Innovation Library

Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) for crowd monitoring can help law enforcement officers and related authorities identify threats to public safety more efficiently, support human operators in making quicker, more informed decisions, improve response times and reduce workload. Yet, AI-enhanced surveillance raises critical ethical, societal, and human rights considerations. The AI4citizens: Responsible AI for Citizen Safety in Future Smart Cities project, funded by the Research Council of Norway, brings together a multidisciplinary team to explore how an AI system for crowd monitoring and anomaly detection can be designed and deployed responsibly by anonymizing CCTV footage.

The UNDP-Adaptation Fund Climate Innovation Accelerator (AFCIA) Impact Report captures five years of locally led innovation, community leadership and resilience-building across the Global South. Since 2020, UNDP-AFCIA has supported 44 locally rooted initiatives in 33 countries with US$8.3 million in grants and an additional $6 million in technical assistance, reaching more than 2.6 million people.

This policy brief presents findings from a randomized controlled trial of a digital learning programme in Mexico. The study involved 85 mathematics teachers across 45 high schools in Mexico City and the State of Mexico, who were randomly assigned to either integrate a digital learning platform into their teaching for one semester or continue with standard practice. The impact of the programme was assessed based on the mathematics performance of more than 2,900 students in their final year of high school. Details of the implementation in schools were investigated through teacher interviews, student focus groups and classroom observations.

The Digital agriculture and AI innovation roadmap crystallizes a shared vision: an agrifood future where innovation is inclusive, trusted, and relentlessly focused on impact.

The UNU Global AI Network announces the publication of its 2025 Report, a comprehensive review of its inaugural year as a global platform dedicated to operationalizing the Global Digital Compact. This report highlights key milestones in multi-stakeholder collaboration aimed at advancing ethical and inclusive AI for sustainable development.

This flyer outlines FAO’s approach to applying behavioural insights, supporting decisions that advance food security and climate goals.

UNDP’s Digital Rights Dashboard offers insights to help countries put human rights at the heart of digital systems, even in the toughest contexts. This recorded panel discussion, held on December 9, 2025, marked the official launch of the DRD and its accompanying Pilot Country Insights Report, featuring findings from five diverse countries: Colombia, Lebanon, Mauritania, North Macedonia, and Samoa.

This session spotlighted AI Initiatives featured in the soon to be launched UN AI Resource Hub, a collaborative effort by UNDP, ITU, and UNESCO.

UNESCO developed the new Guidelines for the Use of AI Systems in Courts and Tribunals in response to the rapid, uneven adoption of AI across justice systems worldwide. The Guidelines provide practical principles, safeguards and recommendations to ensure AI strengthens, rather than undermines, human-led justice.

AI can lift growth, expand opportunities, improve public services, and strengthen resilience. The same technologies, however, can accelerate exclusion, undermine governance, and raise human insecurity. This report links AI to global inequality, labor market disruption, gender gaps in access, and differences in state capacity and trust. In Asia and the Pacific, AI readiness exceeds 70% in advanced economies but falls below 20% in fragile states, highlighting how uneven the starting line already is.

The UNICC AI Hub, in collaboration with the Frugal AI Hub at Cambridge Judge Business School, is pleased to share a new paper presenting a practical and standardized framework for measuring the true value of an organization’s AI portfolio.

Recent advances in various scientific and technological fields have rendered the integration of neurotechnology into military contexts increasingly likely to become a reality in the near future. In contrast to civilian neurotechnology, this trend has received comparatively less attention, while carrying with it significant potential risks for international peace and security.

In this webinar, the Team shared the most portable lessons learnt from the AI School, exploring what worked, what didn’t, and the practical patterns you can reuse to accelerate safe, inclusive AI upskilling across your organisation and team.

In an era marked by rapid technological advancements such as the rise of artificial intelligence, digital transformation has emerged as a pathway for UNICEF to accelerate progress for children.

This session of FAOs Science and Innovation Forum explored how digital innovations and technologies are transforming the food safety landscape.

Five country examples illustrate diverse uses of AI tools in FAO, including pathogen detection, import sampling prioritization, and language models for regulatory data processing.

These Guidelines are concerned with the practice of hand hygiene to protect community health outcomes, in particular, the reduction of diarrhoeal diseases and acute respiratory infections.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can accelerate sustainable development when used responsibly. UNDP helps countries build inclusive AI ecosystems that benefit both people and the planet.

This white paper explores the transformative potential of blockchain technology as a foundational infrastructure for digital identity management, with a focus on its implementation within the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund.

The report sets out proposals to strengthen the UN’s delivery across all three pillars of its work while also advancing more effective collaboration across the pillars.

A new special report from United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and partners explores the evolving role of technology in disaster risk reduction (DRR), from Earth observation and early warning systems to AI-driven hazard modeling. Through regional case studies and practical applications, it highlights how innovation has helped bridge critical gaps in data gathering, processing, and multi-hazard risk analysis.‍

This White Paper presents a multilingual AI prototype that detects misinformation and xenophobic narratives.

The 2025 edition of the Impact Brief captures how UNICEF has worked across sectors and geographies to turn disruption into opportunity, leveraging frontier technologies, sustainable finance and bold new partnerships.

Protecting environmental resources by detecting illegal dumpsites using artificial intelligence and satellite imagery

The Data Governance Toolkit: Navigating Data in the Digital Age, provides practical guidance for policymakers navigating data regulation, cross-border flows, and responsible data use in the era of AI and emerging technologies.