The Library
How UNHCR trialed their Innovation Fellowship with the broader humanitarian system
For the first time last year, the UNHCR Innovation Service opened its Fellowship to applicants from an outside organization: Medecins Sans Frontieres. Even though Cary Lewis was a relatively new information manager there, he saw an opportunity to develop skills that...
Information and Communication Needs Assessment Tool
In order to support UNHCR Field operations and other humanitarian response organisations undertake Information and Communication Needs Assessments, UNHCR Innovation Service has developed a ‘question bank’ on Information and Communication Needs that can be downloaded,...
Understanding Information Ecosystems: Making it happen
“...an investment in researching access, sourcing, flow and trust around information movement in any given community is vital to the design of truly effective communications strategies, ensuring that people will believe, trust and act upon the information they...
Six steps for adapting your design solutions to the right context
In a recent workshop, we were presented this quandary: ‘I get the challenge definition, but how do you nail down a solution’. I’m writing this blog to tackle this perhaps unspoken matter of contention for many working in Innovation and humanitarian programme design....
Why we’re doing a series on women in the humanitarian sector
The ‘UNHCR Innovation Women Video Series’ highlights unique perspectives and challenges of women in UNHCR. They offer their experiences on what it can be like being a woman in the humanitarian field, lessons learned, stories from their careers, insights on...
Chatbots in humanitarian settings: revolutionary, a fad or something in-between?
‘Hi, can I speak with UNHCR?’ Mobile messaging apps are the fastest-growing digital communications phenomenon to date. Today, more than 2.5 billion people around the world use messaging apps, a figure that is expected to rise to 3.6 billion by 2018 – that’s almost...
Rethinking what innovation means in emergencies – the case of Angola
This article is a part of our 'Innovation in Angola' series where we highlight innovative ways of working and best practices in emergencies. Stay tuned for new articles and the complementary video series that can be found here. “Your application is authorized and the...
Why innovators can come from all parts of an organization
Alpha Diallo was perhaps not the most obvious employee among his colleagues in Abidjan to take on the role of Innovation Fellow. As Head of Administration and Finance at UNHCR’s operation in Côte d’Ivoire, he wasn’t in daily contact with persons of concerns. But he...
New App Tells Refugees In Israel, ‘We See You’
It was something Natalia Nahra had noticed at every turn of her career. When people had trouble accessing good information, they struggled to make the best choices. It was true in the United States where she had practiced law; average employees strained to understand...
Practical tips for innovating in UNHCR
The word innovation is ubiquitous and confusing to most. We’d use a different word if we could. So what are the first steps for including innovation into your day-to-day work at UNHCR? And what does it actually look like in practice? It’s easier than you might think....
New paper from UN Global Pulse and UNHCR explores use of digital data for insights into forced displacement
UN Global Pulse and UNHCR published today a white paper entitled “Social Media and Forced Displacement: Big Data Analytics & Machine-Learning.” The paper is the result of an experimental project conducted by the two agencies to inform the viability of using...
Congolese refugees find hope and safety during relocations in Angola
"I’m tired of sharing every bit of space. I want to have my own place, a place to call home” says Cedrik Ngandu, a 17-year-old Congolese refugee who arrived in Angola four months ago. After months spent in over-crowded centres in northern Angola, refugees from the...
“The more I learned about a proposed solution, the less desirable it became.”
"What I have learned is that innovation is not a one-day activity." This was a point that truly stuck out at me after we interviewed our Innovation Fellow, Kakoma Kakoma, who is currently based in Kaoma, Zambia. There are a lot of assumptions about what the innovation...
Why innovation starts with the right mindset
This essay was originally posted in the recently released report: UNHCR Innovation Service: Year in Review 2016. This report highlights and showcases some of the innovative approaches the organization is taking to address complex refugee challenges and discover new...
Investing in People, Not Projects: A look at UNHCR’s experimental funding
This essay was originally posted in the recently released report: UNHCR Innovation Service: Year in Review 2016. This report highlights and showcases some of the innovative approaches the organization is taking to address complex refugee challenges and discover new...
Why engaging others is crucial for good ideas
In our second series highlighting the 2017 Innovation Fellows, we are bringing you insights into ideation and prioritization. Now that the Innovation Fellows have chosen a Challenge - the next step is to understand what already exists and engage others in the ideation...
UNHCR’s first refugee start-up weekend
Nervousness was in the air. Although many of the refugee families knew each other you could feel the tension. For the first time, these refugees were given a chance to participate in an event that is often only offered to would-be entrepreneurs or business school...
What the Digital Geneva Convention means for the future of humanitarian action
In February this year, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith took the stage at the RSA security conference in San Francisco to make the case for a “Digital Geneva Convention” that protects civilians from state-sponsored cyber attacks. Given that main...
New publication: UNHCR Innovation’s Year in Review 2016
A transparent look at innovation in UNHCR UNHCR's Innovation Service has launched a website and a new publication to highlight how UNHCR incorporated innovation into its response in 2016. The website includes a set of essays, a Year in Review video series from UNHCR...
Why defining a challenge isn’t so easy after all.
When talking about innovation a lot of people focus on technology, the latest buzzword (drones, artificial intelligence, data, among many others that you already know), or how we must work better with the private sector and explore new partnerships. One area that we...
“Refuge” by Jason Fotso
In the wake of the November 2015 Paris terror attacks, a wave of anti-refugee sentiment crossed the Atlantic, with more than half of U.S. governors calling for the exclusion of Syrian refugees from their states. Poet Jason Defo Fotso, then eighteen years old and a...
How business incubators can facilitate refugee entrepreneurship and integration
Esmeraldas, one of Ecuador’s least developed provinces, has seen the arrival of over 6,000 refugees and 18,000 asylum seekers in the past ten years, mostly from the Pacific Coast of Colombia. Their considerable humanitarian needs have only increased over time, as have...
Comment Paris soutient l’intégration des réfugiés à travers l’innovation et la cuisine
A partir de l’été 2015, les réfugiés plus nombreux arrivant en Europe ont été reçus avec un sentiment de crainte, un manque de structures d’accueil adaptées et la fermeture de frontières. Mais leur arrivée a aussi créé un sursaut de solidarité en Europe. A travers...
How Paris is supporting refugee integration through an innovative food festival
As of Summer 2015, the increased numbers of refugees arriving in Europe were received with a feeling of fear, lack of proper reception facilities, and the closing of borders. But it also created a wake-up call for solidarity in Europe. We witnessed across the...
Why innovation and technology aren’t the same.
Whenever we hear of the latest technology recently put on the market, or invented by brilliant scientists and techies, we immediately think of innovation. Even departments in companies or organizations usually pair the nomination innovation and technology, linking the...
The vital (and sometimes boring) procedures that drive innovation
Over the course of 2016, the Emergency Lab has been involved in numerous emergency responses, which we’ve documented through this blog: fYR of Macedonia, Malawi, Niger…When we set out on this journey we had one question that we weren’t really sure of the answer of: is...
How we’re scaling cutting-edge solutions for the world’s toughest classrooms
Najwa Hassabu doesn’t know where her mother is. Escaping the war in South Sudan, they were separated unexpectedly. After traveling alone for many days, Najwa reached Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, where she lives now. When she arrived at the refugee camp she had no...
10 steps to setting up an effective feedback mechanism
A phrase I’ve often heard from colleagues when discussing ‘accountability’ is: ‘I know what I need to do, but not how to do it’. Moving beyond theory to the practical – to actually closing the feedback loop – is notoriously challenging. Especially in an emergency. How...
Climate change induced displacement: Leveraging transnational advocacy networks to address operational gaps
According to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, “Few aspects of the human endeavor…are isolated from possible impacts in a changing climate. The interconnectedness of the Earth system makes it impossible to draw a confined boundary...
The Greener Fuel: giving refugees a choice in Rwanda
In September 2016, a Rwandan social benefit company called Inyenyeri did something no private sector business had ever done before in the country. It opened shop inside a refugee camp. Its partnership with UNHCR and the clean cooking fuel option it offers refugees may...
How artificial intelligence can be used to predict Africa’s next migration crisis
Africa is a beautiful continent. Unfortunately, contrasting this beauty, Africa is being plagued by the largest wave of forced migration. In fact, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reports that post-1994, Africa has seen its largest waves of forced migration...
A future-looking environmental approach in Tanzania
Refugees in Tanzania find a safe life in a stable country whose government and people are welcoming. But the intense demands they’ve placed for decades on a sensitive, rural landscape is degrading the environment and causing relations to deteriorate. When refugees and...
Communicating with Communities, or Individuals?
The need for differentiation and the role of mass customization. No community is homogenous – meaning there is no ‘silver bullet’ or one ‘best channel’ to communicate via. Everybody accesses and consumes information in a different way - we are all unique. Therefore,...
Implementing a geo-spatial health information system to better understand access to health care
In June 2012 inter-communal violence broke out in Rakhine state, Western Myanmar between the Buddhist Rakhine community and the Muslim Rohingya community, the largest stateless population in the world[1]. This violence displaced approximately 147,000 people into...
New publication: Innovation Quarterly | The Green Issue
Download the Green Issue of Innovation Quarterly to read about how UNHCR is innovating around the themes of energy and the environment, and other great stories about humanitarian innovation. The articles featured in the new issue of Innovation Quarterly include: Page...
A critical time for refugees and their environment (again)
In 2002, Ray Wilkinson wrote that it was a critical time for the environment. Looking 10 years into the past, he referenced then-High Commissioner Sadako Ogata, who said in 1992 that the “relationship between refugees and the environment has been long...
The power of cities
Cities are our future We live in an increasingly urban world which is shaping our environments and our future. Currently, over half of the global population live in cities and it is estimated that this percentage will rise to 70% by 2050. Cities are both the culprits...
10 big data science challenges facing humanitarian organizations
Big data refers to the astonishing amount of information that is created as a by-product of the growing digitization of our lives - our use of mobile phones, social networks, search engines, online payment methods, apps, and so on. What is exciting for the development...
Innovation or Imitation in Uganda
Boda Boda Talk Talk: an idea that worked A few years ago a friend working with Internews slapped a ‘Boda Boda Talk Talk’ sticker to my laptop and excitedly told me about the organization’s new project in South Sudan. Looking at the ‘BBTT’ emblazoned on my computer, I...
Beyond Technology: Testing and Scaling New Solutions in Costa Rica
This is an excerpt from UNHCR’s recently released report: Beyond Technology | Innovation at UNHCR 2015. This report highlights and showcases some of the innovative approaches the organization is taking to address complex refugee challenges. If anyone still pictures a...
Tawasul: 5 lessons from the UNHCR humanitarian call centre in Yemen
In late 2015, UNHCR – in collaboration with local partner AMIDEAST – established Tawasul, a humanitarian call centre in Yemen. Tawasul, meaning dialogue in Arabic, was the first of its kind in Yemen and shared humanitarian information through a toll-free number five...
It’s no longer ‘business as usual’ for refugee education. Here’s why.
This is an excerpt from UNHCR’s recently released report: Beyond Technology | Innovation at UNHCR 2015. This report highlights and showcases some of the innovative approaches the organization is taking to address complex refugee challenges. It is easy to think about...
The reader is your user: Do’s and don’ts for engaging your community
This is an excerpt from UNHCR’s recently released report: Beyond Technology | Innovation at UNHCR 2015. This report highlights and showcases some of the innovative approaches the organization is taking to address complex refugee challenges. ‘Engagement’ can be a bit...
How understanding vulnerability can maximize aid effectiveness
The civil war in Syria, now in its fifth year, has given rise to one of the worst refugee crises in decades. Its violence has caused over four million people to flee the country. Around 630,000 travelled to neighboring Jordan, where most (480,000) settled outside of...
New publication: Innovation Quarterly | Issue 3
Download the lifelong learning issue of Innovation Quarterly to read about how UNHCR is incorporating innovation into its response strategy, and other great stories about humanitarian innovation. The articles featured in the new issue of Innovation Quarterly include:...
Is your app the best way to help refugees? Improving the collaboration between humanitarian actors and the tech industry.
Ever since the Syrian refugee crisis has come to the world’s attention, coders, designers and other professionals of the technology sector have jumped in to help with countless new apps, websites and smart devices. Hackathons – multi-day events where tech specialists...
New report: Beyond Technology | Innovation at UNHCR 2015
Download your copy of the new report, Innovation at UNHCR, 2015 to learn about how UNHCR incorporated innovation into its response last year. The articles featured in the new issue of Innovation at UNHCR include: Page 4 | 5 myths about humanitarian innovation: The...
Narrative = Control = Power
In life, there are things we cannot control: where we are born; the color of our skin; our parents; or the rapid pace of change in our personal lives and in our societies. On the other hand, stories, by nature, are free. In the face of uncontrollable variables,...
UNHCR launches Fund to drive innovation in operations
UNHCR’s funding mechanism for innovation-driven projects, the Innovation Fund, has received 102 applications for its first-ever call for proposals. The initiative is part of a wider effort spurred by the UNHCR’s Innovation Unit to support innovators who wish to bring...
5 myths about humanitarian innovation
If we could call innovation something else, we would. The word innovation is rife with confusion, is loaded with misunderstandings, and has the propensity to cause all sorts of confusion. Yet, it doesn’t need to. Here are 5 myths about innovation that are not true....