Relief Applications

UNESCO - MAB Biosphere Reserves Platform

The UNESCO Man and the Biosphere (MAB) programme designates and monitors biosphere reserves worldwide: areas demonstrating sustainable relationships between people and nature. Its nomination and periodic-review processes relied on paper forms and manual workflows, with documents submitted in varied formats and little standardisation, making information hard to retrieve and analyse.

Client
UNESCO
When
Since Aug 2025
Team
8 people
Services
App development
Technologies
Oort
Industry
Educational, Scientific and Culture
SDGs
5. Gender equality, 6. Clean water and sanitation, 8. Decent work and economic growth, 9. Industry, innovation and infrastructure, 11. Sustainable cities and communities, 12. Responsible consumption and production, 13. Climate action, 14. Life below water, 15. Life on land
Client website
UNESCO

The UNESCO Man and the Biosphere (MAB) programme designates and monitors biosphere reserves worldwide: areas demonstrating sustainable relationships between people and nature. Its nomination and periodic-review processes relied on paper forms and manual workflows, with documents submitted in varied formats and little standardisation, making information hard to retrieve and analyse.

UNESCO contracted Relief Applications to build a comprehensive digital platform that turns these paper-based processes into efficient digital workflows, standardising the submission and review of nomination and periodic-review forms and giving the MAB Secretariat modern tools to manage a growing network of reserves.

The platform supports 1,000+ users with role-based access, a document repository handling specialised formats such as shapefiles, an integrated GIS validation tool, analytical dashboards and API integration, streamlining the full lifecycle from nomination through periodic review and ongoing monitoring.

The challenge

  • Replace outdated, paper-based workflows with a unified digital system
  • Standardise data collection and integrate document and GIS management
  • Enable secure, scalable collaboration for 1,000+ global users

What we did

  • Built a centralised digital platform with structured online forms and validation.
  • Integrated GIS, document management and analytics dashboards for monitoring.
  • Delivered secure role-based access, ensuring data integrity and global scalability.
MAB Biosphere Reserves Platform, UNESCO: screen 1 MAB Biosphere Reserves Platform, UNESCO: screen 2 MAB Biosphere Reserves Platform, UNESCO: screen 3

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