The Library
5 lessons learned from rolling out joint innovative shelter projects
This is an excerpt from UNHCR’s recently released report: Innovation at UNHCR 2014. This report highlights and showcases some of the innovative approaches the organization is taking to address complex refugee challenges. Through the Home Lab, UNHCR Innovation and the...
How do you engage innovators?
This is an excerpt from UNHCR’s recently released report: Innovation at UNHCR 2014. This report highlights and showcases some of the innovative approaches the organization is taking to address complex refugee challenges. The word "engagement" can be a bit of a...
11 ways UNHCR staff are innovating
Have you heard the phrase, “innovation is just another buzzword in the humanitarian sector”? It’s something that I hear over and over again and a beloved phrase I’m not too fond of personally. It connotes the idea that innovation is just a trendy theme in the...
6 reasons to elevate the importance of tertiary education in emergencies
“For nowhere in the world has sustained development been attained without a well-functioning system of education, without universal and sound primary education, without an effective higher education sector, without equality of educational opportunity.” - South African...
What is an innovation lab?
This is an excerpt from UNHCR’s recently released report: Innovation at UNHCR 2014. This report highlights and showcases some of the innovative approaches the organization is taking to address complex refugee challenges. The word ‘labs’ is sometimes conflated with the...
New report: Innovation at UNHCR 2014
Download your copy of the new report, Innovation at UNHCR, 2014 to learn about how UNHCR incorporated innovation into its response last year.
Top challenges faced when refining an educational classroom/library kit
We have all seen many ‘kits’ on the market that provide deployable educational resources (be they digital or physical) in humanitarian contexts. For example, UNICEF provided the earlier frontrunner with the School-in-a-Box, which was later iterated upon to create...
7 art initiatives that are transforming the lives of refugees
If you're visiting Paris over the coming months - the walls along the Seine may look a little different. A photo exhibition along the banks now includes a 370-meter long panorama featuring portraits of refugees and photographs taken by Syrian refugee children living...
Why the Syria crisis needs the private sector now
Bracing myself for the long haul 17-hour flight to San Francisco from Beirut, I finally have a moment of pause to reflect on the magnitude of the Syria crisis. More than 4 million refugees have fled the conflict in Syria to neighboring countries. That includes 1.2...
3 ways refugee innovation is being supported in Uganda
This is an excerpt from the Humanitarian Innovation Project’s recently released report: Refugee Innovation: Humanitarian innovation that starts with communities. This report highlights and showcases some of the innovative capacities of crisis-affected communities....
Managing an innovation lab starts with finding the right progress reporting tool
I’ve always believed that managing innovative projects is like managing chaos. A lot of it. As part of our initial planning meeting to deploy ReliefLink in the refugee camps in Dollo Ado, Ethiopia, we agreed to send a monthly progress report in order to keep track of...
The best way to achieve sustainable energy for refugees is to make them partners and not just recipients
Meeting the energy needs of refugees and displaced people have long been based on short term and unsustainable projects that are not only inefficient but also costly for the humanitarian community. This has triggered growing attention at policy level on providing...
From second displacement to successful careers: how resettled refugees integrate into their new homes
Resettlement to a third country is seen as one of the promising durable solutions for protracted refugees. This option is also the most popular among refugees since it gives them an opportunity to start a new life with the right to work and the opportunity to...
Redesigning refugee communities
Anicet Adjahossou’s dream job was to work in the humanitarian sector. Yet when he was finally hired by ICRC as a volunteer in 2008 to help build a refugee camp in Burundi, the experience was underwhelming. Having been trained in engineering and urban planning, he was...
Hybrid Water Pump & UDDT Latrines
Creating sustainable water and sanitation solutions in Kobe refugee camp. As an engineer working in the five refugee camps located in Dollo Ado, Ethiopia, UNHCR Innovation Fellow, Samuel Gonzaga was facing a growing challenge – the water and sanitation systems...
Lessons learnt from prototyping within an innovation team
During my internship with UNHCR Innovation, I have the mission of prototyping a reporting tool to track the monthly progress of projects that are managed/facilitated within the team, as well as any points that require the attention of the team’s leadership. Although I...
Light impacts SGBV, but not in the way you think
A walk in the dark through Belgangi Refugee Camp In February 2015, I was lucky enough to visit Belgangi Refugee Camp, Nepal at night. Where we left the car in a group the headlights, a streetlight, and lights in the medical center illuminated the space we occupied. We...
13 revealing quotes on open innovation in humanitarian organizations
It seems like everyday I see a new "Open Innovation Challenge" being launched with a call for the most creative minds to come together and share their brilliant solutions. The open innovation challenge model has been widely adopted across the private sector, where...
What is bottom-up innovation?
This is an excerpt from the Humanitarian Innovation Project’s recently released report: Refugee Innovation: Humanitarian innovation that starts with communities. This report highlights and showcases some of the innovative capacities of crisis-affected communities. A...
Five common themes that emerged from #HIP2015
Conferences. Some say that if you’ve been to one, you’ve been to them all. You know the scene: name-tagged professionals moving from panel to panel, ruminating on really important issues during coffee breaks, and of course, performing the beloved business card swap...
4 low-tech solutions for communications in emergencies
Innovation, in the humanitarian realm, is about finding sustainable and dignified solutions to the most pressing issues that affect the wellbeing of people affected by conflict, man-made or natural disasters, diseases, and food insecurity. Sometimes, in the process of...
Barikama means resistance
Housed in an abandoned former textile factory, Barikama Yogurt is a glimpse into what happens when people are forced to create their own opportunities. This micro-income project produces and sells organic yogurt in the Rome vicinity. In a brightly lit room with...
10 ways to innovate in higher education in emergencies
In reality, education receives only 2% of humanitarian aid. UNHCR considers education a basic right, "one that is vital in restoring hope and dignity to people driven from their homes." Unfortunately higher education is often a luxury for those who have been...
7 videos guaranteed to change the way you see refugees
Raise your hand if you've ever heard the phrase "Put yourself in someone else's shoes." It was one of the most common expressions my parents used when I was growing up as they tried to get me to look at a situation from a different point of view. A lot of people do...
How I began manufacturing solar lights for my community
My name is Abdullahi Mohomed Adow. I’m a 33-year-old refugee from Somalia, currently living with my family (my wife and our eight children, and my mother) in Dollo Ado, Ethiopia. We arrived here in 2009, after the situation in Somalia became too dangerous for us to...
How one group of refugees changed education
In 2014, NeeNee Productions met a group of refugees working to change the way education was delivered to children in their community of Kyangwali Refugee Settlement. When we met this group of men they had been working for change for nearly ten years. Watch our latest...
10 infographics that show the scale of global displacement
The media has been actively covering UNHCR's recently released Annual Global Trends Report which highlighted the insane fact that worldwide displacement is at the highest level ever recorded. António Guterres, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said in the...
Ordinary people, forced to flee: Meet Fatuma.
Twenty-five year old Fatuma runs her own Beauty Salon in Ifo camp, one of Dadaab’s five refugee camps in northeastern Kenya. “I was almost born here!” She says with a bright smile on her face as she smears henna on the arm of one of her customers. She was only a year...
10 quotes that will spark your design thinking
I recently read an article titled “Design is more than perfume, aesthetics and trends” written by Richard van der Laken, founder of What Design Can Do. I was surprised not only by his honesty on the potential impact of design but the real need for new ideas from...
Designing with the community: the power of illustrations & simulations
Participatory Assessments (commonly know as PAs at UNHCR) are a core feature of the humanitarian approach to inclusive programming. UNHCR’s handbook highlights the importance of placing communities “at the centre of decision-making concerning their protection and...
The road to hell is paved with brightly coloured bubble maps
Across the global development sector, the idea of opening up data and becoming more transparent is taking hold. One might even say that it has become reasonably well established; almost every week, new data portals commissioned by global development organisations are...
You use more energy burning toast than most refugees hope to have.
In the video below, world famous track cyclist Robert Förstemann battles a 700w toaster. Can he, with his 74cm legs, generate enough energy to create a golden-brown toast? The challenge was set up to show how much energy we humans consume compared to what we can...
Why is film important for refugees?
Our video storytelling mentorship in Uganda originated in 2013 in a community of ‘sisters’, a mix of refugee girls from Sudan, DRC, and Rwanda and girls from the rural village of Nalweyo. On weekends, a Ugandan filmmaker and writer, Patience Nitumwesiga, traveled from...
Humanitarian innovation ethics. Get some.
There’s something about working at the nexus between innovation and humanitarianism that feels a little bit like you’re flying by the seat of your pants. You’re always trying to do the right thing for the right reasons, while at the same time balancing a whole range...
Tech companies responses to the Nepal earthquake: who are we looking to help?
In the days since the tragic earthquake in Nepal, various forms of assistance have been offered from governments, charities, humanitarian response organisations, and by for-profit technology companies, whose reach and influence is bigger than ever before. In many...
7 Powers for solving wicked humanitarian problems
Virtually any wicked humanitarian problem can be solved by applying the following 7 powers: 1) vision, 2) innovation, 3) human-centered design, 4) collaboration, 5) venture philanthropy, 6) passion, and 7) perseverance. Let’s use emergency shelters as an example. As...
10 funding resources for humanitarian innovators
Lack of access to funding should never be a barrier to the innovation process for humanitarians, and so we've rounded up a list of ten sources of funding for humanitarian and social innovators. From private sector grants and cash awards, to funding schemes developed...
A two-tiered approach to community lighting
Outdoor lighting facilities improve visibility and safety in public / remote areas, reduce the risk of SGBV, and lower the incidence of crime and vandalism, improving the lives of refugees. They also enable more community gatherings and social activities. Providing...
The one thing many of us have but take for granted
In 2013, NeeNee Productions first introduced video storytelling to a group of teenage refugee girls living in a protracted situation in Uganda’s Kyangwali Refugee Settlement. At that time, the girls collaborated in small groups, created poems, and then read their...
10 ways the UN is innovating
The United Nations will turn 70 this year, and many people would be surprised to see "innovation" and "the UN" in the same sentence. Yet, there are dozens of innovative programs and products that are currently being developed at the UN. From innovation units within...
Why I call Dadaab home
I was jolted by what Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto said on Saturday, April 11, when he visited Nyeri County in Kenya’s central region. He gave the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees three months to relocate the refugees in Dadaab camps to Somalia,...
15 TED Talks on refugee resilience
Feel like getting inspired today? Then look no further than these TED and TEDx Talks that highlight the resilience of refugees from all around the world. These are just a handful of voices representing the ingenuity of tens of millions of displaced persons and the...
Could these 9 ‘clean energy’ innovations be used in a refugee context?
Clean energy's gains in technology and price could potentially impact refugees’ lives around the world. For Earth Day 2015 our Energy Lab rounded up nine energy innovations we're watching: 1. Pumping water with solar power The solar water system, equipped with 278...
Could e-readers boost refugee children’s literacy? Lessons learned.
In 2013 our Learn Lab teamed up with UNHCR’s Education unit and Worldreader to find innovative ways to foster a culture of reading and cost effectively get large quantities of books to refugee children in schools that often had few. We decided to go digital, using...
The inventors of Azraq
Four years since the start of the conflict, some 625,000 Syrian refugees have fled for their lives to neighbouring Jordan, caught up in the worst humanitarian crisis of our time. Azraq refugee camp was opened last year to help cope with the influx. The sturdy, metal...
“Humanitarian innovation”: an oxymoron or a necessary new reality?
Innovation is nothing new. Since the beginning of humanity, we humans have innovated. And by that I mean we’ve continually adapted ourselves and have found new ways to cope with complex challenges and crises, all the while improving our daily lives. The word...
Three trends with the power to disrupt innovation
Roy Amara coined the phrase "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run."[1] Sweeping changes, transformations that fundamentally alter the way the world works, are easily discounted or ignored …...
Humanitarian Innovation Jam 2015
Humanitarian Innovation Jam, January 15-16, Washington DC How can we create healthy ecosystems for managing humanitarian innovation? We're once again looking for humanitarian pracitioners, students, scholars, and private sector partners to converse and collaborate...
Managing innovation is terrifying.
Managing innovation is terrifying. It’s terrifying for many different reasons, but here I’ll just outline four: 1) Expectations are huge; 2) Resistance to change is not insignificant; 3) The need for innovation in our sector is not small; 4) You have to manage...
Do you know how to fail well?
In his book, The World After Midnight, Eddie Obeng talks about how ‘today, the current pace, scale and interconnectedness of change exceed our ability to learn.’ This means that failure – caused by uncertainty and complexity, as opposed to incompetence – is becoming...