Enhanced due diligence and risk monitoring with private-sector partners through AI and natural language processing
Challenge
Due diligence requires that UNHCR thoroughly screen its private-sector partners and analyse potential reputational risks. The resulting labour-intensive screening reports are valid for a year, during which the donor monitoring work is more flexible and variable.
Solution
UNHCR’s BEYOND project team will use AI-based software with natural language processing (NLP) features to develop a tool that automatically feeds pertinent risk- and opportunity-related updates on partners to relevant teams, enabling ongoing risk-monitoring while facilitating strategic donor cultivation and partnership development.
Impact
This tool will improve and support proactive risk monitoring and relationship work through automatic updates, as well as optimising and streamlining the research, identification, and documentation of controversies for the due diligence screening process.
Project impact
Other information
UNHCR's Due Diligence team screens private sector partners once a year, leaving long gaps where reputational risks or partnership opportunities can be missed. Funded by the Data Innovation Fund, BEYOND uses Natural Language Processing to draw partner information from UNHCR's Synergy platform and continuously scan external news and ESG databases for relevant updates, from CSR and philanthropy opportunities. Embedded directly in Synergy Hub, BEYOND alerts partnership focal points in real time and supports customised, multi-language keyword monitoring across 5,000+ donor records. The tool strengthens strategic relationship management, protects UNHCR's reputation, and ensures a do-no-harm approach in private sector engagement with forcibly displaced and stateless people.