When I received the letter from the UNDP Resident Representative in Congo Brazzaville, notifying me of my recruitment at UNDP, as the solution mapping manager at the AccLab of the country office, a month ago, my first 18-year-old daughter exclaimed `` Dad this function suits you well because you have mastered the concepts of cartography, namely, topographic scales, contour lines, deposits, azimuths, topographic profiles and orientation instruments like a compass, GPS etc. ''. Her remark was well-founded and related to her BAC level courses in Life and Earth Sciences, on which I worked a lot with her.

This is a real example that allows us to perceive the general understanding of the concept of cartography. It is up to me to answer him that the precise framework of this function of cartographer is light years away from the pioneering exploits of Mercator and the progress of this science of terrestrial orientation, whose evolution through technology has led to the human being to a better knowledge of the universe.

Frugal solutions

Far from the complexity of Mercator's discoveries and geographic coordinates, the mapping of innovative development solutions, whose frugality serves as a guiding requirement, is one of the main working methodologies of AccLabs. This approach aims to allow a deeper immersion in the dynamics of local communities in order to work with innovators who have addressed some of the most pressing social challenges in their communities. These basic innovations are for this purpose the expression of a need based on empirical and in-depth knowledge of the problem which is often not addressed by governments, NGOs and other development actors.

The mapper of innovative solutions has the central role of transferring these solutions to a database and managing it.

A database under renovation

When I started working at AccLab, I found a database of around 250 solutions. The mission assigned to me by management is to update it because it recites all these solutions.

At first observation, I noticed that there were duplicate solutions in this document and that some solution titles were sometimes confused with the names of the craft workshops or micro-enterprises behind these innovations. Other observations made reveal that the maturity levels of the solutions making it possible to classify and prioritize them in an order conducive to experimentation, the problems that led to the generation of these innovations, the types of partnerships according to the stages of evolution of these solutions, were not clearly mentioned.

In response to these findings, I set up a new database that will certainly not include all of the 250 solutions, by doing the following:

•       grooming solutions from the old database,

•       a breakdown of solutions according to their design years (2020 and 2021), and according to their sectors (environment, energy, education, new technologies, etc.).

•       Definition of the titles of solutions proper in literal expressions, in accordance with the presentation of the profile of a solution according to the international standards of the Africa Regional Office of AccLabs.

Certain headings are added to the database, such as the challenges or the needs which the solutions tackle, the detailed description of each, the strategic objectives envisaged by the innovators by designing them =, the partnerships and the levels of maturity solutions of these.

Regarding their maturity, solutions are now classified into three levels, namely:

1.  Robust solutions, those having reached a high stage, that is to say that its value, its innovation as well as the first tests carried out with satisfaction have demonstrated its feasibility and a prototype exists.

2.  Potential solutions, they have a high degree of utility and innovation, but the concept is not finalized and tested Although a prototype may exist; however, it has never been tested.

3.  Embryonic solutions, ideation, or initiation phase, because a good idea is above all an appropriate response to a well-formulated problem.

Towards an online management platform

This new optimized database will be put online in the coming weeks through a platform, an atlas of innovative solutions from AccLab Congo and whose main axes will consist in the management of surveys which will give rise to the implementation of a Data Warehouse and management of innovative solutions.

By Matt SEINZOR, Responsible for Mapping innovative solutions -AccLab Congo