UNDP Dominican Republic Accelerator Lab

Fostering social innovation through sustainable local development solutions that improve people’s quality of life in addition to increasing government institutions' ability to be more creative, effective and inclusive.

The UNDP Accelerator Lab in the Dominican Republic supports the Country Office by fostering transversal, cross-cutting development solutions through social innovation methods and strategic thinking. 

Our Lab promotes a culture of thinking about old problems through new perspectives. We bring methods such as collective intelligence, problem space and human-centered design to understand systemic problems and devise more impactful interventions. 

Our work spans various themes. In sustainable urban development, we have focused on 1) solid waste management and 2) urban inequality. In response to COVID-19’s impact on inequality in the city, our initiative “Future Spaces” has fostered a portfolio or urban interventions that will make cities more sustainable, livable and accessible.

On the solid waste management theme, we are working with the country’s largest municipality, piloting a portfolio of solutions that will improve the communities’ wellbeing and catalyze a cultural shift in how marginalized communities co-participate in solving wicked problems.

The Lab has been selected as part of UNDP’s Digital X initiative; it funded and supported a telemedicine project with private sector and academia partners that is bringing high-quality health care consultations to rural communities.

At the policymaking level, we are 1) working with government partners in the design and implementation of the country’s Innovation Policy; 2) closely collaborating with the government’s social welfare agency in the creation of a social accelerator unit that will make poverty reduction policies more impactful.