Expo 2020 Dubai’s Global Best Practice Programme has added five new projects, following a call for short- and long-term solutions to tackle the challenges brought on by the pandemic.
The projects are:
- SafeDistance, Lopos, Belgium: SafeDistance is a small, portable device that measures the distance to other SafeDistance sensors in real-time to ensure spacing between people. The wearable device warns wearers when social distancing is not being followed through an alarm, flashing lights, and vibrations. It can also assist in tracking and tracing Covid-19 infections.
- Mi Casa, Mi Cancha’, Fútbol Más, Chile: Video series ‘Mi Casa, Mi Cancha’ (My Home, My Playground) intends to promote education and physical activity among children and adolescents (age six to 14) whose access to space is reduced. The series includes active routines with a focus on improving mental and physical health at home.
- reach52, reach52, Singapore: reach52 offered training to frontline health workers through a mobile-phone eLearning platform, addressing misinformation and enabling communities to accurately check their symptoms. It has services in more than 1,000 communities in rural India, the Philippines, and Cambodia.
- SitatByoot and Makesy, SitatByoot, Jordan: SitatByoot developed a vocational training programme, focused on sewing, crocheting, embroidery, and home-based business skills, for vulnerable communities in Jordan. Through this, the users gain skills to accelerate their online home-based business, have employment opportunities, and become certified ‘Makers’ through SitatByoot’s sister ecommerce platform and app, Makesy.
- Maji Bucket, Project Maji, UAE (Ghana): Project Maji has trained thousands of people on proper hand-hygiene practices and distributed bars of soap across Ghana’s Maji communities. They also have devised the ‘Maji Bucket’, a facility to ensure safe handwashing practices in the country’s rural areas.
With this, the total number of ‘best practice solutions’ has gone to 50.
These initiatives involve simple and locally-based innovations that address some of the world’s biggest challenges, including those laid out in the Sustainable Development Agenda – 17 global targets designed to achieve peace and prosperity for people and the planet.
Expo’s call for Covid-related proposals received applications from 318 projects, in 78 countries, across key areas such as digitalisation; education and skills development; health and wellbeing; water, sanitation, and hygiene; and protecting livelihoods.
