Round Table Discussion: Expanding innovation learning across UNHCR

Thank you all for joining this round table on the launch of the Innovation Service’s Regional Innovation Programme! To get things started, please introduce yourselves.

Emilia: I’m Emilia and I work with UNHCR’s Innovation Service and the Global Learning and Development Center (GLDC). I worked on the design and delivery of the Regional Innovation Programme, which we kicked off last year in the EHAGL region.

Katie: I’m Katie. During this pilot, I worked with the Innovation Service in Nairobi in the Regional Bureau (RB) of the East and Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes (EHAGL) region, to support programme planning, selection and facilitation for this new programme alongside colleagues in the region and in 11 country operations.

Hovig: Hi, I’m Hovig and I am the Head of Service at UNHCR’s Innovation Service, based in Geneva. My involvement in the Regional Innovation Programme began with discussions on the need for more engagement with innovation at mid-level and senior management in UNHCR, the challenge from which this programme sprung.

Great! To kick off the discussion, let’s describe the Innovation Service’s Regional Innovation Programme for our readers. What is it, and what does it aim to do?

Hovig: Whereas the other innovation learning programme our Service offers typically invests in the innovation capacity for colleagues in general, the Regional Innovation Programme encourages senior and mid-level managers to support Innovation and incentivise it within their areas of responsibility. The regional focus also reflects the way our organization’s structure is evolving, creating an ecosystem of innovation by fostering a regional network of innovation champions.

Katie: To put it succinctly, the Programme aims to build innovation capacity and confidence across the region, addressing some of the key innovation barriers colleagues face. It’s an opportunity to strengthen a regional innovation knowledge base, to learn new innovation tools and test new ideas and challenge assumptions in a broad group of stakeholders.

Emilia: For me it’s about supporting people at all levels to take action to encourage innovation in the workplace and build an innovative culture. Senior leaders, middle managers and innovators all play a crucial role.

An ambitious task — where did the Programme’s journey begin?

Katie: Historically in the EHAGL region, we have supported colleagues with in-person ‘Innovation Capacity Building’. This included supporting all-staff retreats with innovation approaches, leading protection colleagues through human-centred design processes and piloting innovation tools across a range of workshops. The opportunity to “pepper-in” innovation into retreats or meetings was limited as we moved online in response to COVID-19. As such, the need for a more deliberate and structured approach to fostering innovation across the region emerged.

Hovig: We got the ball rolling with a series of conversations with GLDC during which we debated the ways and means of adopting our innovation learning strategy to engage senior and mid-level managers and encourage them to become facilitators of, rather impediments to, innovation.
Where did you learn that mid-level and senior managers don’t always facilitate and encourage innovation?

Emilia: We learned from the Innovation Fellowship Programme (the main learning programme offered by the Service) that innovators or change-makers in general have difficulties in getting buy-in for their new ideas or change efforts. Engaging managers in the process is crucial and we wanted to design the Regional Innovation Programme in a way that managers and senior leaders are engaged throughout the process and understand their crucial role in creating a culture where innovation can take place. We are interested to test whether this more holistic approach changes the incentive structures and opens up new spaces for experimentation.

So, if you had to summarise the objectives of the Regional Innovation Programme in one sentence, what would you say?

Katie: To strengthen an environment that supports, fosters and catalyses innovation across the region.

Emilia: To boost innovation by creating an enabling environment and innovation-friendly culture in the region.

From a programmatic perspective, how has the pilot in EHAGL been structured and who participates?

Emilia: The Regional Innovation Programme has a holistic approach to organizational innovation: it targets three groups of key actors, namely senior managers, innovators whom we called Innovation Champions, and their managers through three virtual workshops. We organised a call for applications for people interested in implementing innovation (Innovation Champions) and their managers (who could be their direct supervisors, managers of the managers or Head of Offices) in which we asked them to apply together as a pair. There were three months of follow-up activities for the Innovation Champions. We launched the programme in September 2021 and the Innovation Champions finished their follow-up activities at the end of the year. There was a final get-together in early 2022 where Innovation Champions had the opportunity to share their learnings with each other and managers of the region.

How do you define success in the pilot?

Katie: I’d really like to see colleagues feeling confident to apply some of the innovation tools they were introduced to in their own contexts. This could be in various forms, for example using a tool to generate ideas in a workshop with partners, working to test our assumptions with community members or identifying ways to generate and respond to feedback on a new initiative.

Emilia: I agree with Katie. I’d like to see this initiative being one of many contributing to a wider change in how we do our work and also how we work with each other. We as organizers also expect to learn from the pilot and improve for the next time.

Hovig: Over time, we hope to see country operations and the regional bureaux increase initiatives that aim to change the status quo, improve the way services are provided for forcibly displaced people, with innovation as a vehicle for change.

What have you observed already in the pilot that stands out?

Katie: I was surprised at how interested participants were in learning about innovation initiatives in this region, and how this stimulated the conversation. I was also really pleased to hear about the fantastic, creative ideas that are being developed across the operations in EHAGL. I’ve really noticed an enthusiasm for wanting to do things differently, and there’s some great ideas out there!

Hovig: What stands out to me is the willingness from the Bureau and country operations to engage with innovation when there is a lot of competing priorities due to organizational changes — the creation of regional bureaux with all the HR, administrative and financial consequences, changes in reporting and programme management modalities, adapting to COVID, to name a few. This is a promising indication of innovation’s value, particularly at this moment, for UNHCR.

Finally, what are your hopes for the Programme in 2022 and beyond?

Katie: I’d like to hear feedback from the participants, to understand how useful the new tools and skills they learned have been in their own operations. I hope the learning has been helpful! I think the Programme represents our commitment to decentralisation; an opportunity for us to shape our learning initiatives to different implementing contexts and to foster regional networks.

Emilia: I would like to see people who took part in the programme continue implementing what they learnt and we will also be able to engage with more regions in similar initiatives.

Hovig: I am excited to improve the programme based on feedback, and to continue engaging management in innovation.