Over the course of four months, the RIL Central Support Unit worked with the Save the Children Sudan Country Office to help its team and partners apply innovation processes to four challenges that they had identified.

Five years ago, Response Innovation Lab launched its first platform in Jordan, kicking off an adventure that continues to prove exciting and essential to this day. To mark this milestone and the start of a new phase in our initiative, we wanted to share with you some of the most noteworthy accomplishments of our amazing colleagues and partners. Together, we have grown RIL into the largest network of field-based humanitarian innovation platforms in the world and have collectively demonstrated that decentralizing innovation processes, strengthening response-level ecosystems, promoting locally-developed solutions and encouraging horizontal scaling can improve humanitarian and “nexus” programming while also delivering on the promises of the Grand Bargain.

In 2020-2021, RIL further supported investment in this field by facilitating the 3rd call of the Dutch Relief Alliance Innovation Fund – allowing an investment of EUR 2 million in locally-led innovative proposals. See more about this locally-driven approach to funding innovation and the great solutions that emerged here.

A tailored curriculum has been developed based on an analysis of capacity gaps and existing other training programmes in Uganda. It has been delivered in partnership with Save the Children, United Social Ventures and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. - Learn more about innovator trainings here

RIL Uganda runs a Learning Hub for the refugee response actors and has supported them to learn and uptake best practices around: the Refugee Engagement Forum- Learn more about U-Learn here

With the LINS project, RIL Uganda identified alternative solutions to the traditional distribution of free and imported nutritious foods (corn-soya blend/porridge) through a participative and competitive process.
Learn more about LINS here

In 2021, LINS issued a call for nutrition innovations/solutions that are locally rooted, market-driven, sustainable, with satisfactory proof of concept, and less dependent on humanitarian aid flows. The call sought to support quality solutions to at least one of the major challenges of malnutrition

Participation in the MIT D-Lab’s Co-Creation Summit in Arua, Uganda, which promoted locally designed solutions to energy and livelihoods challenges in refugee settlements.

The Open Source for Equality initiative aims to promote the development and use of open source that contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals with a focus on health, education and equality. In this video we get to hear the experience of how five organizations are using open source for their benefit.

RIL Uganda organized a half day kick-off workshop and launch on 21st July 2022 to officially introduce the Local Innovation for Nutrition Solutions project and selected innovators to key stakeholders and partners. The event was reported on by the national TV network UBC.

The Iraq Response Innovation Lab (IRIL) has completed a study to explore the potential of renewable energy sources in Iraq in the light of their experience with using solar energy for the incubated agribusiness projects in 2021 and the challenges that accompanied that.they encountered.

You can read the full document and a summary of the study by clicking the images below.

The Iraq Response Innovation Lab has identified solid waste management as both a major challenge to tackle and an opportunity to seize for the local innovation ecosystem. To help all types of organizations active in Iraq better understand the scope of the problem and the possibilities that existing and future recycling initaitives can offer, IRIL has published a reflective study on innovative business opportunities in this vertical.

Read about the experience from innovator Saul Kabali with Response Innovation Lab developing SafeBangle Technologies for the past two years, a wearable technology for immediate reporting of violence attempts against women and girls.

Hello Caafi! is a groundbreaking telehealths solution from Somalia, designed and led by two remarkable women innovators.

U-Learn recently published the Refugee Engagement Forum (REF) Good Practice Study report which explains how the REF - a two-way feedback mechanism between national refugee response decision-makers and refugee representatives - has innovated Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) in Uganda, by successfully including refugee voices at the most senior refugee response coordination mechanism of the response.

Learn about the Uganda RIL’s Kampala Impact Day events, and the three innovators nominated by the team.

Check-in on the innovators who won the cash award from the Uganda Response Innovation Lab in 2020. The innovators submitted their innovations in prevention and response, continuous learning, livelihoods, and refugee-led innovations that were already proving effectivness in the fight against COVID -19.

Our labs are supporting several innovations that directly benefit refugee populations, learn more about these innovators and their pursuit to support their communities and others.

Field Ready and Response Innovation Lab both aim to inspire and guide disaster response practitioners to develop and test new ideas and implement proven innovations. With the support of the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation, RIL and Field Ready organized a digital convene event on the topic of locally manufacturing Covid-19 preventive materials, including personal protective equipment, and with an emphasis on the use of 3-D printers in May 2021.

>>> Learn about the outcomes of this convener.