If war had not come to Johnny D.’s Angolan village, maybe he would still be selling books with his wife and ten children. But war did come, in 2006, and there was no time to grab any possessions. They just ran. Johnny says had he stayed, he would be dead. Armed men...
What is the Emergency Lab? Some of the greatest opportunities can also be quite daunting, can’t they? This is certainly the feeling I had when I realised that I was to be part of a new Emergency Lab that was being set up inside UNHCR. The Innovation Unit, along with...
Want to learn more about bottom-up innovation? Take a look at the Humanitarian Innovation Jam 2016 on Bottom-up Innovation. Local Challenges. Local Solutions. Innovation from the perspective of refugees is too often missing in research and practice for refugee...
UNHCR’s Energy Lab – a collaboration between UNHCR’s Energy & Environment and Innovation units recently ran a Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) funded, scenario-based training event. The training started off as a workshop, like so many others run the year...
In the fanfare surrounding the release of the Sustainable Development Goals it may be easy to miss a shift in thinking that can have a dramatic impact on the role of Humanitarian innovators. Our job as advocates and practitioners of innovation is about to get much...
Let’s start with what it isn’t. A pilot. Pilots have historically been the default method used in the humanitarian sector when moving towards new approaches to solving problems. A pilot is, by definition, a solution that is to be tested on a small scale that is seen...
