LocationsUNDP Turkmenistan Hands on Experience with the Digital Fitness Programme
Digital for Development
November 5, 2024
Authors: Lazar Pop Ivanov, Farhad Artykov, Jahan Saparmammedova
How do we create better digital solutions for development?
How do we create effective digital solutions for development? Answering this “million-dollar question” was at the heart of a five-day training called the Digital Fitness Programme [DFP] which brought together UNDP Turkmenistan’s country office team as participants and was delivered by UNDP’s Chief Digital Office. DFP is crafted to ensure that UNDP teams leverage understanding how digital systems are created and developed, to amplify development impact, was an ideal fit for enhancing our team's digital product design and development capacities and expanding our offerings to better serve Turkmenistan’s society.
The timing of the Programme couldn’t have been better. Our country office is currently preparing the new Country Programme Document, where we aim to improve, scale, and diversify our digital transformation offer to the government of the country with more and better projects, services and products. Inspired by UNDP’s Digital Strategy—which champions the belief that digital technology can be a powerful force for good, enabling processes, and enhancing development outcomes across all programming— we seized this opportunity to deepen our team’s product design expertise through this Programme. The Digital Strategy’s vision for country offices emphasizes developing an innovative, agile culture supported by strong digital capabilities to meet the challenges of the future. Encouraged by this vision and the outcomes of the Summit of the Future, where the UN’s role in global digital cooperation was underscored, we embraced the DFP.
This article shares highlights from the experience through the reflections of our colleagues from all portfolios who attended it.
An Immersive Five-Day Journey
The five-day Programme immersed our colleagues in the fundamental principles of digital standards led by UNDP, with a clear emphasis on creating impactful, user-centered solutions. More than simply leading digital projects, we learned how to design solutions tailored to the needs of our beneficiaries. The human- centric design approach of the DFP, made us understand better the experiences of our potential user[s] and thus helped us reduce the risks of project/process failures and align better with our core principle in digital transformation: ensuring that no one is left behind.
Each day, participants engaged in hands-on activities to design digital initiatives, guiding them from a clearly identified problem space to solution spaces specific to their challenges. They practiced crafting user journeys to ensure that the digital products we support are meaningful and relevant to their intended users. By the final day, each participant joined an interdisciplinary team that developed and presented a specific digital solution for a challenge in Turkmenistan to the country office's senior leadership.
The DFP marked more than just a training; it was a journey that empowered us to reimagine our digital future and harness the full potential of technology for sustainable development in Turkmenistan. As we look ahead, UNDP Turkmenistan is inspired to drive forward with fresh perspectives, a renewed commitment to innovation, and a collaborative spirit across all portfolios. The Programme has equipped our team not only with technical skills but also with a transformative vision—one where digital solutions go beyond mere tools, becoming vehicles of change that serve the diverse needs of the communities we support.
Portfolio Approach for Integrated Impact
UNDP Turkmenistan’s country office oversees several key digital projects across all three of our portfolios. Recently, we have explored how a portfolio approach could help further enhance our digital offerings, making our interventions more impactful, interconnected, and holistic. This exploration prompted us to pilot the Portfolio Sketch, collaborating with UNDP’s Istanbul Regional Hub on envisioning how a portfolio approach could shape our digital activities within the Turkmen context. A key objective of this initiative was to encourage colleagues to come together across teams and roles to design and pilot new digital solutions, fostering collaboration that transcends traditional boundaries. The team participating in the Digital Sketch process also managed to come up with a statement of intent, as to what the intent of UNDP would be in Turkmenistan, when it comes to digitalization, and the role it can play as a convener, innovator, mediator, and advisor in the country on these issues. The process also produced four key pillars for future interventions and action of the country office in the field of Digitalization, and as a part of our efforts to build this new portfolio we are going to share them publicly in the upcoming months. We hope that both the Digital Fitness Programme as well as the Portfolio Sketch will provide us with a clearer vision of our Digital Strategy/Vision, as well as the offer we will create for the institutions in the country.
Credits:
Special credit to the trainers of the Digital Fitness Programme, the Chief Digital Office team - Jose Medina and Aizhan Kapysheva, as well as to the UNDP Country Office Senior Management in Turkmenistan for the interest in this Programme, and all colleagues that participated in the workshop.