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Tawakkalna Wins United Nations Public Service Award 2022

The system won the United Nations Public Service Award 2022 in the category of institutional resilience and innovative responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. SPA
The system won the United Nations Public Service Award 2022 in the category of institutional resilience and innovative responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. SPA
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Tawakkalna Wins United Nations Public Service Award 2022

The system won the United Nations Public Service Award 2022 in the category of institutional resilience and innovative responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. SPA
The system won the United Nations Public Service Award 2022 in the category of institutional resilience and innovative responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. SPA

Saudi Arabia is seeking to develop digital governance through the national transformation program of Vision 2030 by launching several services aimed at accelerating digitization in the country to promote the quality of services.

The ‘Tawakkalna’ system is leading the digital transformation in Saudi Arabia, linking most of the services needed by citizens, expats, and visitors in one digitally-efficient platform. It also serves as an electronic wallet that includes all the official public forms and has played a significant role in managing the precautionary measures during the pandemic.

Since its launch in 2020, the system has won several global awards, including the United Nations Public Service Award 2022 in the category of institutional resilience and innovative responses to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The award was handed during a virtual event organized on June 23, within the annual UN forum that honors distinguished figures in public service in support of achieving sustainable development goals.

President of Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA) Dr. Abdullah bin Sharaf Alghamdi explained that receiving this award shows the unlimited support from the government, as well as the empowerment and guidance of the Crown Prince and Chairman of SDAIA's Board of Directors, and his unlimited support for the various initiatives launched by Authority to enhance government collaboration to make the most of data and AI.

Alghamdi stressed that SDAIA was able to accomplish many achievements nationally and globally through the efforts of highly qualified people. He also pointed out that this achievement emphasizes the Kingdom's leadership globally and its determination to attain the goals of the Saudi Vision 2030, and reflects the advanced and reliable infrastructure that SDAIA has.

Alghamdi noted that the experience of Tawakkalna, through all the stages it has gone through, proves the professionalism of the young national cadres who stand behind all the achieved success.

SDAIA has launched Tawakkalna to support government efforts to confront Covid-19 as an application aimed to manage the process of granting permits electronically for government and private sector employees, as well as individuals, during the lockdown, a measure that has helped limit the spread of the virus.

The application launched important services that contributed to achieving a safe return to normal life, most notably explaining the health status of users with the highest levels of safety and privacy.

Afterward, Tawakkalna started to include pandemic-related services such as verifying users' health conditions and health passports, providing Covid-19 test and vaccine services, reviewing health travel requirements, and managing the necessary permits during travel.

The application of Tawakkalna is not only local. Users are now able to use it worldwide as a health passport that proves they are fully vaccinated following an agreement signed with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) aimed at internationally verifying the travelers’ health eligibility in accordance with the best international practices, and accepting the health passport platform as an initiative to digitize health certificates from trusted sources and accredited laboratories in cooperation with airlines.

The United Nations launched its Public Service Award in 2003 with an annual forum to encourage and support distinguished global innovations in the field of public service.

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Scientists in Mexico Develop Tortilla for People with No Fridge

Dr. Raquel Gomez Pliego prepares "super tortillas" at the Industrial Microbiology laboratory of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City on April 10, 2025. (Photo by Carl de Souza / AFP)
Dr. Raquel Gomez Pliego prepares "super tortillas" at the Industrial Microbiology laboratory of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City on April 10, 2025. (Photo by Carl de Souza / AFP)
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Scientists in Mexico Develop Tortilla for People with No Fridge

Dr. Raquel Gomez Pliego prepares "super tortillas" at the Industrial Microbiology laboratory of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City on April 10, 2025. (Photo by Carl de Souza / AFP)
Dr. Raquel Gomez Pliego prepares "super tortillas" at the Industrial Microbiology laboratory of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City on April 10, 2025. (Photo by Carl de Souza / AFP)

Peering through a microscope, food scientist Raquel Gomez studies microorganisms that add nutrients and preserve tortillas for several weeks without refrigerators -- a luxury in impoverished Mexican communities.

The humble tortilla is a Mexican staple, consumed in tacos and other dishes by millions every day, from the Latin American nation's arid northern deserts to its tropical southern jungle.

Most Mexicans buy fresh corn tortillas from small neighborhood shops.

The wheat flour version developed by Gomez and her team contains probiotics -- live microorganisms found in yogurt and other fermented foods.

As well as the nutritional benefits, the fermented ingredients mean the tortilla can be kept for up to a month without refrigeration, much longer than a homemade one, according to its creators.

It was developed "with the most vulnerable people in mind," Gomez, a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), told AFP in her laboratory.

Nearly 14 percent of children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition in Mexico, according to official figures.

In Indigenous communities, the figure is around 27 percent.

The tortilla developed by Gomez is not yet commercially available, but it could benefit people like Teresa Sanchez.

The 46-year-old housewife smokes meat using a wood-burning stove in her house with wooden walls and a metal roof.

Like most of her neighbors in the town of Oxchuc, in the southern state of Chiapas, Sanchez has no refrigerator, so she uses the methods handed down by her Indigenous Tzeltal ancestors.

"My mother taught me and grandparents always do it this way," she told AFP.

"Where are you going to get a refrigerator if there's no money?"

Less than two-thirds of people in Chiapas, a poverty-plagued region with a large Indigenous population, have a refrigerator -- the lowest among Mexico's 32 states.

The average maximum temperature in Chiapas rose from 30.1 to 32 degrees Celsius between 2014 and 2024, according to official estimates.

Half of its territory is considered vulnerable to climate change.

While Oxchuc is located in a mountainous, temperate area, the lack of refrigerators forces its inhabitants to rely on traditional food preservation methods.

"We think about what we're going to eat and how many of us there are. We boil it, and if there's some left over, we boil it again," Sanchez said.

Sometimes meat is salted and left to dry under the sun.

Tortillas are stored in containers made from tree bark.

For that reason, Sanchez only shops for the bare necessities, although her budget is limited anyway.

"I don't have that much money to buy things," she said.

Gomez and her team use prebiotics -- which are mainly found in high-fiber foods -- to feed probiotic cultures and produce compounds beneficial to health, she said.

Thanks to the fermented ingredients, no artificial preservatives are needed in the laboratory developed tortilla, Gomez said.

That is another benefit because such additives have potentially toxic effects, said Guillermo Arteaga, a researcher at the University of Sonora.

One of the most commonly used additives in processed wheat flour tortillas is calcium propionate, which is considered harmful to the colon's microbiota, Arteaga said.

Although her tortilla is made from wheat flour -- a type eaten mainly in northern Mexico -- Gomez does not rule out using the same method for corn tortillas, which are preferred by many Mexicans but can go bad quickly in high temperatures.

The researchers patented their tortilla in 2023. UNAM signed a contract with a company to market the food, but the agreement fell through.

Gomez, who won an award in December from the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property, still hopes to find partners to distribute her tortillas.

She is confident that even though they were developed in a laboratory, consumers will still want to eat them.