Transforming Systems in the Decade of Action

UNDP Field Guide for Human Development Report Dialogues

Building conditions and capabilities to shape new futures in uncertain times

How to build systems leadership capabilities

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Read up on our recent blogs on "Shifting Mindsets to Shift Development Systems": Why We Need to Move Inward so that We Can Move Forward on the 2030 Agenda and Cultivating the Conditions for Systems Transformation

How to join this journey?

- Login & follow the "Transformation" tag to join the community and stay up to date
- Watch the YouTube playlist with all previous awareness-based dialogues since 2020
- Find more resources related to Systems Transformation on SparkBlue!
- For more information, please contact us at: [email protected]

About this initiative

Co-led by the Human Development and Integration Communities of Practice, jointly with the SDG Integration and Human Development Report teams, this new learning series explores practical approaches inspired by the Field Guide for Human Development Report 2021/22 Dialogues. Over the past few months, it showcased practical ways to harness the power of intentionally designed dialogue, grounded in principles of awareness-based systems transformation, to shape new futures in uncertain times and translate insights from the HDR into transformative policy pathways. It helped understand what it means to harness dialogue as a building block for human development and gaps to be addressed. Catch up on the learning series here!

24 October 2023: 🎥 Can Better Dialogue Help Us Transform Systems: An Introduction to the Field Guide for HDR Dialogues, featuring UNDP Country Offices Guatemala and North Macedonia 

28 November 2023: 🎥 Building Trust for Effective Collaborative Action: Stories from Indonesia and the National Action Plan on Sustainable Palm Oil, featuring Indonesian stakeholders

5 December 2023: 🎥 Effective Collaborative Action: Where to Start? A Practice-based Session, featuring the UNDP Food and Agricultural Commodity Systems (FACS) team

30 January 2024: 🎥 Bringing Indigenous and Local Wisdom to Knowledge Co-Creation for Nature: The Trialogue Approach, featuring the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Network (BES-Net)


Since June 2020, UNDP is partnering with the Presencing Institute to build and sustain architectures of learning and connection for the cultivation of transformation literacy and action confidence within the UN system and beyond! Between June and September 2020, we co-hosted a series of Summer Dialogue Series aimed at building such capabilities for awareness-based collective action. Drawing on the energy and insights from the initial dialogues, it continued with a global Transforming Systems Dialogue Series between January and June 2021. These virtual gatherings and learning spaces invited UN staff into a unique space to understand and apply approaches from Theory U to the complex challenges at the core of our work. The sessions took the core questions of the 2020 Human Development Report on Human Development and the Anthropocene as a point of focus for co-inquiry into mechanisms for systems transformation. For an even deeper dive into this process, a 4-month Action Learning Lab for UN practitioners provided an opportunity for staff to hone their action confidence by applying transformation literacy approaches to problems of their choice.

Transforming Dialogue Series

Applying approaches from Theory U to the complex challenges at the core of our work

UN Action Learning Lab

A four-month guided systems transformation journey for UN practitioners

Summer Dialogue Series

Catch up on this Awareness-based Collective Action series hosted in 2020

Collective Intelligence for Sustainable Development

Read up to understand how to embed Collective Intelligence principles and methods into SDG work

Putting the 2020 HDR into Practice

Join the group and read up on the insights, lessons learned and concrete examples to actualize the 2020 HDR

Human Development Report 2021/22

Read our flagship publication on "Uncertain Times, Unsettled Lives: Shaping our Future in a Transforming World"