Uganda Response Innovation Lab

The Uganda Response Innovation Lab (U-RIL) was founded in 2018 by Save the Children Uganda as part of the global Response Innovation Lab network, with a mandate to strengthen Uganda's refugee response through innovative systems, technologies, and locally driven solutions. Uganda is Africa's largest refugee-hosting country, welcoming over 1.4 million refugees — approximately 60% of whom are children — across 13 districts under one of the world's most progressive refugee frameworks, granting refugees freedom of movement, the right to work, and access to national services. Save the Children's decades-long presence in Uganda since 1959, spanning education, child protection, health, and emergency response, gives U-RIL a distinct advantage: innovation is embedded directly into live humanitarian programming and tested in real operational environments.

Despite Uganda's progressive refugee model, the humanitarian system faces mounting pressures — chronic funding shortages, overstretched services, climate stress, food insecurity, and rising youth unemployment. These realities make innovation not a luxury but a necessity. U-RIL exists to help humanitarian response transition from short-term aid delivery toward resilient, scalable, and locally owned systems — reducing costs, improving efficiency, strengthening accountability, and enabling sustainable livelihoods for refugees and host communities alike.