Technology and innovation can play an important role in tackling COVID-19, accelerating how governments and societies respond to the pandemic. Recognising this, the UNDP Global Centre is compiling open-source tools to accelerate the digital response to COVID-19. Although not a panacea, technology and innovation have the potential to support governments in their efforts on-the-ground.

The tools are split into four areas:

• Disease Monitoring: identifying the spread of COVID-19 in a society
• Prevention and Containment: preventing the spread of the disease, and supporting efforts to minimise further spread
• Diagnosis: helping citizens and governments to confirm whether individuals are infected or not
• Recovery: supporting governments and societies in recovering from COVID-19

Each tool may also require customisation for the context in which it will be deployed. This could include updates to location files to highlight local healthcare services, translation of user-interfaces into the local language(s), or larger tweaks.

Open-source approaches are not just limited to the tools below, but also underlying processes and software. This includes open government initiatives (such as Code.gov and GDS) but also open-source software such as Drupal, R, and Python, and assets such as Docker and OpenStack.