I worry about Iraq. My main concerns are the same as many Iraqi people – we worry that we might never have a country where people live in peace. We are also worried about our personal safety. I’m from the Khanqeen district in the Diyala governorate. It’s a small city with a Kurdish majority. I graduated from University in 2013 but like many Iraqi students, I didn’t find a job easily after I finished my studies, which was not what I was expecting. I thought after I graduate my dream job will be waiting for me the next day. Within a year of my graduation, ISIS took over many places in Iraq, including Jalawla and Sadiya’a subdistrict in Khanqeen. ISIS was 15 kilometres away from my home.

Somali RIL has been working with the innovators Sisitech to further develop the Digital Attendance App to support World Visions supported schools across Somalia with better tracking, supporting, and communicating attendance and outcomes to parents, districts, and the government.

The challenge of understanding school attendance within Somalia has been ongoing for quite some time due to several reasons such as displacement of communities due to recurring disasters and lack of correct information regarding school children. There are some additional complications to this in cases where children may have similar names, or variations such as Muhammed or Muhammad. Although there is some record keeping, it is done sporadically and is inconsistent. In order to understand the causes of dropouts and the dynamics of variables like gender, there needs to be a more efficient and effective way of capturing and storing this data.

Our Global Director, Max Vieille speaks the innovation of RIL, the challenges of differentiating in the complex environment of humanitarian aid, and how we are building back better.

A short video to showcase RIL’s M&E tool in Somalia gathering evidence around an educational pilot case study of the Digital Attendance Application (DAA) education pilot with World Vision.

The Somali RIL presented on the collaborative public-private approach in building partnerships and leverage humanitarian mechanisms in the co-creation of public health messaging products that are open-sourced, and therefore quickly scaled to build a national prevention response campaign to COVID-19.

See what each of the labs is doing to prevent and fight COVID-19 in their responses.

A deep dive into the solution identification and piloting of an app, to meet an education challenge in Somalia.

In response to these challenges, Engineers Without Borders - USA, in partnership with the Response Innovation Lab Uganda, is launching a call for Innovation on the design of a solid soap dispenser for public hand-washing stations.

Pharx, an innovation supported by the Iraq Response Innovation Lab is highlight in The Guardian.

Somalia RIL conducted a rapid mini-assessment survey in April 2020, focused on understanding the needs and priorities of humanitarian actors in the COVID-19 response. These results are being shared openly to foster learning, improve coordination, and prioritize resources to areas of need.

Somalia is often simply portrayed as being affected by war and famine. Although many challenges exist, this is not the full narrative and it takes away from the many positive and exciting initiatives that have taken root and are having a positive impact.

The report presents the findings from the RISE innovation ecosystem mapping study which seeks to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the key actors, factors, and relationships within Somalia’s humanitarian innovation sector.

Check out the new brochure for the SomRIL.

The catalog highlights green innovations in Uganda as compiled for the Green Innovations Prize.