NewWork is a grassroots community of UN employees innovating, collaborating, and adopting new ways of working.
Discover how teams across the world are transforming the UN from the inside out.
NewWork started as a collaboration across departments in Geneva and expanded globally — an employee-led network connecting people, projects and ideas across silos in support of UN 2.0.
"We aim to change our workplace culture and cultivate an innovative, inclusive UN 2.0. We do this by amplifying transformative initiatives and bridging silos through dialogue and creativity."
Three stories. Three perspectives. One movement.
How agile practices helped a field office reach 2,000 displaced people in 72 hours instead of weeks.
Read Amara's story →How eight UN agencies in the Pacific learned to operate as one system — and responded to a cyclone in hours.
Read David's story →How a department reduced equipment delivery from six weeks to ten days by rethinking how they work together.
Read Sarah's story →From data science training to innovation challenges — browse the full collection of NewWork initiatives and their measurable impact.
Browse case studies →Hear directly from the people driving change — through profile videos, testimonials, and the #IAmNewWork campaign.
Meet the community →Amara adjusted her satellite connection from the N'Djamena field office, watching colleagues from Geneva, New York, and three other field operations join the protection cluster coordination call. In the past, this kind of real-time global coordination would have been uncommon.
The transformation began when her team participated in the Agile Mindset pilot. Initially skeptical — another HQ initiative that didn't understand field realities — she'd grudgingly attended the virtual training sessions.
"Let's start with our daily check-in," said the cluster coordinator. "What's your priority today, and where do you need support?"
The fifteen-minute huddle format had revolutionized their crisis response. During last month's displacement emergency, they'd adapted their entire protection strategy in 48 hours using the iterative approach they'd learned. No more waiting for lengthy approval chains while people remained at risk.
"I can help," offered Marcus from the South Sudan operation. "Just completed a similar analysis last week."
This spontaneous peer-to-peer support had become routine. The psychological safety training had given field staff permission to share challenges and ask for help without appearing incompetent to headquarters.
97% said the session made them reflect on their teamwork → View case study
The word "agile" no longer felt like another buzzword. Through the Modern Agile principles workshop, Amara had learned it meant focusing on people first — the displaced populations they served — and continuously improving their response based on real feedback from communities.
The numbers from their recent team survey reflected the change: 29% improvement in ability to adapt quickly, 17% increase in innovative problem-solving, and most importantly, 14% better collaboration across field-HQ boundaries.
But the real impact wasn't in statistics — it was in the grandmother who approached Amara last week, grateful that protection services had reached her grandchildren so quickly.
The NewWork approach hadn't just changed how they worked — it had restored her faith that the UN could be the organization the world needed in crisis. The communities they served deserved nothing less than their most agile, collaborative, and innovative response.
Outside her window, the Sahel landscape reminded her that humanitarian needs wouldn't wait for perfect processes. But now, finally, they had tools to respond with both speed and quality, connecting global expertise with local realities in ways that actually served the people who needed them most.
"I connected with colleagues I would never have normally met. This was supportive at a time of isolation."
Start your own dialogue using NewWork's approach:
David looked across the Port Vila harbor as his weekly Sustainable Development Goals coordination meeting transformed before his eyes. Eighteen months ago, herding UN agencies toward common objectives felt like an impossible task. Today, representatives from eight agencies were actually building on each other's ideas.
The shift began when his office participated in the NewWork dialogues about "Reimagining the Next Normal." The resident coordinator system had been struggling with fragmented agency approaches, competing priorities, and endless coordination meetings that produced little coordination.
When Cyclone Kevin struck last month, their new coordination mechanisms had enabled a unified response within hours. Eight agencies operating as one system, with clear roles and shared accountability. No duplication, no gaps, no bureaucratic delays while communities waited for help.
85 ideas submitted → 6 finalist teams in the Dragons' Den → View case study
David smiled, remembering the words from those early NewWork sessions: "The future of the UN isn't about better coordination — it's about seamless integration around shared purpose."
The Pacific deserved nothing less than their most unified, agile, and effective support. NewWork had given them the tools to deliver it.
Bring the Innovation Day approach to your team:
Sarah stared at the performance dashboard showing budget execution, staff engagement, and operational efficiency metrics. For the first time in her fifteen-year UN career, all indicators were trending upward simultaneously. The transformation hadn't happened overnight.
It started when her senior management team participated in the Transformers pilot program. As department directors struggled with post-COVID hybrid management challenges, the traditional command-and-control approach was clearly failing.
The 15-minute senior team check-ins had replaced hour-long status meetings where directors protected their silos. Now they actually problem-solved together in real-time, using techniques learned through the "Meetings Tune-up" module.
29% increase in team collaboration, 20% improvement in decision making → View case study
The NewWork principles had helped them shift from administrative gatekeepers to operational enablers. From risk-averse bureaucrats to innovation partners. From departmental silos to integrated management system.
The organization deserved management systems as ambitious and effective as its mandate. NewWork had given them the tools to build it.
Team Performance Quick Start:
9 NewWork initiatives and their measurable impact
Workshops introducing teams to Agile ways of interacting and delivering.
Giving employees across the UN Secretariat a voice in key topics.
Exposing staff to new ideas, practices, behaviours, and concepts.
Enabling staff to dedicate 10% of time to innovation at UNOV/UNODC.
Self-paced data science training for UN employees worldwide.
The grassroots community connecting changemakers across the UN.
System-wide innovation challenge culminating in the Dragons' Den.
Safe, inclusive spaces for connection, dialogue, co-creation and transformation.
Multimedia storytelling highlighting innovative UN solutions.
Meet the people driving change across the United Nations
She pioneered Innovation Day and is spearheading a UN system-wide coalition around Transformative Spaces. A leading member of the NewWork community who has contributed to the Reimagine Challenge, Dialogues, Transformers, and the agile team pilot.
"I connected with colleagues I would never have normally met. This was supportive at a time of isolation."
"You gave us a space in which we could look at each other as equals, without the usual institutional formalities and structures. This breath of fresh air is necessary."
"It's nice when staff members see some of their ideas put into practice. Not just acknowledged, but actually implemented."
"Innovation Day is truly a global connector!"
"It helps with quick-to-implement practices. The programme is good because it takes a holistic perspective of the foundational activities of a team."
"Teams don't need to wait for the entire organization to transform in order to become more Agile — the change can start within the team."
Additional #IAmNewWork profiles coming soon
How can we support teams in adapting to changing needs of clients and stakeholders in a complex and volatile context, and at the same time address individual needs for more autonomy, flexibility, purpose and empowerment?
Agile at the UN aims to adapt our ways of working to ever changing constraints and needs. It helps teams choose the best way to work and deliver in an autonomous and adaptive way. Team performance is approached through an introduction to different Agile ideas and tools, drawing linkages with the organizational context, and giving teams a choice about what works for them.
Four workshops have been developed:
Teams report enhanced information sharing, increased psychological safety, and thinking about new ways of solving problems. The ROI Institute methodology is being applied to measure impact.
How can dialogue mechanisms be more regularly integrated into organizational business models to give the employee voice and input?
Hosted as stand-alone series on key topics, and as a complementary element to the "Reimagine the UN Together Innovation Challenge", NewWork dialogues enabled employees from across the Secretariat and beyond to come together, share ideas, discuss challenges and opportunities linked with organizational change.
What distinguishes these dialogues from others is that participants are randomly placed in sessions to ensure diversity across location, grades, genders, entities, etc. Dialogue moderators provide session feedback and summaries that are analyzed and feed into reports to management.
The Dialogues have been used to provide feedback to change initiatives, informally and formally. One example: the Next Normal Dialogues, in which employees engaged in honest and open conversations on the "return-to-office" and generated ideas that were shared with management and taken into account when developing the final return-to-office plan.
How might we expose a wider group of people to new ideas and new ways of working in a consistent and mindful manner?
Exposure to new ideas, mindsets, and approaches is the first step to sparking innovation. A series of briefings from across multiple sectors and environments offers opportunities to explore new ideas and approaches to doing things differently.
Speakers range from UN, academia, and private/public sectors. Episodes are recorded and accessible by all employees. A recap is published and sent out by email, with key data saved online and easy to filter and search.
Since 2019, iD has helped employees introduce new methodologies in their day-to-day work, apply innovation and creativity in mandate delivery, connect with others outside their network, and scale ideas across the global Secretariat.
How can we overcome a key barrier to staff innovation: a lack of dedicated time due to demanding workloads, and that time spent on innovation often isn't reflected in one's performance evaluation.
Innovation Time builds from the Young UN's implementation of the concept in Geneva in 2019 during a 3-month pilot involving 30 colleagues from 11 UN organizations to spend 10% of their working time for innovation.
Key aspects include leadership backing as well as manager support for integrating innovation in work plans and allowing time within regular working hours.
Long-term benefits:
UNOV organized an initial cohort of approximately 30 staff members who were chosen based on their roles as identified leads on innovative initiatives and/or as chosen by Senior Leadership. Selected staff were allowed to dedicate time to existing initiatives from senior management, the Young UN and the Innovation Hub's 'Idea Bank'.
How to enhance data-driven decision making and bridge the gap among data science capabilities with colleagues less familiar with the concepts.
Kamino consists of a series of courses, starting with the foundational "Kamino 100" series and progressing to "Kamino 200", "Kamino 300", and "Kamino Practitioner". Available in both English and French.
Self-paced courses cover data ingest, wrangling, text analysis, machine learning, visualization, storytelling, and business analysis. The team supports learners through Q&A sessions, Office Hours, and a live Community of Practice.
How might we bridge silos and accelerate culture change globally?
NewWork started as a collaboration across departments in the UN Office at Geneva and later expanded globally, as an agile, innovative mechanism for connecting the dots — connecting people, projects and ideas across silos. Today it is a global network of over 3,700 colleagues growing across the UN system.
NewWork amplifies transformative initiatives and bridges silos through dialogue and creativity. Global webinars offer opportunities to learn about new ways of working and connect with changemakers globally. It is an employee-led, global empowered network.
A pulse check launched at end of 2024 will be sent out twice a year to track behaviour over time.
How might we improve knowledge sharing, collaboration and resource pooling to enable the UN to adapt to the pandemic and better support employees effectively.
The "Reimagine the UN Together Challenge" fostered a culture of innovation and collaboration across the UN System by addressing shared challenges through collective ideation. It connected employees globally, enabling them to propose, refine, and pitch innovative solutions through virtual workshops, a collaborative bootcamp, and the grand finale — "Dragons' Den".
Finalist teams:
Participants benefited from mentorship, peer learning, and access to a global Community of Practice. The event inspired optimism among leaders, reaffirming the UN's ability to adapt and scale creative solutions.
How can we evolve our current forms of dialogue, interaction, and networks to better meet today's challenges and tomorrow's needs, cultivating conditions for transformative change?
Transformative Spaces creates intentional learning and co-creation environments. These hybrid workshops combine theory, practice, and peer-to-peer engagement, offering participants mental, emotional, and physical spaces to address systemic challenges.
The initiative focuses on five areas:
How can we spotlight replicable, scalable initiatives and foster global conversations on new ways of working?
Through UNTold, creative and forward-thinking initiatives can be shared within the UN System, leveraging the powerful medium of video documentaries. Senior officials' endorsement underscores their significance, incentivizing participation. Stories are meticulously curated based on replicability and relevance.
Topics covered include:
12 virtual discussions engaging participants from across 6 entities: MINUSCA, MINUSMA, MONUSCO, UNGSC, UNMIK and UNSOS.