innov-aid

Challenges and future issues

Innovators face a number of constraints, which often result from limited funding, capacity or resources to invest in innovation. In addition, the work of humanitarian organizations is extremely sensitive and time is typically critical. This environment does not necessarily lend itself to risk-taking, which is often considered crucial for innovation. Unlike other sectors, there are huge – potential lethal – costs of “not getting it right” from the beginning on. It is important to start discussions around these and other issues in order to develop appropriate solutions and responses.

Some of the challenges that could be discussed include:

• The ethics of innovation. What hidden costs does innovation entail? Can piloting and experimentation be justified in this sector? Who benefits from innovation and how?

• Logistical constraints: Humanitarian organizations typically operates on scarce capacity, resources, funding and time, coupled with additional challenges such as high staff turnover, limited access to conflict and disaster areas and the rapidly challenging environment. Given these constraints, what are the incentives for prioritizing innovation? What circumstances must be created to allow organizations the capacity to invent and invest in unknown approaches?

• Risk aversion: Is it true that humanitarian actors tend to be risk averse and should learn from the private sector, where failure and the lessons from failure often lead to success? Or is this model incompatible with public sector work, where failures can come at the cost of people/s lives and livelihoods? Given the other points above, can it be justified to invest the very scarce and very needed resources in new and possibly ineffective or even negative innovations? Or, on the other hand, is the system “stuck” in hard-to-change behaviors that are often ineffective or wasteful themselves?

• “Pilotisitis”: Is the inability to move beyond pilot projects and bring innovation to scale the disease of the field? Are funders and organizations more likely to back small and somewhat inconsequential projects but afraid to implement them at a larger level? If so, what exactly are the roadblocks here? Is it a lack of experience, risk aversion, lack of political backing, or…?

• Expectation management: Are we putting too much pressure on innovation? Are we expecting that innovative initiatives “change everything” rather than taking a more modest approach and looking for often small but meaningful changes? Is there a danger of hype that would both be harmful to the innovation (as it cannot live up to it) and the programs (as they implement innovation for the wrong reasons)?

• Unnoticed innovation: Humanitarian practitioners arguably innovate all the time. Operating in a context that changes rapidly and/or where needs outsize capacities by far, spontaneous and flexible adjustment to existing programs may be vital to assure that programs keep running. Many of these interventions may not receive the same amount of attention that innovation labs or technical startups get. How can the sector be sure to notice and document from these small-scale projects that could offer benefits to other programs? How might the understanding of “innovation” need to be stretched to include the different kinds of initiatives?