Rise of democracy and civic activism underpinned by spread of new technologies mean that design and implementation of public policies is no longer the remit of the selected few. In many parts of the world governments have responded through opening the public policy space for civic engagement and experimentation. This innovation has often materialized through setting up of Lab-like entities in Governments.

The project will focus on institutionalization of existing innovation labs in 4 countries (Armenia, Georgia, Macedonia and Moldova) using evidence and data from the recent review of best global practices in Government-set up Labs. This is catalytic because:

• It provides an entirely new engagement model between Governments and citizens;
• It implies a cross-regional, south-south cooperation between 4 Governments in an effort to design the new engagement model;
• It leverages UNDP’s role in these efforts both from the perspective of supporting individual country’s efforts and coordinating cross-regional cooperation and knowledge sharing;
• It support institutionalization of 4 different models of innovation in governance both from the perspective of the level (national and local government) and typologies (focus on non-technological innovation in Moldova and Georgia to tech and design driven efforts in Armenia and FYRoM), which enables drawing broader conclusions and learnings that can be applied to other countries.

Expected Outputs:

• Social Innovation Labs institutionalized and embedded into Government (at central and local level) providing a new generation of services
• Toolkit on setting up a Social Innovation Lab as new governance model developed for ECIS