For a long time, as I’ve kept finding stories about frugal inventors who are creating practical solutions to problems in their rural communities, I’ve thought that international development needed to develop a way to find these creative people and share their ideas and work more widely.

And I have just discovered an institution that is set up to do just that – UNDP’s Accelerator Labs – using techniques called ‘solutions mapping’ and ‘user-led innovation’.

The UN Development Programme (UNDP) created Accelerator Labs in 2019 to help it find these frugal, but often invisible, innovators. It now has 92 labs across 116 countries, allowing it to learn from women and men who live in poverty but have a lot to contribute to putting the planet on a more sustainable path.