The Library
Integrating storytelling as a tool for healing and community building
It started like this: a small, white video camera; two Syrian youth facilitators; and twenty-five Syrian youth in the Zaatari refugee camp...
Education is key for refugees to build their futures. Here’s how we can help them do that.
Access to higher education scholarships, training, and professional opportunities for refugees is essential. Yet, just one percent of...
Why we need to position UNHCR for the future
This essay was originally posted in the recently released report: UNHCR Innovation Service: Year in Review 2016. This report highlights...
Set up a system to manage two-way SMS in two minutes
Only a few years ago, what was considered 'innovative' was using phones - in any way possible - to engage with communities. Time moves...
10 things to consider before rolling out two-way SMS
While we describe how to get started with two-way SMS in our recent blog, there are a number of things to consider before embarking on...
Refugees are not the crisis. It’s the narratives we tell about them.
Don’t start with a boat. Don’t show it lurching on the waves, a crush of terrified people packed elbow to ribcage, a baby crying. Don’t...
How UNHCR trialed their Innovation Fellowship with the broader humanitarian system
For the first time last year, the UNHCR Innovation Service opened its Fellowship to applicants from an outside organization: Medecins Sans...
Information and Communication Needs Assessment Tool
In order to support UNHCR Field operations and other humanitarian response organisations undertake Information and Communication Needs...
Understanding Information Ecosystems: Making it happen
“...an investment in researching access, sourcing, flow and trust around information movement in any given community is vital to the...
Six steps for adapting your design solutions to the right context
In a recent workshop, we were presented this quandary: ‘I get the challenge definition, but how do you nail down a solution’. I’m writing...
Why we’re doing a series on women in the humanitarian sector
The ‘UNHCR Innovation Women Video Series’ highlights unique perspectives and challenges of women in UNHCR. They offer their experiences on...
Chatbots in humanitarian settings: revolutionary, a fad or something in-between?
‘Hi, can I speak with UNHCR?’ Mobile messaging apps are the fastest-growing digital communications phenomenon to date. Today, more than...
Rethinking what innovation means in emergencies – the case of Angola
This article is a part of our 'Innovation in Angola' series where we highlight innovative ways of working and best practices in...
Why innovators can come from all parts of an organization
Alpha Diallo was perhaps not the most obvious employee among his colleagues in Abidjan to take on the role of Innovation Fellow. As Head...
New App Tells Refugees In Israel, ‘We See You’
It was something Natalia Nahra had noticed at every turn of her career. When people had trouble accessing good information, they struggled...
Practical tips for innovating in UNHCR
The word innovation is ubiquitous and confusing to most. We’d use a different word if we could. So what are the first steps for including...
New paper from UN Global Pulse and UNHCR explores use of digital data for insights into forced displacement
UN Global Pulse and UNHCR published today a white paper entitled “Social Media and Forced Displacement: Big Data Analytics &...
Congolese refugees find hope and safety during relocations in Angola
"I’m tired of sharing every bit of space. I want to have my own place, a place to call home” says Cedrik Ngandu, a 17-year-old Congolese...
“The more I learned about a proposed solution, the less desirable it became.”
"What I have learned is that innovation is not a one-day activity." This was a point that truly stuck out at me after we interviewed our...
Fellowship Gate II: Why engaging others is crucial for good ideas
In our second series highlighting the 2017 Innovation Fellows, we are bringing you insights into ideation and prioritization. Now that the...
UNHCR’s first refugee start-up weekend
Nervousness was in the air. Although many of the refugee families knew each other you could feel the tension. For the first time, these...
What the Digital Geneva Convention means for the future of humanitarian action
In February this year, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith took the stage at the RSA security conference in San...
New publication: UNHCR Innovation’s Year in Review 2016
A transparent look at innovation in UNHCR UNHCR's Innovation Service has launched a website and a new publication to highlight how UNHCR...
UNHCR’s Innovation Fellowship Series: Defining a Challenge isn’t so easy after all.
When talking about innovation a lot of people focus on technology, the latest buzzword (drones, artificial intelligence, data, among many...
A poem about refugees you need to read
Following the November 2015 Paris attacks, a wave of anti-refugee sentiment made its way overseas to the United States as multiple...
How business incubators can facilitate refugee entrepreneurship and integration
Esmeraldas, one of Ecuador’s least developed provinces, has seen the arrival of over 6,000 refugees and 18,000 asylum seekers in the past...
Comment Paris soutient l’intégration des réfugiés à travers l’innovation et la cuisine
A partir de l’été 2015, les réfugiés plus nombreux arrivant en Europe ont été reçus avec un sentiment de crainte, un manque de structures...
How Paris is supporting refugee integration through an innovative food festival
As of Summer 2015, the increased numbers of refugees arriving in Europe were received with a feeling of fear, lack of proper reception...
Why innovation and technology aren’t the same.
Whenever we hear of the latest technology recently put on the market, or invented by brilliant scientists and techies, we immediately...
The vital (and sometimes boring) procedures that drive innovation
Over the course of 2016, the Emergency Lab has been involved in numerous emergency responses, which we’ve documented through this blog:...
How we’re scaling cutting-edge solutions for the world’s toughest classrooms
Najwa Hassabu doesn’t know where her mother is. Escaping the war in South Sudan, they were separated unexpectedly. After traveling alone...
10 steps to setting up an effective feedback mechanism
A phrase I’ve often heard from colleagues when discussing ‘accountability’ is: ‘I know what I need to do, but not how to do it’. Moving...
Climate change induced displacement: Leveraging transnational advocacy networks to address operational gaps
According to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, “Few aspects of the human endeavor…are isolated from...
The Greener Fuel: giving refugees a choice in Rwanda
In September 2016, a Rwandan social benefit company called Inyenyeri did something no private sector business had ever done before in the...
How artificial intelligence can be used to predict Africa’s next migration crisis
Africa is a beautiful continent. Unfortunately, contrasting this beauty, Africa is being plagued by the largest wave of forced migration....
A future-looking environmental approach in Tanzania
Refugees in Tanzania find a safe life in a stable country whose government and people are welcoming. But the intense demands they’ve...
Communicating with Communities, or Individuals?
The need for differentiation and the role of mass customization. No community is homogenous – meaning there is no ‘silver bullet’ or one...
Implementing a geo-spatial health information system to better understand access to health care
In June 2012 inter-communal violence broke out in Rakhine state, Western Myanmar between the Buddhist Rakhine community and the Muslim...
New publication: Innovation Quarterly | The Green Issue
Download the Green Issue of Innovation Quarterly to read about how UNHCR is innovating around the themes of energy and the environment,...
A critical time for refugees and their environment (again)
In 2002, Ray Wilkinson wrote that it was a critical time for the environment. Looking 10 years into the past, he referenced...
The power of cities
Cities are our future We live in an increasingly urban world which is shaping our environments and our future. Currently, over half of the...
10 big data science challenges facing humanitarian organizations
Big data refers to the astonishing amount of information that is created as a by-product of the growing digitization of our lives - our...
Innovation or Imitation in Uganda
Boda Boda Talk Talk: an idea that worked A few years ago a friend working with Internews slapped a ‘Boda Boda Talk Talk’ sticker to my...
Beyond Technology: Testing and Scaling New Solutions in Costa Rica
This is an excerpt from UNHCR’s recently released report: Beyond Technology | Innovation at UNHCR 2015. This report highlights and...
Tawasul: 5 lessons from the UNHCR humanitarian call centre in Yemen
In late 2015, UNHCR – in collaboration with local partner AMIDEAST – established Tawasul, a humanitarian call centre in Yemen. Tawasul,...
It’s no longer ‘business as usual’ for refugee education. Here’s why.
This is an excerpt from UNHCR’s recently released report: Beyond Technology | Innovation at UNHCR 2015. This report highlights and...
The reader is your user: Do’s and don’ts for engaging your community
This is an excerpt from UNHCR’s recently released report: Beyond Technology | Innovation at UNHCR 2015. This report highlights and...
How understanding vulnerability can maximize aid effectiveness
The civil war in Syria, now in its fifth year, has given rise to one of the worst refugee crises in decades. Its violence has caused over...
New publication: Innovation Quarterly | Issue 3
Download the lifelong learning issue of Innovation Quarterly to read about how UNHCR is incorporating innovation into its response...
Is your app the best way to help refugees? Improving the collaboration between humanitarian actors and the tech industry.
Ever since the Syrian refugee crisis has come to the world’s attention, coders, designers and other professionals of the technology sector...
New report: Beyond Technology | Innovation at UNHCR 2015
Download your copy of the new report, Innovation at UNHCR, 2015 to learn about how UNHCR incorporated innovation into its response last...