Innovating humanitarian action: more than just luck
Chair
Wendy Fenton - Coordinator, Humanitarian Practice Network (HPN)
Panel
Jemilah Mahmood - Under Secretary General for Partnerships, IFRC
Alice Obrecht - Research Fellow, ALNAP
Kim Scriven - Manager, Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF)
Rebecca Petras - Deputy Director, Translators Without Borders
Description
In South Sudan, a new water treatment system that provides a community with more clean water at a lower cost. In Sierra Leone, a poster explaining how to prevent the spread of Ebola in a local dialect, enabled by a network of translators. How do people come up with these ideas? And how do they get put into practice? Or is it simply a matter of luck?
There is little well-grounded knowledge around how humanitarian innovation happens. While luck plays some role in innovation, there are actions aid organisations can take to increase their chances of good innovation.
ALNAP and the Humanitarian Innovation Fund’s new research is the first study to untangle how to innovate successfully in humanitarian action, and the upcoming edition of HPN’s Humanitarian Exchange magazine showcases a range of cutting edge initiatives. This event will bring together grassroots innovators and leading humanitarian officials, to discuss how to channel the momentum gathering behind humanitarian innovation and shape the future of the sector going into the World Humanitarian Summit – and beyond.