

Fans of philosophy and psychology can enjoy the podcast by famous Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan B Peterson. Here you can find some of the interviews with the world’s most compelling thinkers, lectures from the 12 Rules for Life and much more. 

12. Revisionist History

Fans of Malcolm Gladwell will enjoy these excellently paced storytelling, where the author turns big issues into digestible snippets and listenable material. Questions vary from philanthropy system in the USA to viruses and more. 

The venue of the event was chosen very carefully with circular economy concept in mind. The building of the old printing house is now redefined as Poligraf hall, having preserved the old look and feel.

During the event, SDG Lab's Public Policy Innovation Lead Tigran Tshorokhyan talked about the importance of #ACC5 Accelerator as a platform to empower women and girls living in Armenia by delivering tech and business training courses, as well as, helping them to come up with startup projects. The program is tailored to the needs of girls and women, who have little or no field knowledge. The accelerator program is addressing the SDG 5, which calls for gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls, as there’s tremendous opportunity to make an impact worldwide via their gained knowledge and it should be under important consideration. 

Accelerator #5 (ACC #5) is implemented by UNDP Armenia in cooperation with ISTC Foundation (Innovative Solutions and Technologies Center Foundation), Enterprise Incubator Foundation, Girls in Tech Armenia, Armenia National SDG Innovation Lab, UNHCR Armenia, and UNICEF Armenia.

Edu2Work is designed in response to rapidly changing workplace and continuous mismatch between the labor market demand and supply in Armenia. Some sectors of the economy are always experiencing lack of qualified workforce, while others have an abundancy of supply. According to the 2018 report by Save the Children, only 53.7% of young workers are in occupations that match their level of education compared to workers who are either overqualified (33.6%) or underqualified (12.7 %) for the work they are doing. 

According to the same report, in Armenia, four out of 10 people aged 18-30 are considered part of the inactive labour force. Although some students do acquire professions in demand, yet they exit universities without tangible soft skills to help them translate their education into employment. 

“Almost every state faces the challenges of unemployment, and currently, it is increasingly difficult to address them by using traditional approaches. This situation is mainly conditioned by the fast-changing trends of the world” mentioned Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan. “In Edu2Work project, I give high importance to the mapping of work tendencies and future of work with the use of artificial intelligence, which can become a basis for the policy development in the field of education.”

UK Ambassador Judith Farnworth said: “It is crucial for Armenia’s future economic growth to have not only a skilled and educated workforce but a workforce with the right education and skills. Individuals need a clear pathway through education into work, which is both personally and financially rewarding.”

“Edu2Work was designed to bridge the gap between education and labor market through data-driven and human-centered policies which will eventually lead to reskilling and upskilling opportunities, more people in employment and higher economic growth in the country,” Stepan Margaryan, the SDG Lab Lead, said during his presentation. 

The project has three main components: data innovation and analysis of the Armenian labor market, design of experimental interventions together with UK partners, and development of actionable policy recommendations. 

To further explore the topic of the gap between the education system and labor market, a panel discussion took place with the participation of Arevik Anapiosyan, Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport, Naira Margaryan, Deputy Minister of Economy, and Arman Udumyan, Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Affairs. 

Edu2Work project is implemented by the Institute of Public Policy in partnership with the Armenia National SDG Innovation Lab․ 

One of the factors contributing to its growth is the high percentage of women involved in this area of work: 30 percent of the workforce to be exact. Since tech skills are in high demand and companies are always on the lookout for new talents, we at the UN in Armenia decided to equip women and young girls with coding and entrepreneurial skills to tackle the existing technological gap between displaced women and locals. 

An estimated 22,000 displaced persons from Syria call Armenia their new home. Out of this group, 45 percent are women and girls. Many of these women have skills in crafts and culinary arts but don’t necessarily know how to use their existing skills as a means to start a business.

What if instead of providing humanitarian aid we could come up with new models to provide dignity and empower refugees, particularly women?

Tech for good is a thing

Around the world, coding camps, hackathons and mentoring opportunities for girls and young women are becoming mainstream. In Armenia, we have the ImpactAim Acceleration programme, which is spearheaded by UNDP in partnership with the Innovative Solutions and Technologies Center Foundation, Enterprise Incubator Foundation, Girls in Tech Armenia, Armenia National SDG Innovation Lab, UNHCR, and UNICEF.

Inspired by the methodology and experience from the ImpactAim Accelerator programme, which brings together the tech world and impact communities to scale up local solutions, we designed an accelerator programme for women and girls who are ready to dive into the tech world and potentially build their own startup projects. 

We are targeting two age groups: young girls between the ages of 7 through 14 and young women over 14 years old. The programme is tailored to fit the needs of the girls and women who have little or no tech knowledge.

What the girls and women will get out this experience ?

For the younger girls, we want to immerse them in programing and business skills through weekly workshops/trainings. CoderDojo Armenia, the local chapter of the global, community-based programing clubs for young people is going to take the lead in delivering this part of the programme. We are going to divide the girls in groups based on their age, location, and skills. To kickstart the project, we are going to replicate the programme in three northern regions of Armenia – Shirak, Lori and Tavush, with two clubs in each region. Each club will run for three months with a group of 15 children each. 

Based on the CoderDojo principles, volunteer representatives from technology field – including programmers and project managers will mentor the children throughout their coding sprints. 

After the completion of the programme:

• The girls will be equipped with the necessary skills to create their own startup or become part of an existing one. We will provide mentorship to the best projects through the ImpactAim Accelerator Programme to further develop their business projects.
• The best students can potentially become trainers. Based on their knack for tech, we are going to mentor girls to become trainers. They will learn specific tech and business skills to spread their knowledge within their communities once the programme ends. 

To  immerse the young girls and women into the brewing tech scene, we plan to hold several conferences, workshops, hackathons and ongoing training within the first six months of the acceleration programme. This will be done in collaboration with our partners mentioned above and other private companies, such as including Founders Institute Armenia, Vanadzor Technology Center, Gyumri Technology Center, Techfugees and NeedsList.

For the cohort of young girls over 14 years old, we received 148 applications, ranging from the ages of 16 to 50. Fifty percent of the applications are from Yerevan while the other half are from different regions. We screened 100 applicants and shortlisted 60 for the accelerator programme, based on criteria such as vulnerability. We kicked off this programme, which will run for 20 weeks, on May 24, 2019 during the Impact Nightout event. 

We have a total of 49 participants who will receive trainings and participate in workshops two  to three times a week.We will run multiple programmes at both locations, including tech and business modules. We will conclude the programme with the entrepreneurship module to help the young girls and women to come up with business ideas, work in groups and eventually build their startups.

Why are we doing this?

We are aiming to create a “hybrid” model where corporate and nonprofit philanthropy can work. This is why involved private sector companies from the get go. Financing is an important ingredient, but we believe that the expertise and mentorship that they bring to the table is imperative to set these young women up for success. Through this programme, we are strengthening partnerships and also addressing gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. We believe it’s a tremendous opportunity to make an impact worldwide! 

Do you know any young girls or women that would be perfect for this programme? All women and young girls living in the areas of Shirak, Lori and Tavush are encouraged to apply! Help us spread the word!

The piece was first published on UNSDG Blog section.

During the week of April 29- May 3, the SDG Lab Lead Stepan Margaryan, Public Policy Innovation Lead Tigran Tshorokhyan and the Head of Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan's Office, Varak Serge Sisserian paid a visit to Switzerland. The aim of the visit was to get to know the local innovation ecosystem and share experience with counterparts from Geneva as well as Global Pulse Lab.

On the first day, the team met the the Technology Adviser at United Nations Human Rights, George Hodge, who was formerly leading the Data Science team at Global Pulse Jakarta. George is famous for being the founding father of Kolba Lab and one of the trailblazers of social innovation in Armenia. During the meeting we exchanged ideas on methodologies and formula of effective operation for PSI Labs. 

On the following days, the SDG lab had meetings with SDG Lab Geneva and UNDP. Discussions touched upon all the opportunities, such as events and financial initiatives where the SDG Lab Armenia could plug in for a greater impact. The team also had a meeting with Impact Hub Geneva and discussed the SDGs, startups and Accelerate 2030 Programme. 

The team also had an opportunity to visit Canton Valais of Switzerland, which is famous for its resort towns. In Saillon, Municipality of Valais Canton situated in the center of Europe, the team had a pleasure to meet Andre Guinnard, the Head of Community Development in Saillon and discuss community development issues and sustainable tourism. Following the meeting, the team present the Lab and its activities to the business community, federal authority and Institute of Tourism at Techno-Pole de Sierre, a center which hosts ICT enterprises.

What's next?

We will be following-up with our counterparts in Switzerland to make our initial agreements a reality. This include academic exchange for advanced inter-cultural research and development, testing innovative Swiss projects in Armenia with access to real data available for the Innovation Lab, and joint initiatives on regional and global levels. 

Stay tuned for the updates!

ACC #5 program is designed for women and girls who are ready to dive into the tech world and become part of the life-changing community. It is for 2 age groups: 7-14 (ACC #5 for Kids) and 14+ (ACC #5 for Women and Girls) with respective structures and curriculum. No preliminary knowledge is required, as the program is designed for beginners. So women and girls who are living in the regions of Armenia, as well as refugees, are strongly encouraged to apply. The program is fully free of charge.

When and where?

The program kicks off on the second half of April 2019 and will last 20 weeks. The trainings and workshops will take place weekly 2-3 times at Innovative Solutions and Technologies Center Foundation, Vanadzor Technology Center and Gyumri Technology Center, based on the location of the applicants. All interested candidates are invited to submit the applications form by April 15, 2019.

What and Why?

The core mission of Accelerator #5 program is to empower women and girls living in Armenia by delivering tech and business trainings, as well as, helping them to come up with startup projects. The program is tailored to the needs of girls and women, who have little or no field knowledge.

The accelerator program will be addressing the SDG 5, which calls for gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls, as there’s tremendous opportunity to make an impact worldwide via their gained knowledge and it should be under important consideration.

There are going to be 2 main directions, which will be delivered in Armenian:

#5 for Women and Girls (14+)

During 20 weeks women and girls will learn tech and business skills through weekly workshops/trainings and mentorship sessions with field experts, as well as targeted events and meetups. Apply here. 

#5 for kids 

Which is designed to help young girls, aged 7-14, to take the first leap into programming. In the framework of ACC #5, young girls will have a chance to acquire coding skills within  20 weeks. Apply here.

After the completion of the program:

• participants will graduate with skills for the creation of their own startup or becoming part of an existing one. The best startup projects will enter the ImpactAim Accelerator Program, where through a specially designed curriculum and mentorship, they will be able to develop further their business projects.
• the best students will be granted the opportunity of becoming a Trainer. A tailored program will be provided for selected participants to become Trainers in the regions where they live and spread the digital skills they acquired within the Accelerator #5.

Discussions were held with deputy prime minister Tigran avinyan and with deputy prime minister Mher Grigoryan on Armenia’s policy on inclusive growth, Agenda 2030, reform priorities and CEPA implementation.

The delegation visited AUA centre for the Environment, where first deputy minister of nature protection Irina Ghaplanyan and Alen Amirkhanian, director of AUA Acopian centre for the environment, presented challenges on three areas: solid waste management and recycling, hazardous waste management, sustainable mining, and discussed possibilities of Swedish-Armenian cooperation in these fields. 

The visit to AUA was part of  "Policy discussion on Agenda 2030 and three challenges to sustainable development" round-table discussion. The SDG Lab lead Stepan Margaryan and Louise Skärvall, SDG liaison officer at UNDP Armenia, presented the activities of the Lab for evidence-based policy-making and how the UNDP is working together with the Armenian Government on Agenda 2030. 

The SDG Lab has acquired funding from Government of Sweden for “Armenia-EU CEPA and Georgia-AA: Commitments and Reforms in the Context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)” report which is mapping Armenia's and Georgia's reform priorities under the prism of EU approximation and the SDGs. The report was also presented during the round-table. 

Developed by Armenia’s national Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) lab, Travelinsights.ai uses complex algorithms to detect, collect and analyse all online reviews about Armenia’s tourism industry, helping understand its strengths and gaps through the eyes of tourists. The project used data scientists, programmers, designers and students, but also tourism industry experts.

“The tourism industry in Armenia has great potential and can provide unique opportunities for economic growth,” said Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan. Despite its long history, Armenia is a relatively new player in global tourism.

In 2017, the total contribution of travel and tourism to employment, including jobs indirectly supported, totaled 14 percent of all employment, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. It was projected to rise in 2018 and beyond.

Last year the country boasted a 5 percent economic growth rate. The government’s 5 year-plan now aims to diversify the economy and make sure a larger number of citizens benefit. Tourism has the potential to be a strong driver for growth, jobs and shared revenue.

“This tool could help us shed light on the sources of tourist satisfaction and dissatisfaction, manage industry vulnerabilities, develop destination marketing, as well as invest in new markets and services such as ecotourism or gastrotourism,” Tigran Avinyan added.

Travelinsights.ai will be a go-to platform for businesses - including restaurants, hotels and museums - that want to keep their finger on the pulse of the hospitality industry and improve their services.

The National SDG Lab is a joint undertaking of the government of Armenia and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, UNDP Assistant Administrator, Director of the UNDP RBEC, said during her first country visit to Armenia: “Travelinsights embodies the vision that UNDP has for development in the 21st century – driven by evidence and designed for the user, with the potential to tackle complex development issues across the SDGs,” she said.

Through its global innovation portfolio, UNDP is helping to bring new approaches to the development sphere, including setting up innovation labs with governments to re-design public service delivery; embracing data innovation to implement and monitor the SDGs; exploring emerging and alternative sources of financing to deepen and diversify the resourcing and implementation of the SDGs.

Innovation, which is a crosscutting theme relevant for all SDGs, was the overarching theme of the workshop. Work on innovations in various fields is featured in several projects of the Russia-UNDP Trust Fund for Development (TFD), such as innovations for “green economy” in the integrated development of Osh region in Kyrgyzstan, support for business innovation coaching for scaling up and business growth in agribusiness and food-processing industry in Serbia, promoting innovations in youth and female entrepreneurship in Tajikistan, sharing Russian expertise on techno parks.

During the event, the host country, Armenia, shared its innovation portfolio, including  Armenia National SDG Lab, Climate Change Tech Accelerator, Integrated Rural Tourism Development, and Integrated Support to Rural Communities  among many others. Presentations were followed by active discussions on topics ranging from professions of the future, innovation ecosystems and startups, innovation in various fields, including agriculture, plastic management, and energy efficiency. As was mentioned during the discussions, human capital development is the main factor determining the level of competitiveness of the country on the international scene and its innovation progress. Thus, the necessity to invest in young people and share the lessons learned across borders.

The workshop was open to wide range of participants from ministries of Republic of Armenia and Russian Federation, as well as representatives from the UNDP Country offices from Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Serbia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.

Partnerships for innovation is not only about supporting a change in Armenia or the region. It is about changing how the UNDP works. When we overcome siloes, leverage all of the society’s resources and involve all the possible usual and non-usual stakeholders, we produce better public outcomes and more public value.

The SDG Lab Lead Stepan Margaryan presented the Lab history, the activities of phase I, and the vision for the upcoming activities during the meeting. He emphasized that the Lab's activities will include data analysis and implementation of behavioral experiments, as a result of which recommendations will be made to the Government and pilot projects will be implemented to improve public policy-making in various sectors. 

In his speech, Tigran Avinyan mentioned that the vision of the development of the Government fully corresponds to the Sustainable Development Goals. In this sense, the SDG Innovation Lab will act as an R&D hub and its research and findings in various sectors, including education, tourism, renewable energy, as well as taxation, will be used to create policies based on evidence. 

The UN Resident Representative in Armenia, Shombi Sharp mentioned that the knowledge products and project outcomes of the Lab's activities can be used to reform public policy-making and to generate innovative solutions. 

The participants of the session agreed that the Lab will channel the best international experience to the public policy-makers and will build the capacity of the public servants. 

In the end, the Management Board approved the Lab's workplan as well as assigned the Lab Management team to establish new partnerships and study how to involve new stakeholders in the activities of the Lab.

Sophia is Hanson Robotics’ latest and most advanced robot to date. She has become a media darling, appearing on major media outlets around the world, igniting the interest of people regardless of age, gender, and culture. Sophia is a highly sought-after speaker in business and science and she has appeared onstage as a panel member and presenter in high-level conferences, covering how robotics and artificial intelligence will become a prevalent part of people’s lives. 

Speaking about sustainability and development at Yerevan Business Forum, Sophia noted that technologies have incredible potential to increase human’s capabilities, however adding, that “we need to temper our excitement a bit since any powerful technology also has an ability to do a great harm, even if unintentionally.” As a concluding message for the participants of the forum, she suggested “living together, creating solutions that use our collective strength, the best of Artificial Intelligence and the best of humans together to address the world’s most pressing issues and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.”

After the opening ceremony and the presentation of the key reports, the Economic Forum was divided into three thematic sessions, where experts from around the world have presented their vision to the following topics: "The 4th Industrial Revolution and the future of labor," "Stability in the context of Development: From the traditional to modern economy" and "The perspectives and challenges of international trade relations."

During the Economic Forum, The SDG Lab lead Stepan Margaryan gave a presentation on "Advancing science, innovation and technologies for the SDGs." He decoded the buzzword SDGs and unveiled details of some of the upcoming behavioral and data experiments of the SDG Innovation Lab. 

Watch the video here.

During his internship Aydar Gazizullin conducted background research on new technologies (e.g. the relevance of blockchain in public sector and use of artificial intelligence in education). Aydar also supported the Lab’s activities by using behavioural economics  and data science. Beyond the office work, he was also involved in the UNDP monitoring missions. Aydar travelled across the regions in Armenia and visited three villages and dozens of local wine-producers while assisting UNDP project-managers.

From the pool of the countries offered for an internship by the Russia-UNDP Trust Fund Programme, you chose Armenia. Why?

There are three reasons. First, I knew about the activities of the UNDP Armenia and checked the Lab’s web-site and got acquainted with its projects and plans. This internship at the SDG Innovation Lab has been a step forward for deepening my expertise on the innovation usage in the public sector. I previously interned with GIZ in Bonn and wanted to get a true country office experience. My colleagues gave me complimentary feedback about the donors’ activities in Armenia, and the UNDP Armenia is famous for its rich history of project implementation and good working relations with the country’s government and other donors. Last but not least, the Caucasus region has always been in the scope of my academic interests, and I definitely wanted to use this chance to work in the region, specifically in Armenia.

What did you work on at the Lab?

I have primarily supported the behavioural science service line. I have researched theoretical aspects and relevant international experiences on increasing the citizens’ exposure to digital services. Specifically, I have supported an initial stage of the project aimed at increasing the usage of the existing e-government service allowing people to renew a vehicle inspection certificate online. I came up with a draft letter utilizing behavioural nudging and intended to be used for a field experiment involving a test group of car owners in Armenia.

My tasks have quite often gone beyond the common division of service lines. Recently, I have researched different innovative tools that could be used by a government not just for informing and delivering e-services to citizens but for enhancing the citizen engagement and collaboration policies. I hope that my outputs could further contribute to the citizen-focused vision of the Lab.

How did you like your experience at the Lab?

I am extremely lucky to be professionally involved in the topics which I have always been passionate about: the impact of innovations and new technologies for sustainable development. I like the idea of cooperation between the UNDP and the Government of Armenia and the way the Lab is used to maximise the value of innovations. I am glad to see how the Lab keeps searching for new formats and projects. Last but not least, I have enjoyed working with outstanding and committed professionals who are always open to new ideas and have a flexible mindset. I am happy about each day I have worked in the Lab.

Did your experience at the Lab meet your expectations? What would you say to the graduates thinking about doing an internship at the Lab?

Yes, definitely, everything has been exactly as I planned. Beyond that, I have got extremely valuable networking opportunities and learned a lot from my colleagues. I am sure it helps me to better position myself in my career. Of course, I would like to recommend to intern and/or seek collaboration with the Lab. The lab is an open, limitless and extremely flexible working environment that would be comfortable for any proactive and resourceful person.

Although some news headlines dictate that we live in a future where Terminator-like Artificial intelligence scenarios are a reality, the truth is the robots are not going to take over the humanity any time soon. On the other hand, rapidly developing artificial intelligence and its less marketable subset machine learning has opened up a wealth of opportunities for social good. 

To understand how exactly can Big Data be used in the policy-making, UNDP Armenia has organized an introductory presentation on Big Data and Artificial Intelligence for the UN staff, representatives of National Statistical Service of Armenia and people who work with SDG data. The intro session to the world of Big Data, artificial intelligence and algorithms was designed by Hrant Davtyan, UNDP Consultant, AUA Adjunct Lecturer.

Main takeaways: 

• Big Data has been trendy for six years, and it's partly due to platform economy 
• Data is classified as Big if it meets the criteria of the 3Vs (volume, variety, and velocity)
• Machine learning might not be the ultimate solution to the world’s biggest problems, but it can help to measure business activity, estimate urbanization, detect tax fraud, and analyze public spending. Its applications are numerous, you name it. 

Tools you can test at home: 

• https://www.textrazor.com/ to extract meaning from your text 
• https://cloud.google.com/vision/ to understand content of the image
• http://sentiment.vivekn.com/ to check sentiment analysis 

x SDG Lab we want to demonstrate the value of experimentation to public servants and build knowledge of our adopted methods and approaches through full-fledged and hands-on workshops.

Alique Berberian, Greta Polo, Gemma Torras Vives, Luis Godoy, and Mariela Cheb Terrab are a team of students from Columbia University –one of many groups that traveled overseas to pursue capstone-related work. Their capstone report will assist the government of Armenia in scaling up the impact of Armenia SDG Innovation lab pilot and to realize its SDG commitments which are closely tied to Armenia National Development Strategy 2030. This report will outline the strategy for sustainable agriculture in Armenia, particularly in regards to our Data Analytics service line as well as the strategy for sustainable forest management and prevention of illegal logging in Armenia, particularly in regards to our Behavioral Experimentation service line.

During their visit, the students had 45 meetings with Government representatives, international organizations, NGOs, and local IT companies to discuss and gain insights into the current situation of agriculture and forestry. They also had a field trip to Tavush Marz, to see what work has already been done in the sector. Their work is profound as the situation impacts climate change, which affects especially poor communities.

Following the field trip to Armenia, the team will be looking for the most effective ways in which global best practices, Armenia’s data ecosystem, institutional capacities and behavioral experimentation tools can address agricultural and forest management challenges. The final, comprehensive report will be ready in early May.

Head of UN RCO in Armenia, Hovhannes Ghazaryan presented the United Nations approach to the nationalization and implementation process of UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) in Armenia as well as elaborated on the joint effort that the United Nations and the Government of Armenia are making for the acceleration and implementation of the UN SDGs in Armenia.

Facilitated by the Swedish Ambassador for the Eastern Partnership, H.E. Anna Westerholm, the round table commenced with opening remarks from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia H.E. Edward Nalbandian and State Secretary H.E. Ulrika Modeer of Sweden.

This was followed by the Lab’s presentation of the Armenia National SDG Innovation Lab in the prism of Armenia’s reforms agenda, the National Development Strategy 2030 and National Implementation of Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development and Hovhannes Ghazaryan’s reflection on the United Nations approach towards the SDG agenda in Armenia and partnership with the Government of Armenia.

Swedish experience was presented by Swedfund Director, Gerth Svensson, Administrative Director of Swedish National Innovation Council of the Office of the Prime Minister of Sweden, Oskar Thorslund, representatives of Vinnova and Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

Armenia-UN unique partnership model around Agenda 2030 and the success story in innovation through SDG Lab establishment was highlighted by all parties to the discussion.

The roundtable was attended by Ambassador of Armenia to Sweden, H.E. Artak Apitonyan, Ambassador of Sweden to Armenia, H.E. Martina Quick, Swedish Ambassador for the 2030 Agenda, H.E. Kajsa B Olofsgard, representatives of the Armenian and Swedish Government, Swedish business, innovation and development communities.

The participants reflected on the need for enhanced partnership, cooperation and joint effort by Armenia and Sweden towards advancing the UN SDGs based on the shared values of recognizing the important role of SDGs in the development and reforms agenda in Armenia, Sweden as well as internationally.

The discussants also reflected on the perspectives of linking Armenia’s Eurasian Economic Union membership and Armenia’s enhanced agenda with the European Union through Armenia’s unique position of bridging and offering the best of both to one another.

Earlier the Lab team and Hovhannes Ghazaryan made a presentation of Armenia’s reform agenda, Armenia-UN partnership at SIDA, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, during a session at SIDA HQs in Stockholm followed by a number of bilateral meetings with SIDA representatives, representatives of the Swedish Government, innovation and business communities.

Want to increase spending among your population? Easy!  Just add some incentives that make it rational for people to spend more, or irrational to save (the basic logic of monetary policy). Trying to reduce carbon emissions as a result of too many people driving? Simple — just explain the long-term effects of climate change!

You wouldn’t be alone if you think this sounds a little unrealistic. More and more, when we really start to dig into what constitutes an effective policy, we need to consider the actual behaviour of individuals, not necessarily guided by rationality alone, but also influenced by your emotions, upbringing, cultural context or something else entirely.

The application of behavioural science to policymaking rests exactly on this idea. In recent years, major international organisations (for instance, the World Bank, UN, OECD, European Commission), as well as separate governments (for instance, the UK, the USA, Germany, France) have begun taking human behaviour seriously when designing policies in such areas as employment, consumer protection, health, taxation, environment, education and the transport.

Let us consider a hypothetical example, juxtaposing a classical policy intervention against a behavioural one:

Armen is thinking about the career of his children and what profession they will choose upon leaving school. Armen knows that most of his neighbours and relatives value careers in law or economics more highly for their children. Lost in the continuum of various professions, Armen convinces his child to opt for a career as an economist as well. However, Armen is neither aware of the job market trends in the country (in reality, there is little demand for economists), nor of what a typical career path of an economist may look like.

If we think from the perspective of a classical policymaker, Armen should actively search for more information, trying to understand what is in the best interest of his child. The policymaker might think a good way to reach Armen is by providing information on local government websites, or maybe even by organizing various awareness raising events and discussions. These things should ideally guide Armen in his decision-making process.

However, a behavioural policymaker would consider that Armen might lack both the time or the awareness to search for the necessary information that he needs to make an optimal decision. He’s never even looked at a government website, and certainly is not interested in attending government events. Thus, instead of posting information online and waiting for Armen to react, the behavioural policymaker may send a brief tailored brochure, explaining the job market trends and pinpointing the professions that are the most in demand in the current and future job markets.

In doing so, unlike the classical policymaker, a behavioural specialist is more likely to influence Armen’s behaviour for the better.

What has this got to do with Armenia?

In late 2017, the Armenia National SDG Innovation Lab was launched in collaboration with the UN and the Government of Armenia. One of the Lab’s key goals is to improve policymaking in the country and as such the lab has embarked on  the design and implementation of several behavioural policy interventions.

Through a process of collaboration between ourselves and government partners, we’ve identified several key challenges in taxation, and education that would benefit from behavioural methodology.

Over the next few months, we’ll be going into more detail on each of these. Follow our posts to find out how we got on!

One of the most promising directions is Social Impact Bonds, more commonly referred to as SIBs. SIBs have been called “incomprehensible and irrelevant” in some quarters and as a “game-changer” inothers — an indication that the jury is still out. However, one thing that does seem to create agreement is their complexity.

As such, your friendly neighbourhood SDG Innovation Lab has provided a useful SIB primer for the uninitiated. Here it goes:

SIBs for dummies

In simple human language, an SIB is a multiparty agreement based on the idea of “pay for success”. The Government identifies a social problem (in general, that it has either not been efficient in solving or is lacking the necessary resources to solve). Then service providers who could efficiently solve the social problem are found, along with investors, who are willing to pay the service providers upfront. The Government only pays the investors back when the pre-defined success indicators are reached or in other words pays only for success.

Alright, maybe even this explanation was not that simple, try the diagram (How social innovation financing works. Illustration by Dan Stiles?)

Not working either? Maybe an example would do a better job:

There is a problem of practical farmers’ training in Armenia, which affects the quality of products, making them less competitive in the market against imports and even less so for export. This could be fixed by introducing the farmers to simple, yet effective methods of quality assurance. To do so, the SIB will need to bring together: (i) the Government, (ii) a service provider (in this case an organization to design and conduct effective farmer trainings), (iii) an investor willing to pay the service provider, with the promise to be paid back by the Government once there is evidence that the trainings have been successful in raising the quality of farmer products.

Disclaimer: This is, of course, the over simplified version of the story, but helps the cause of busting the buzzword!

What is good about SIBs?

• SIBs can help find the most efficient solution — as payment is based on success, only those service providers that have what it takes to reach the success indicators will get involved.
• SIBs can de-risk Government investments — Government only pays against results, this opens up room for trying out new solutions or unconventional methods.
• SIBs require thorough monitoring and evaluation — yes, we always report on programs, but this one actually requires very careful impact assessment, since the payment is set against clear success metrics.

What is not so good about SIBs?

SIBs are very complex and time-consuming — think about the number of parties involved in this performance agreement and the amount of time and efforts required to bring all the parties on the same page… exactly!

Our experience so far

Considering that to this point there have been only 100 or so SIBs designed and implemented worldwide, we realised that it is a very audacious endeavour to take on the design of not one, but two SIBs. But we still went for it, as we believe that this new generation of financial instrument for development can serve as a trusted interface to bring the private sector into the deal.

Currently we’re working on the design of two SIBs:

• Improving quality of agricultural education in cooperation with FAO Armenia.
• Improving learning outcomes of the IT sector in cooperation with UNICEF Armenia.

So far, we have managed to meet all stakeholders, gather data, study best international practices and are now polishing the designs that came out of the process.

We will keep “working out loud” and share with you the details of our SIB experience!

Enter the design phase. In our small offices we could not help but have illusions of grandeur: our platform would have data on all sorts of indicators, updated in real-time, possibly using   prophetic “big” data, providing evidence to inform policy-makers and practitioners working across the spectrum of development practice. As we’re an innovation lab, we decided to go out and test some of these ideas first, in this instance by speaking to our users. We focused our concept on one area, energy (now memorised as SDG 7), and set out speaking to people who used energy data on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. 

For anyone still fence-sitting on the value of user research, pay attention. This is what we learnt:

• People didn’t really need or want metrics on the SDG indicators for energy. Generally, the only people who might have use for better metrics on SDG implementation were — wait for it — people reporting on the success of SDG implementation.
• People had no need for real-time data. Those working with energy data at most only needed it every month or so. For most, every six months would be fine.
• People didn’t trust the data that was available. All of the visualisations in the world could not solve a problem about the perceived-inaccuracy of state data

Three findings like these could have easily spelt doom for the uncommitted, but we struggled on. We realised we were out of our depth technically, and are now in the process of adding two data specialists to the team to help us stay within the realm of the possible.
What’s more, the team started to pool the ideas and resources of other development actors. Development cooperation and coordination sound good on a checklist but are usually decidedly more difficult to achieve to any substantive degree. We’re trying to buck the trend, starting with our colleagues at UNICEF, who will be providing child baseline data for all goals and targets. To deal with issues of trust, we reached out to the local national statistical office for more involvement. The hope is that this cooperation will snowball into something that is genuinely collaborative. We hope to go live with our first beta test later this year and will incrementally add more and more data from as many partners as possible.

Our designers came up with two prototypes. Further testing and iteration awaits!

The experience has provided us with a great amount of food for thought, but we’re continuing to persevere, while challenging our assumptions along the way. Stay posted for updates!

Today, Karen Karapetyan, Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, Bradley Busetto, UN Resident Coordinator/UNDP Resident Representative in Armenia, Ministers, Ambassadors, representatives of government agencies as well as international organizations, diplomatic corps and media attended the official inauguration ceremony of the National SDG Innovation Lab.

Welcoming the initiative, the Prime Minister said: 

“The Lab is a joint initiative of the Government of Armenia and the UN and will operate within the domain of CSI. This is a very conscious choice as the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is very important for Armenia, as part of essential reforms being implemented in our country.” “This is the first time you will have seen such a mechanism anywhere in the world,” said Bradley Busetto, UN Resident Coordinator, UNDP Resident Representative in Armenia. “We’re keen to support the Prime Minister’s vision for a smarter, leaner system for tackling development issues and are excited to collaborate with our partners in Armenia and across the world in that regard”. 

The Lab has already partnered with organizations such as the Stanford Change Labs, UN Global Pulse, the Behavioral Insights Team and AGBU, and many new partnerships are now in the making. The 17 SDGs are being comprehensively tied to the National Reforms Agenda of the Republic of Armenia, including the Armenia National Development Strategy 2030 currently being developed. The goals are extremely ambitious, the challenges are complex and intertwined, and therefore necessitate new approaches, new methodologies and possibly new types of institutions to provide ‘out of the box’ solutions that bring about transformative impact. This is the role of the National SDG Innovation Lab.

Supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and hosted in the Center for Strategic Initiatives, the Lab will serve as space for experimentation, collaboration, analytics and world-class human resource development to unlock Armenia’s development potential and accelerate the implementation of the Agenda 2030.