The two worlds of humanitarian innovation

A constant challenge for humanitarian actors is how to meaningfully include and adequately consult so-called beneficiary populations. At all stages of humanitarian action, there is a tendency for solutions to be brought ‘from the outside’, with accountability channels directed primarily to donors rather than beneficiaries. Yet, as has been increasingly recognised, the people in need of protection, the communities themselves, frequently have skills, talents and networks that enable them to adapt and innovate in the face of humanitarian crisis. However, the humanitarian system as a whole has historically struggled to recognise and embrace the potential for more participatory and inclusive approaches, whether at the emergency, protracted crisis or recovery phases.

In recent years, discussions of ‘humanitarian innovation’ have emerged as a way of potentially transforming humanitarian practice. A range of humanitarian international organisations (e.g. UNICEF, UNHCR, WFP and OCHA) and NGOs (e.g. Save the Children, HIF and ALNAP) have embraced ‘the innovation turn’. However, a significant proportion of existing approaches to humanitarian innovation have focused mainly on a ‘top-down’ approach, designing solutions that can improve organisational responses within the humanitarian context. This approach is valuable and offers opportunities to re-think responses across the range of sub-sectors that comprise humanitarianism. However, it is not the only way to approach humanitarian innovation. Alternatively, this paper argues, there is a different and complementary approach to humanitarian innovation that can be grounded in community participation, engaging the skills, talents and aspirations of so-called beneficiary populations.

These two worlds of humanitarian innovation are described in this paper as the following: one which falls solely into the institutionalised practice of a small number of humanitarian actors, and which focuses on upwards accountability to donors and traditionally takes a more ‘topdown’ approach in implementing solutions for affected populations; and another which fosters and builds on the existing innovative capabilities and systems of local communities. There is currently little attention given to the latter ‘bottom-up’ world of humanitarian innovation, whereas there appears to be a heavy focus on the world where innovation serves as a tool to solve institutionalised management issues faced by international actors. In order to address this potentially expanding gap in the understanding and practice of humanitarian innovation, this paper seeks to build new concepts in order to understand ‘bottom-up’ humanitarian innovation and look for ways forward as to how the two worlds can be brought closer together, addressing the challenge of finding opportunities for self-reliance amongst crisis-affected populations.