~ The word culture comes from the Latin cultus, meaning care ~

UNFPA's Culture Initiative aims to ensure that as an organization, we are fit for purpose, ready to meet new challenges, and poised to deliver on our shared goal of empowering the lives of women, girls, and young people around the world.

The Launch Pad hosts UNFPA's toolkit on organizational culture - one of the actions undertaken as part of the UNFPA Culture Initiative to help us embrace our aspirational culture, as defined by Our Principles. The toolkit is intended to be your go-to-place for organizational culture; supporting both individual and team learning, stimulating discussions on culture, and inspiring you to take action to promote our aspirational culture.

The toolkit includes content on actions and behaviours needed to ensure a healthy organizational culture, including:

• Staying true to Our Principles

• Embracing transparency

• Recognizing efforts and contributions

• Cultivating strong colleague relationships

• Communicating on shared purpose and goals

• Providing regular feedback.

~ The culture of any organization is the glue that holds everything together ~

The toolkit contains five primary modules, each of which focuses on one of the Principles of UNFPA's aspirational culture, and seeks to support personnel, including managers and senior leaders, in transforming the way we work and interact as individuals, as teams, and, overall, as an organization. More specifically, the toolkit  contains a range of practical resources to inspire, equip and empower all of us to demonstrate, reinforce and reward actions and behaviours that align with our aspirational culture. 

The Launch Pad serves as the entry point to the toolkit which is also available in four languages (Arabic, English, French, Spanish) as a pdf compendium to dive deeper. In addition to the five modules, the Launch Pad also provides an opportunity to share best practices on how to demonstrate Our Principles in our day-to-day work life. Further, it hosts the recordings from the Arts and Culture Lounge sessions (an employee initiative for cultural expressions to foster inclusion and diversity at work).

What is in the toolkit now, is the starting point. The aim is to continuously update and expand the toolkit. The Launch Pad and the toolkit itself, therefore, also include several options for sharing ideas and providing feedback and have a built-in-tracking mechanism to help determine where there is a need for additional content and/or improvements to current content.

UNFPA's culture lies in our hands. Our words, actions, and ways of thinking matter every day. Together, let's use this toolkit, and all of the resources available to us, to learn, to grow and to make progress for ourselves, our organization, and for the women, girls, and young people we proudly serve.

Please make sure to follow our MyUNFPA community page for further updates on the toolkit.

Head straight to the toolkit by clicking on the following modules. Alternatively, you can explore the toolkit modules using the toolbar at the top of this page. There are also a number of other features and pages on the Launch Pad for you to check out, including downloadable resources.

Toolkit developed by ThinkPlace and Corporate Performance and Foresight Unit.