Digital Innovation Fund
Read more about the Fund. Please note several endorsements are still pending.
Digital platform for complementary pathways – Pakistan
Challenge: Pakistan has provided refuge to millions of Afghans for more than 40 years and currently hosts more than 1.4 million registered refugees and asylum seekers. Several countries have created safe complementary pathways (CPWs) for Afghans (e.g., education or employment-based resettlement options), but accessing these can be challenging, particularly for women.
Solution: Develop a user-friendly, multilingual digital platform for Afghans to more easily navigate and access CPW schemes. It will provide comprehensive information, leverage AI, and rely on partnerships with legal entities to deliver personalized guidance, with a particular focus on empowering women by addressing cultural and systemic barriers.
Expected results: Built using strategic partnerships and community involvement, this accessible digital tool will empower users, particularly women, to navigate CPW processes effectively, increasing their access to education, employment, family reunification and other CPW opportunities.
Igniting STEM innovation in Dzaleka’s schools – Malawi
Challenge: Despite efforts to prioritize science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, Malawi lags behind its peers in sub-Saharan Africa. Challenges are even greater for refugee learners, who are not integrated into government efforts, limiting their ability to access educational and job opportunities.
Solution: Establish Innovation Garages – creative, hands-on learning hubs – in Dzaleka to foster STEM education via after-school clubs, leveraging a refugee-led digital centre and following Ministry of Education guidelines. These venues will also serve as an advocacy platform to integrate refugees into the plans and programmes of government and development actors.
Expected results: Boosted creativity among refugee and host community learners through digital skills and access to advanced technologies. Enhanced competitiveness and inclusion, with students connected to universities.
Refugees connected – Kenya
Challenge: In Kenya, refugees can request services and appointments with UNHCR through an automated system – Kiosk Automated Services and Information (KASI) – but innovative approaches are needed to mitigate opportunities for fraud and corruption.
Solution: Leveraging Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) – a mobile protocol usable without internet access – to develop an alternative avenue for scheduling service requests that relies on familiar, reliable, and accessible technology. The solution accounts for language, literacy, and internet access differentials, offering flexibility and coverage while preserving confidentiality.
Expected results: Refugees will enjoy easier access to the system for making in-person appointments with UNHCR on critical areas of service, including biodata changes, refugee status determination counselling, and complaint and feedback mechanisms.
More accessible cash assistance through mobile app – Syria
Challenge: Existing digital solutions for cash-based interventions (CBI) do not address the specific needs of Syria’s diverse population or keep pace with changing financial regulations, resulting in many issues with accessing cash assistance. Information on entitlements, eligibility, and troubleshooting is scattered, requiring people to contact multiple offices, hotlines, and websites just to get basic information.
Solution: A tailored cash-assistance mobile app for refugees and internally displaced people, integrated with existing databases and management systems for seamless authentication. It provides multilingual access to personal CBI details, support, information on services, self-service tasks, and remote verification.
Expected results: Refugees and internally displaced people benefit from easy, safe access to accurate information about CBI in Syria, enabling them to more easily access services. The app allows for direct feedback, promoting transparency, and reduces the need for costly visits to physical UNHCR locations from remote areas.
Digitization mentorship to empower displaced entrepreneurs – Yemen
Challenge: Over the past nine years, Yemen’s Marib Governorate has hosted 1.8 million internally displaced people – amounting to 90% of its population. Marib’s business growth remains the slowest in the country, and those who have experienced displacement often struggle to find livelihoods opportunities.
Solution: Empower entrepreneurs in Marib through a comprehensive programme that aims to enhance their business management skills and increase their confidence with digital tools, via structured support and financial grants.
Expected results: Strengthened self-reliance for internally displaced entrepreneurs. The project will equip 200 individuals with essential digital and entrepreneurial skills, while more than 60 will receive structured mentorship to develop and refine their business ideas. Around 20 will be supported with financial grants or start-up kits, and more than 60 will be connected to funding opportunities.
Amplifying RLOs’ voices for greater funding opportunities – Rwanda
Challenge: Refugee-led organizations (RLOs) play a vital role in community support and protection, yet they remain severely underfunded – receiving less than 1% of global humanitarian aid. Many lack digital visibility, making it difficult to attract donors and partners.
Solution: Supporting RLOs in Rwanda – many of whom have no website or social media – to enhance their online presence and showcase their stories, boosting their credibility to donors and the public.
Expected result: Participating RLOs will have a professional online presence and staff trained to maintain it and generate content, enabling them to more effectively showcase their work. This enhanced online presence will attract more partnership and funding opportunities, helping to ensure the sustainability of their activities.
Data Innovation Fund
Read more about the Fund. Please note several endorsements are still pending.
Document scanning for enhanced collection of identity management data – Global
Challenge: UNHCR regularly surveys the communities we work with and for to collect detailed data on protection needs and access to services. However, time and funding constraints often limit data collection to the household level, which can overlook the diverse needs of individuals.
Solution: Developing a mobile, offline-capable app – the Kobo Document Scanner. The app employs optical character recognition (OCR) to accurately and efficiently extract key personal and location data from identification documents of community members, integrating this information into Kobo, UNHCR’s survey collection tool.
Expected results: Replacing time-consuming manual data collection, this app (once piloted in Pakistan) will integrate with UNHCR’s existing corporate solutions, helping field teams to collect comprehensive individual-level data, improving data accuracy, reducing assessment time, and advancing UNHCR’s age, gender, and diversity policy.
Improved information access through AI-supported virtual assistant – Iran
Challenge: Most forcibly displaced people in Iran feel uninformed about their rights and the services available to them, which makes it harder for them to access these services, increasing protection risks. UNHCR receives about 500,000 calls each year, only 10–15% of which can be answered, based on human resource capacity.
Solution: Testing ways to develop an AI-supported response mechanism (a virtual assistant) to efficiently handle basic information requests – for instance, generic information on resettlement or documentation – from community members, freeing up human resources for cases requiring specific support.
Expected results: Improved response rates to all requests as well as enhanced accessibility for callers in need of specific support. The Afghan refugee population in Iran will enjoy greater access to information on their rights and available services.
Enhancing healthcare outcomes through strategic planning, forecasting, and quantification – Tanzania
Challenge: Tanzania’s Nyarugusu and Nduta refugee camps host more than 260,000 people. Stockouts and expirations of medicines and medical supplies in the camps, compounded by increasing humanitarian resource constraints, limit the quality of healthcare available to residents.
Solution: Leveraging predictive modelling and data analytics to forecast medicine needs based on various factors – including population dynamics, health trends, disease outbreaks, and historical consumption patterns – to increase the efficiency of supply chains, optimize distribution, and reduce the risk of shortages or overstocking.
Expected results: Reliable access to medicines and supplies, leading to better care and fewer preventable deaths. More efficient use of limited resources in a context where timely access to medication is critical for wellbeing.
EGRISS IDQ: Leveraging behavioural analysis and AI for more reliable statistics on forcibly displaced populations – Global
Challenge: Identifying refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) is essential to ensure their visibility in data produced through national surveys, which can affect policy decisions. Clarifying, standardizing, and streamlining survey questions used to identify these groups will fill important guidance gaps and ensure more reliable data.
Solution: Improving and validating the identification questionnaire toolkit for refugee and IDP populations by integrating cognitive testing (examining how people understand questions), behavioural analysis, and AI technologies to ensure clarity, accuracy, and reliability in data collection, aligned to international statistical recommendations.
Expected results: Enhanced reliability of identifying forcibly displaced individuals in household surveys, driving more accurate inclusion of refugee, IDP, and stateless communities in official statistics. This will facilitate the production of more comparable data and tracking of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) broken down by displacement status.
From arrival to exit: Modelling shelter stays – Brazil
Challenge: UNHCR has not yet fully leveraged the extensive operational data it possesses to estimate how long people forced to flee will stay in emergency shelters. Addressing this data-driven shelter management gap could improve planning and resource allocation, furthering UNHCR’s protection and durable solutions mandates.
Solution: Use UNHCR registration and sheltering data to develop a simulation model that explores how different factors affect shelter stays. This tool could help UNHCR test various management strategies, plan more effective shelter exits, and design long-term support solutions.
Expected results: Accurate identification of factors affecting length of stay will inform policy and programme development, enhancing UNHCR’s data-driven decision making and ultimately improving refugee well-being. The exploration of different shelter management scenarios through simulation will support more effective planning, resource allocation, and tailored exit strategies.
More efficient and ethical consent gathering, through digital app – Global
Challenge: UNHCR currently gathers informed consent from refugees to use photographs and quotes in communications materials through a paper-based process. While this process has served an important function, it can be difficult to adapt across diverse cultural contexts, varying literacy levels, and accessibility needs. It also slows down the collection and storage of information, is environmentally unsustainable, and does not meet data protection standards.
Solution: Develop an app that gathers consent digitally, safely storing data on UNHCR servers. The proposed app works offline, supports multiple languages, offers the option of either digital signature or voice consent, and links consent forms and photos directly to Refugees Media, UNHCR’s online multimedia library.
Expected results: Ensuring UNHCR’s consent-gathering process is more efficient, ethical, and sustainable. This digital solution will enhance data protection, streamline operations, and ensure cultural sensitivity, improving the organization’s ability to advocate for and protect forcibly displaced and stateless people.
Flight for Hope: Drone-supported monitoring to optimize aid delivery – Chad
Challenge: Chad spans 1.28 million square kilometres and hosts more than 2 million forcibly displaced people, with many incoming as a result of the crisis in Sudan. Security problems, limited resources, dynamic population flows, and barriers to accessing displacement sites make monitoring these communities and coordinating appropriate assistance challenging.
Solution: Leveraging drones and satellite imagery to better understand conditions at displacement sites, agricultural areas, and key transit areas on the Chad-Sudan border. AI-supported analysis of drone and satellite footage will generate data to support targeted development and humanitarian work across several sectors, including public health and livelihoods.
Expected results: Enhanced site management, population monitoring, aid delivery, and resource rationalisation. Local capacity will be built through training on equipment use, and collaboration with communities and development partners will be strengthened to ensure alignment with local needs.
Environment and Climate Action Innovation Fund
Read more about the Fund. Please note several endorsements are still pending.
Systematising UNHCR sustainable waste management – Global
Challenge: UNHCR’s humanitarian response generates an estimated 750+ kilo-tonnes of waste per year, but limited resources and lack of sustainable approaches means the organization struggles to safely and responsibly reuse, repurpose, and dispose of this waste as per its strategic goals.
Solution: A scoping exercise to explore waste streams in displacement camps and warehouses, to design and test a more efficient, localised, and community-based waste management system.
Expected results: Initial development of a standardised set of actions and tools to scale globally, enabling UNHCR and other humanitarian actors to reduce their environmental impact and promote sustainable waste management in partnership with communities.
Reviving UNHCR’s solar photovoltaic systems – East and Horn of Africa and Great Lakes
Challenge: Over time, UNHCR invested in various solar PV systems to enhance clean energy access, but some became dysfunctional due to a lack of standards, enforcement tools, operation and maintenance, or spare parts. Instead of providing clean energy, such systems are at risk of becoming e-waste.
Solution: Idle or inefficient systems will be identified and an innovative combination of solutions for improved sustainable functioning will be combined in an innovative way – including legal tools to enforce existing technical standards and enable operations and maintenance expertise, technical components for appropriate maintenance, and operational support such as targeted capacity building.
Expected results: Practical insights and tools that can be applied across operations to restore and manage solar PV systems, reduce e-waste, and enhance UNHCR’s capacity to efficiently generate clean energy now and in the future.
Recharging aquifers for sustainable water management in Dzaleka Camp – Malawi
Challenge: Dzaleka refugee camp’s water supply infrastructure is under pressure, leading to substandard levels of service. Groundwater over-abstraction, due to a high number of boreholes, drives aquifer depletion, spurred on by regional drought conditions and seasonal extreme weather events.
Solution: Working with refugees, members of the host community, and others to facilitate and measure groundwater recharge, by building low-cost wells and dams that control erosion, capture runoff for crop irrigation, and allow the gradual infiltration of rainwater back into aquifers. Real time monitoring technology and physical measurement of boreholes will monitor groundwater levels.
Expected results: More sustainable groundwater abstraction by enabling the recharge of aquifers – used by both refugee and host communities – with rainwater runoff. The risk of soil erosion and flooding will be mitigated and livelihoods will be enhanced through irrigation dams for cash crops.
Creative environmental and cultural laboratory – Colombia
Challenge: In Buenaventura’s Lleras neighborhood, forcibly displaced families and host communities face acute protection risks. Children are particularly vulnerable to exploitation, abuse, and recruitment by non-state armed groups. These dangers are compounded by severe environmental degradation, marked by inadequate waste management and the absence of clean and safe communal spaces.
Solution: The Creative Environmental and Cultural Laboratory will foster safer environments for children, youth, and the wider community through locally driven, sustainability-focused initiatives. By transforming waste into musical instruments and other cultural assets while building community capacity for waste management and inclusive cultural expression, the project nurtures pride and belonging.
Results: Greater environmental and cultural awareness. Stronger social cohesion and inclusion through intergenerational engagement. Expanded opportunities and leadership roles for children, contributing to the prevention, mitigation, and response to recruitment by non-state armed groups.
Sustainable transitional shelter models – Brazil
Challenge: Although shelters are intended to be temporary, displacement seldom is. This creates the challenge of improving shelter designs and technologies that meet immediate needs while also supporting recovery in a way that incorporates local adaptations and materials to ensure autonomy, dignity, and sustainability – especially when considering most refugee settlements and camps are projected to experience twice as many days of dangerous heat by 2050.
Solution: Designing a sustainable shelter system, with the support of Better Shelter, that promotes community-driven adaptation. The system features a robust, modular, and easily assembled frame that can be clad with local materials or prefabricated panels, ensuring adaptability to diverse climates and contexts. Communities and local markets will be robustly engaged with throughout the process.
Expected results: Identification of shelter solutions and validation through the construction, testing, and evaluation of prototypes to improve the wellbeing of residents. The results will guide design changes to the shelter system and the development of a localized delivery strategy, ensuring that solutions are practical, sustainable, and tailored to community needs.
Community reuse centres for environmental sustainability and urban integration – Slovakia
Challenge: Meeting basic household needs is unaffordable for many refugees in Slovakia, while initiatives and infrastructure to enable reuse and repurposing of items in urban areas are lacking or insufficient. Existing circular economy opportunities are not fully inclusive of refugees, limiting avenues to enhance their socioeconomic inclusion.
Solution: Codeveloping an integrated model of community reuse centres (CRCs) – community hubs where refugees and locals meet for activities including recycling, DIY repair workshops, community gardening, and more. The CRCs will leverage circular and social economies to address environmental challenges and enhance social cohesion.
Expected results: Ways to support and manage CRCs are developed and tested in selected urban areas across Slovakia to improve refugee inclusion and community environmental sustainability. Evidence and lessons from this pilot support the establishment of centres in additional settings, increasing accessibility.
Refugee-led Innovation Fund
Read more about the Fund. Please note several endorsements are still pending.
Pathways to postgraduate education via tailored mentorship – Samali Foundation, Ireland
Challenge: Refugees and asylum seekers in Ireland face significant barriers to accessing postgraduate education – including qualification recognition challenges, lack of documentation, and financial constraints – hindering their integration and professional advancement.
Solution: The Samali Foundation will pilot, at the University of Galway, a one-year Postgraduate Access Programme designed specifically for refugees and asylum seekers – the first of its kind in Ireland. Combining tailored academic preparation, mentorship, and civic engagement, the programme will offer flexible admission pathways that recognize prior learning without requiring formal documentation.
Expected results: Directly benefit 10–20 participants by equipping them with a Higher Diploma in Postgraduate Foundation Studies, enabling access to postgraduate studies or improved employment opportunities, while indirectly benefiting their families and society through enhanced social inclusion and economic contribution.
Improving refugees’ access to safe drinking water through better storage solutions – Youth Life Change for Peace and Development (YLCPD), Ethiopia
Challenge: Refugees in Jewi Refugee Camp lack access to safe drinking water storage solutions, leading to water contamination and associated health risks.
Solution: YLCPD will develop and distribute improved clay water storage pots specifically designed to reduce contamination. These pots will feature a narrow opening to prevent skin contact with stored water and a locally crafted clay spigot for hygienic water retrieval. Drawing on traditional techniques from Ethiopian and Nuer pottery and using local materials, the solution ensures affordability, cultural acceptability, and sustainability.
Expected results: Directly benefit 24,000 individuals by providing safe water storage solutions and indirectly improve the health and hygiene of 35,000 refugees and host community members through reduced waterborne diseases and enhanced water management practices.
Erosion prevention for a safer camp environment – Agir pour l’environnement, Burundi
Challenge: In Kavumu refugee camp, heavy rainfall and unchecked soil erosion have created hazardous ravines just metres from refugee shelters. Poor geographical siting, lack of adequate water channelling infrastructure, and fragile soil conditions have intensified the damage, placing more than 1,400 refugees at direct risk of flooding.
Solution: Agir pour l’environnement will implement a multipronged, nature-based strategy to address erosion and environmental degradation, including planting bamboo and other trees to stabilize soil, as well as constructing channels to redirect rainwater. Refugees and host community members will lead site identification, planting, maintenance, and monitoring activities.
Expected results: Prevention of future displacement due to permanent halting of ravine expansion. A total of 2,730 refugees and host community members will enjoy safer homes, schools, agricultural fields, water sources, and other areas, with around 18,000 people benefitting indirectly.
Refugees connecting refugees to essential services – Umbrella Refugee Committee (URC), Belgium
Challenge: Refugees and asylum seekers in Brussels face barriers to accessing essential services such as shelter and healthcare due to systemic gaps and cultural and linguistic challenges, leaving many vulnerable and underserved.
Solution: URC will deploy diverse, refugee-led mobile teams to identify, assess, and support asylum seekers excluded from the formal reception system. These teams will provide tailored assistance, translation, and advocacy while leveraging their lived experience to build trust and navigate complex systems. They will collect real-time data on needs and service gaps to feed into policymaking by government and civil society actors.
Expected results: 1,500 individuals living in vulnerable situations are connected to essential services, service delivery is improved through data collection and analysis, and systemic change is promoted by integrating refugees into service provision.
Empowering single mothers to become fashion entrepreneurs – Solidarity Initiative for Refugees (SIR), Kenya
Challenge: Single mothers in Kakuma Refugee Camp face extreme economic vulnerability, compounded by limited access to skills training, market opportunities, and support for balancing caregiving responsibilities with other priorities.
Solution: SIR will provide comprehensive training in garment-making, digital literacy, and business development, paired with mentorship, e-commerce market access, and childcare support, to empower single refugee mothers to become entrepreneurs.
Expected results: 60 single mothers gain practical skills and income generation opportunities, indirectly supporting more than 500 community members through improved economic resilience and well-being.
Digital advocacy and networking for stateless rights – Canadian Centre on Statelessness, Canada
Challenge: Stateless people in Canada face significant barriers to accessing legal services due to limited awareness and the absence of a legal framework for statelessness status determination, leaving them vulnerable to social, legal, and economic exclusion.
Solution: The Canadian Centre on Statelessness will develop the Statelessness Knowledge Platform, an online resource to centralize information on statelessness, connect stateless persons with legal professionals, and foster collaboration to improve stateless people’s access to justice. Co-developed with stateless individuals, legal professionals, and educators, the platform will be practical, integrated into legal education, and tailored to lived realities.
Expected results: 60 individuals benefit from legal support and participation on the platform, while a further 65 people benefit from advocacy and awareness raising. 500 visitors are expected to access the platform in its first year of operation.
Empowering women through education and skills training – Organization for Women Empowerment (OWE), Afghanistan
Challenge: Women who have experienced displacement and subsequently returned to Kunduz Province face economic hardship and challenges with reintegrating due to prolonged displacement and the loss of livelihoods, including the closure of their businesses.
Solution: OWE will offer women returnees training in business planning, financial literacy, and marketing, along with mentorship and operational support to restart small businesses. Additionally, provide psychosocial support and community awareness-raising to facilitate reintegration.
Expected results: 30 women entrepreneurs will directly benefit from increased income and business sustainability, as will 240 of their family members, while a further 51,254 individuals will indirectly benefit from enhanced reintegration and economic activity.
Inclusive education to drive greater refugee leadership – OLIve Education Association, Hungary
Challenge: Refugees in Hungary face limited representation in high-skilled roles and leadership positions within organizations and key sectors, like education, hindering their empowerment and inclusion in local society.
Solution: OLIve Education Association will implement a programme whereby experienced educators and refugee teachers collaborate to design and deliver courses for less experienced refugee teachers and education managers, fostering bi-directional learning and building capacity.
Expected results: 20 refugees and host community members gain better access to education and high-skilled opportunities, a pool of refugee educators and leaders is created, and the refugee voices amplified through this process make a lasting impact on civil society. The project aims to benefit more than 290 people indirectly.
Recycling for environmental wellbeing and economic opportunities – Generous Designs Africa, Uganda
Challenge: Plastic waste mismanagement in Bidibidi Refugee Settlement leads to environmental degradation. Meanwhile, youth unemployment drives economic challenges for refugees and their host communities.
Solution: Generous Designs Africa will establish a recycling centre in Bidibidi to convert plastic waste into useful products, such as cups, plates, and school supplies, while providing skills training and job opportunities for young people, women, and particularly young mothers.
Expected results: Directly benefit 320 individuals through employment and skills development, improve environmental conditions by reducing plastic waste, and foster economic empowerment for both refugees and host community members.
Strengthening care and advocacy for survivors of sexual violence – The Interfaith Women Network (TIWN), Nigeria
Challenge: Women and girls in Southern Kaduna who have experienced conflict-related sexual violence face severe stigma, discrimination, and harmful practices, limiting their socio-economic reintegration and well-being.
Solution: TIWN will provide psychosocial support and trauma counselling to survivors as well as facilitating community dialogue to combat harmful practices. Promoting economic empowerment through skills training and business reestablishment for survivors.
Expected results: More than 1,000 individuals, including survivors receiving counselling and economic support, directly benefit from project activities, while 3,330 individuals indirectly benefit from community attitude shifts and improved support systems.