UNCTAD TrainForTrade is nominated with the game as finalist for the 2023 UN Secretary General Award in the innovation category “UN 2.0 Quintet of Change”
15 February - Geneva, Antwerp, Tokyo
The triple partnership of UNCTAD TrainForTrade, APEC-Antwerp/Flanders Port Training Center and IAPH have taken the Port Endeavor UN SDG game to the next level. The serious game, which has been co-developed to encourage global ports and their communities to integrate the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals into their businesses, is now fully digitised.
The Port Endeavor upgrade allows both live and remote moderation for games of up to six ports with seven people playing in person per team with a given role. Players as well as moderators can use their smart phones and tablets to interact, meaning that is all that is required is a space for players, wi-fi, a laptop projecting the map with team scores and a set of role cards for each team.
“Our game has already been played by over 1,000 port professionals from all five continents, and we would now like to take the game beyond the ports themselves to the communities they serve” commented UNCTAD TrainForTrade Chief Mark Assaf. “Digitising the game allows moderators to operate more freely and to focus on the choice of solutions the teams must select based on World Ports Sustainability projects to become the most sustainable port with the largest number and widest variety of UN SDGs won.”
By automating the scoring, visualising the UN SDGs collected online per team using the famous seventeen icons and even allowing for a digital dice throw to try and avoid real life incidents after round three, players can enjoy the game at a conference or on the sidelines of a corporate meeting with the support of moderators equipped with tablets or iPads.
UNCTAD TrainForTrade - finalist for the internal UN Secretary General Awards for 2023
Every year, the UN Secretary-General honours and recognises significant performance of UN Secretariat personnel who go above and beyond the call of duty in the discharge of their duties or initiate and implement projects with great impact and innovative potential with the UN Secretary-General Awards.
The UNCTAD TrainForTrade team has been nominated as finalists in the category “UN 2.0 - Quintet of Change”. The award to given to the team which “cultivates an organisational culture that thrives on agility, creativity, learning, adaptability, innovation, data, digital and strategic foresight, and champions diversity, inclusion, and youth empowerment.”
APEC and Port of Antwerp-Bruges International Managing Director Kristof Waterschoot commented: “The co-creation of this game, which began back in 2019 when our port’s sustainability team teamed up with our IAPH colleagues and a professional serious game creator, has now reached a new digitised level which will allow us as partners to bring sustainability best practices to all kinds of ports and their communities.”
IAPH Managing Director Patrick Verhoeven concluded : “Ultimately this game was conceived during a brainstorm between our port members, academia, shipowners and UNCTAD itself in its Geneva headquarters back in March 2019 when we all decided to find a novel way of bringing the World Ports Sustainability Program best practices to life. To see it now being recognised by the office of the UN Secretary General five years later is testament to the teamwork between ourselves and our two partners. Port Endeavor offers an enjoyable way to inform and educate professionals on how ports work with the Sustainable Development Goals. We wish UNCTAD TrainforTrade the best of luck for the Award.”
Story contact : Victor Shieh, IAPH Communications Director
Email : victor.shieh@iaphworldports.org
Note:
The Port Endeavor game will be part of the agenda for the UNCTAD Global Supply Chain Forum in Barbados 20-24 May 2024:
https://unctad.org/conference/global-supply-chain-forum-2024/meeting/port-endeavor-game
About IAPH
Founded in 1955, the International Association of Ports and Harbors (IAPH) has developed into a global alliance of 180 port authorities as well as 150 port-related businesses. Comprised of 84 different nationalities across the world’s continents, member ports handle approximately one third of the world’s sea-borne trade and well over 60% of the world container traffic. IAPH leads global port industry initiatives on decarbonisation and energy transition, risk and resilience management, and accelerating digitalisation in the maritime transport chain. The IAPH’s World Ports Sustainability Program has grown into the reference database of best practices of ports applying the UN Sustainable Development Goals and integrating them into their businesses.
About APEC
APEC- Antwerp/Flanders Port Training Center , affiliated with the Port of Antwerp-Bruges, serves as the global training center for the Flemish ports and has been actively organizing port courses since 1977, facilitating the exchange of port knowledge and expertise within port communities.
APEC welcomes its participants in the iconic Port House in Antwerp, facilitating not only on-site visits to the port platforms of Antwerp-Bruges, Ghent, and Brussels, but also collaborating with experts from Flemish ports, the private sector, and universities to ensure the successful implementation of its programmes.
Over the past four decades, more than 19,000 port professionals worldwide have participated in one of our courses, benefiting from the valuable insights and learning experiences provided.
About UNCTAD TrainForTrade
The TrainForTrade programme focuses on developing skills, knowledge and capacities through innovative development approaches based on a recognised pedagogical method and state-of-the-art technological solutions. Its objectives are to:
- Build sustainable networks of knowledge to enhance national ownership, South-South and triangular cooperation.
- Encourage development-oriented trade policy to reduce poverty and to promote transparency and good practices.
- Promote digital solutions and innovative thinking to enhance capacities of international trade players.