Innovations, Lessons Learned and Good Practices
Identifying, validating and documenting "innovations, lessons learned and good practices" are a necessary part of organizational learning and the pursuit of programme excellence. These processes also help in the generation of new ideas, improved demonstration of human rights-based approaches, and promotion of evidence-based policy advocacy.
Recognizing the importance of cross-fertilization, UNICEF is currently looking into making selected innovations, lessons learned and good practices available to external audiences, mainly for development practitioners and country level partners. Below are recent publications that compile selected innoations, lessons learned and good practices on thematic areas. Also see Background and definitions for more information about innovations, lessons learned and good practices..
Summary of Lessons Learned in 2012 - Working Paper
This paper has been prepared in response to the Executive Board decision 2011/12 where the Board requested UNICEF to share lessons learned and future strategies of the organization, and to include descriptions of challenges and steps taken to address them. The paper focuses on lessons learned which are multi-sectoral and cross-cutting. The lessons learned on specific focus areas can be found in the respective annual thematic reports.
Summary of Lessons Learned in 2011 - Working Paper
This paper has been prepared in response to the Executive Board decision 2011/12 where the Board requested UNICEF, in future annual reports of the Executive Director, to introduce lessons learned and recommendations for future strategies of the organization, and to include descriptions of challenges and concrete steps taken to address them. The paper focuses on the lessons learned which are multi-sectoral and cross-cutting. The lessons learned on specific Focus Areas can be found in the respective annual thematic reports.
Selected Innovations and Lessons Learned from UNICEF Programmes - Volume 3 (April 2012)
The ten case studies featured in this compendium are illustrative of UNICEF’s and its partners’ ex¬perience in bringing and solidifying upstream work as a core strategy to reach the most marginalized children and families. The cases highlighted in this publication are highly diverse examples – from child friendly municipal planning in Morocco to collaboration with IMF in Congo; Marginal Budgeting for Bottlenecks (MBB) analysis in Benin; partnering with ADB in East Asia and the Pacific; removing barriers for vulnerable families to access cash transfers in Kyrgyz Republic; shaping public policies to promote literacy in Brazil, among others. Despite their diversity, a common thread across them is their contribution to addressing barriers and bottlenecks to children’s access to essential services.
Sharpening the equiy focus: Selected innovations, lessons learned and good practices from UNICEF-assisted programmes 2009-2010 (December 2011)
Thispublication features some of the most notable innovations, lessons learned and good practices from UNICEF's 2009 and 2010 programme reporting, incorporating updated information as of late 2011. The 17 examples included in this compilation provide evidence of results in the five focus areas of UNICEF's Medium Term Strategic Plan 2006-2013 as well as in its cross-cutting areas. Notably, these innovations and lessons learned are relevant for UNICEF's intensified focus on equitable development results and the rights of the most deprived children. Volume 1 of the Equity compendium (Feb.2011) is available.
Knowledge for Action: Emerging experiences in child-focused Social and Economic Policy: Selected Innovations and Lessons Learned from UNICEF Programmes, Volume 2 (October 2011)
This compendium features 18 recent innovations and lessons learned that illustrate the range of UNICEF's work on child-focused social and economic policy. The cases highlighted in this publication are highly diverse examples - from design and impact analysis of a cash transfer programme in Senegal to development of an equity-focused child-centred methodology for situation analysis in Iraq; making visible the impact of the economic crisis on children in Mexico; ex-ante analysis of the impact of a proposed tax change in Serbia; shaping a child sensitive National Social Protection Strategy in Cambodia; and to scaling up of the social protection system in Mozambique, among others. Emerging experiences in child-focused Social and Economic Policy, Volume 1 is available here.
Developing capacities to realize the rights of children and women: Selected innovations and lessons learned from UNICEF-assisted programmes (August 2011)
This compendium features 17 recent innovations and lessons learned on Capacity Development from UNICEF-assisted programmes. The cases highlighted in this publication include: creating community-based support system to increase to emergency obstetric care in Bangladesh, developing capacities of sub-district level for child-friendly schools in Mozambique, learning lessons from the national programme for orphans and vulnerable children in Zimbabwe and national capacity building in support to the Core Commitment to Children in Humanitarian Action in Uganda.
Knowledge for Action: Emerging experiences in child-focused Social and Economic Policy (July 2011)
This compendium features 12 recent innovations and lessons learned that illustrate the range of UNICEF's work on social and economic policy. The cases highlighted in this publication are highly diverse examples – from developing a social protection strategy in Burkina Faso to Morocco’s effort to institutionalize a multidimensional approach to child poverty measurement, real time monitoring of the impact of the economic crisis on children in Pacific Island Countries, lessons learned from district level MDGs monitoring in Indonesia, the experience of introducing child budget analysis as a part of the national budget reform in Jordan.
Equity and reaching the most marginalized: selected lessons learned and innovations from UNICEF programmes (February 2011; revised September 2011)
This compendium of selected lessons learned and innovations on Equity features nine recent innovations and lessons learned from UNICEF programmes which are illustrative examples of some of our work on equity and reaching the most marginalized. The cases highlighted in this publication are highly diverse examples – from women’s participation to deliver messages on immunization in Afghanistan to Brazil’s effort to achieve universal birth registration, lessons learned from community engagement in a rural neglected area in Uganda, and the experience from a child-friendly programme implemented in one of the poorest provinces in Vietnam. This publication was revised in September 2011.
UNICEF external compendium of innovations and lessons learned 2008 (January 2011)
The document Selected innovations and lessons learned from UNICEF Programme Cooperation 2008 features 14 innovations, lessons learned and good practices from UNICEF's 2008 programme reporting, incorporating updated information as of late 2010. These examples represent a few of the numerous activities UNICEF supports in over 150 countries and territories around the world.
MDG Good Practice (UNDG, 2010)
In July 2010 UN Development Group published “MDG Good Practice 2010” which takes stock of evidence and experiences at country, regional and global level to overcome challenges to and achieve the MDGs. UNICEF participated in this exercise and 31 examples of its work were included in the publication.
UNDG recently launched the MDG Good Practice Database that includes all the good practices included in the publication. You can now search cases by key word, MDG target, country, region or constraint.
Field Note Series: UNICEF Policy and Programming in Practice (2010)
A Field Note is an in-depth write-up of cases from different countries where a similar programmatic strategy or approach has been implemented. Case studies featured through a Field Note discuss Innovations, Lessons Learned, and Good Practices as well as challenges which are specific to each country.
"Community Approaches to Total Sanitation (CATS)" discusses the evolution of sanitation programming in UNICEF and the origins of our CATS. The case studies illustrate a range of CATS strategies: Community-Led Total Sanitation in Sierra Leone and Zambia; School-Led Total Sanitation in Nepal; and the Total Sanitation Campaign in India.
"Education in Conflict and Transition Contexts" outlines UNICEF's roles in providing education in conflict-affected contexts. It highlights the challenges faced and good practices identified, drawing on the country case studies from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal and Southern Sudan.