Hon. Darsanand Balgobin, Minister of Information Technology, Communication and Innovation

Ms Sandrine Valère, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Information Technology, Communication and Innovation

Dr Kaviraj Sukon, Chairman of the Mauritius Research and Innovation Council,

Professor Theesan Bahorun, Executive Director of the Mauritius Research and Innovation Council,

Staff of the Mauritius Research and Innovation Council, the Ministry of Information Technology, Communication and Innovation and the UNDP Country Office for Mauritius and Seychelles,

Members of the press,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and gentlemen,

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Good afternoon.

I am delighted to be here among you today for the signature of this first ever Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the UNDP Country Office for Mauritius and Seychelles and the Mauritius Research and Innovation Council (MRIC), which operates under the aegis of the Ministry of Information Technology, Communication and Innovation of the Republic of Mauritius.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Three years ago, the Mauritian Government took the decision to transform the Mauritius Research Council, which was created in 1992, 30 years ago, into the Mauritius Research and Innovation Council to make it become the apex body for driving the innovation and transformation agenda of the Government in order to make Mauritius a better country for all its citizens and visitors.

Today, with the unprecedented crises which we are facing, from the impact of climate change to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, both endangering the lives of millions on the planet, it is essential that we all innovate to find effective solutions to these problems. Therefore it is important for a country like Mauritius to have a research and innovation institution such as the MRIC.

The MRIC has been instrumental in organizing calls for projects during both the initial COVID pandemic as well as the Wakashio crisis. As a result, hundreds of Mauritian citizens, startups and companies sent their proposals and the best were then given some funding and support to deploy their solutions on a larger scale and, for some of them, nationally and even regionally.

The MRIC, in parallel, proposes various schemes in order to allow educational and research institutions as well as companies in Mauritius and Rodrigues to develop further. These schemes have proved their worth over the years.

And, of course, we should not forget about successes such as the design, construction and launch of the first Mauritian nano satellite, MIR-SAT1, and the organization of a National Innovation Challenge which is currently taking place.

Ladies and gentlemen,

For many years, the UNDP Country Office has been working in close collaboration with the Government of Mauritius, but also the Government of Seychelles, in order to implement sustainable solutions to the development challenges which have been affecting the lives of citizens.

For example, under the Protected Area Network project, which is about expanding the coverage and strengthening management effectiveness of the protected area network in Mauritius, the initial restored areas have increased from 90 hectares to 575 hectares. However, to further increase the PAN, it is important to adopt innovative mechanisms and actions, especially on privately owned and leased lands.

Over the past years, UNDP has accelerated its actions in Mauritius towards addressing gender inequities through gender mainstreaming. The elimination of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) has been high on our agenda in full recognition that violence against women remains a grave violation of human rights.

UNDP has been at the forefront of extending technical and financial assistance to formulate and implement different actions to eliminate GBV and work towards the full accountability of perpetrators.

Recently, we have contributed to the formulation of the National Strategy and Action Plan on the Elimination of GBV (2019-2024) and the development of the GBV Mobile Application called “Lespwar”.

I am happy to mention that the Government is currently working with UNDP to evaluate whether the Lespwar app can be added to the global Digital Public Goods Alliance repository so that people in other countries can benefit from this innovation.

Ladies and gentlemen,

During the past two years, we have also all realized how important it is to have an effective health system to cope with pandemics such as COVID-19. UNDP has worked in close collaboration with the Embassy of Japan in Mauritius and the Ministry of Information Technology, Communication and Innovation, in implementing an open-source software-based Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) with the technical assistance of the University of Washington. We will shortly increase the scope of LIMS to a passenger information system to better track and manage testing for inbound travellers.

During the pandemic, we worked closely with Government to provide new IT equipment, vaccine, medical supplies and address the issue of hospital waste management and Mauritius will shortly have a Surveillance Outbreak Response Management and Analysis System (SORMAS) based on an existing open-source software.

The UNDP Country Office is also supporting the Ministry of Health and Wellness with the legal drafting of a Digital Health Law to provide the legal and institutional framework for Digital Health. This is in line with Strategic Goal 18 of the Health Sector Strategic Plan 2020-2024.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Technology can play an immense role in making the health system of Mauritius and Rodrigues still more robust and integrated with the right components to improve the services provided to all citizens at health centres and to increase the quality of patient care, thereby increasing patient safety, inter alia.

From Dec 2021 to Dec 2023, the Mauritian Government will implement a comprehensive e-Health system with the UNDP Mauritius Country Office as a key partner. The first two stages will be the launching of an Expression of Interest and, subsequently, the implementation of the Patient Administration System (PAS) module in all Regional Hospitals.

One important objective of the system is that it will have a single integrated source of information for all matters related to health. This will allow for an increase in the level of collaboration between the various stakeholders of the health sector.

There are many other UNDP projects currently being implemented in Mauritius and Rodrigues in full conformity with the Country Programme Document, signed between UNDP and the Government, and the UN 2030 Agenda.

2030 is only 8 years away and achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will require all of us to innovate.

UNDP wants to adopt a new model for upcoming projects to exceed pre-COVID development trajectories, through a combination of bold policy choices and investments in governance, social protection, green economy and digitalization. This “SDG Push” requires a new mindset.

In the past few years, UNDP has recruited new staff to constitute the Data Office, the Digital Office and the Accelerator Lab Network globally and in Mauritius.

The Accelerator Lab Network supports 115 countries from 91 locations. The UNDP Mauritius and Seychelles Accelerator Lab was officially launched last year in April and, has as mission, to sense the latest trends in terms of innovation, to identify and promote grassroots innovators and to run experiments with various stakeholders across the islands in order to test hypotheses.

Ladies and gentlemen,

One such hypothesis is that any women, even with no formal knowledge of accounting and finance, can properly run a business and make sound financial decisions.

With this in view, the Accelerator Lab will shortly conduct a Financial Literacy experiment with women led SMES. Through simple online videos delivered in Mauritian Creole on precise finance topics, and an online forum to facilitate peer-to-peer learning, women entrepreneurs in Mauritius and Rodrigues will benefit from a more flexible solution towards improving their financial knowledge.

And this is where, having such a Memorandum of Understanding between the Mauritius Research and Innovation Council, comes at a fitting time.

This Financial Literacy experiment can be run as a joint experiment between the MRIC and the Country Office with, for example, the women entrepreneurs currently at Future Female Invest, one of the incubators which the MRIC finances.

Similarly, in the context of the South-South Innovation Programme, the UNDP GEF Small Grants Programme in Mauritius is partnering with SGP Belize and the MRIC to develop community-led Seaweed Farming as a Nature-Based Solution. A critical component of this project will be to facilitate knowledge exchanges between the MRIC, the University of Mauritius, the Food and Agricultural and Research Institute (FAREI), and the Turneffe Atoll Sustainability Association (TASA) in Belize. This project will focus predominantly on women and young people as agents of change promoting sustainable, nature-based approaches.

We look forward to this exciting opportunity which encapsulates several areas of cooperation identified in this MoU.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The MoU, which we are going to sign today, is an important milestone for both the Mauritius Research and Innovation Council and the UNDP Country Office.

It covers several important areas, namely the sharing of data about the innovation ecosystem of Mauritius, Rodrigues and the other islands of the Republic of Mauritius. The Accelerator Lab has recently recruited UN Community Volunteers to help constitute GRID, the Grassroots Innovation Database. Right now, GRID is empty.

But, during the past few years, the MRIC has identified hundreds of qualifying innovators. This is also true for UNDP which, through the GEF Small Grants Programme, has an extensive list of people from all villages and towns currently tackling local development challenges through various grassroots initiatives.

GRID could benefit, from its inception, from these profiles. The quick mapping of existing solutions and innovators across the region is fundamental if we want to achieve our targets by 2030.

Secondly, UNDP and MRIC can collaborate in the exploration of new trends and weak signals. The world is rapidly changing, and we need to be agile in order to fully embrace all latest research and development possibilities. The MRIC, with its root in research, and the UNDP, with its pledge to “leave no one behind” and its focus on development, including novel development financing, can work in tandem to create real-time impact.

A third collaboration area is in multi-stakeholder experiments and programmes in order to come up with solutions to the complex problems which citizens are currently facing. The MoU will allow MRIC and UNDP to share technical expertise and knowledge on thematic areas of mutual interest, most notably concerning technology and innovation but also expertise in various specific domains (e.g., climate change mitigation, the blue economy, socio-economic development, etc.)

Finally, through the MoU, both MRIC and UNDP will participate in events organized by the other party, starting with the Financial Literacy experiment but also the “Assises de l’Innovation” to be organized by MRIC and other events planned during the year.

This type of collaboration, based on mutual interests but also, and more importantly, on mutual values, can only contribute to make Mauritius and Rodrigues better for all citizens.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Before ending, allow me to congratulate all of those who have worked hard to make this MoU become a reality, including those at the Mauritius Research and Innovation Council, at the Ministry of Information Technology, Communication and Innovation and, of course, my colleagues at the UNDP Country Office.

May this relationship between our two prestigious institutions be a catalyst to accelerate our journey towards the fulfilment of the 2030 UN Agenda and Vision 2030 of the Government of Mauritius.

I wish you all the best and I am looking forward to a better future for all.

Thank you for your kind attention.