When innovating humanitarian programming, is the chance of it being a success just luck? Or are there certain things an organisation can do to ensure their innovation will succeed?
Innovating humanitarian action has become an important issue for the sector, with new technologies and dynamic ideas changing the way it provides critical assistance to disaster and conflict. But the risks are high, so understanding how to get innovation right in humanitarian action is vitally important.
Our latest research into innovating humanitarian action looks at how organisations can evaluate and monitor innovation programmes, using the research from our 2015-16 project with Elrha, More than just luck? Innovation in humanitarian action. This report was the first to look at what innovation in humanitarian action is, and what actions humanitarian innovators can take to increase the chances of them being more successful. It looked at 15 different innovation case studies funded by Elrha's Humanitarian Innovation Fund, from translating emergency information into local languages, to using satellite images to map humanitarian disasters.
