For a week in December 2014, UNDP Macedonia (@UNDP_MK) gathered a warm, funny, committed group of people - staff, municipal professionals, citizen experts, university students - and invited them to learn how to think and solve problems like designers using design thinking as their problem-solving methodology.

My job was to take these 60+ design thinking newbies on their learning journey. An honor! We dove into our learning using Design Kit, an open courseware developed by +Acumen and IDEO.org for aspiring and active social innovators. Our aim was to take design mindsets, modes, and methods and apply them to social challenges at the local government level - e.g., the exclusion of people living with disabilities from their communities.

I walked away from this experience with respect for all involved - including the country, itself. Located in the Balkans in Southeast Europe, Macedonia is a small country taking big leaps (e.g., negotiating full membership in the EU), despite only recently becoming an independent state (1991). I was particularly impressed with the UNDP Macedonia team. It's not an overstatement to say they are tireless on behalf of their country's development. And alongside heart, there is head. I'm excited by the strong commitment I see to edge thinking with outstanding thought partners like FutureGov (@FutureGov). This spirited digital public service design firm was invited to support UNDP and the Faculty of Computer Science & Engineering in launching Macedonia's first Social Innovation Hub in 2013.

Now, with the Hub in operation and Design Kit in hand, UNDP Macedonia has more space and a reliable process to support the creation of human-centered services, systems, spaces, products. Staff know how to interview and observe for empathy, share stories and develop insights, reframe problems, and turn their reframed problems into opportunities for design and innovation. In addition, they are positioned to build the capacity of others to do the same.

What's next? I'm voting for design mindsets, modes, and methods to become so ingrained in the office's work (across programme and operations) that UNDP Macedonia is legitimately able to call itself a design-driven development practice. Why move in this direction? There is growing recognition that relevance as a development actor in today’s development landscape depends significantly on design readiness. How to move in this direction? I'll share some thinking in a follow-up post.

Notably, were UNDP Macedonia to create a design-driven development practice, it would be the first in UNDP's network of 135+ country offices to do so - although many UNDP offices have begun investing in a design process (e.g., UNDP Armenia, UNDP Egypt, UNDP Moldova, UNDP Montenegro, and UNDP Uzbekistan to name a few).

Here's to big leaps and the development design thinkers who are taking them!

UNDP Development Design Thinkers Part I: Becoming Design-Ready

UNDP Development Design Thinkers Part II: Becoming Design-Driven