What are some less-discussed topics covered in RILx24? Have a look at our high-level overview of the key lessons learned.

We have been committed to establishing the Innovation WASH Club as a coordinated and dedicated platform. The convener participants, now collectively committed as part of the Club, will mobilize their resources and bring innovations to enhance the WASH response in NW Syria.

RILx24 has successfully concluded! Hosted by World Vision Nepal and Nepal Innovation Lab, we organized the 2024 edition of the annual RILx event. This year, we gathered in Kathmandu, Nepal from September 17-19, and welcomed over 200 guests from 60 agencies coming from 25 different countries!

Together with Majlisna - Civic Jordan, we successfully hosted our first Thoughtcast session in Jordan to discuss what NGOs need from entrepreneurs and what entrepreneurs can offer. We welcomed participants from international and local NGOs, social business, academia, and tech and innovation sectors for fruitful exchanges!

Can you transport skills, hope and peace by van? Platform Africa thinks so! The van in question is the organisation's ‘Labmobile’ that is used to bring media training to all parts of Rhino Camp, a large refugee settlement In Uganda on the border with South Sudan. The van carries all the equipment, and expertise, needed to transform any community area into a place for learning about media literacy and media creation. Read full report here.

Together with Majlisna - Civic Jordan, our first Thoughtcast session, "Bridging the Gap: What NGOs Need from Entrepreneurs and What Entrepreneurs Can Offer”, is happening this Saturday the 31st of August!

We’re preparing for our first "Challenge Mapping" exercise, and we need your help to identify the critical challenges faced in the WASH sector. Your feedback will guide our efforts and ensure they are as impactful as possible.

For 2023, the Uganda Response Innovation Lab (U-RIL) hosted by Save the Children International continued to support those addressing the needs of the most vulnerable people in the humanitarian community through problem and solution analysis, localised adaptation, support to sound innovation models, investment to pilot and scale, and Learning. Read the full Year in Review here.

This will be an opportunity for startups and innovators to connect with NGOs and leverage their skills to provide impactful solutions. We’re planning informal, topic-driven networking gatherings where meaningful conversations and collaborations can flourish.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and Somalia Response Innovation Lab (SomRIL) with the support of USAID Bureau of Humanitarian Affairs (BHA) and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, are looking for solutions in Somalia that address food insecurity through strengthening food systems.

This landscape analysis explores the status of innovative financing in Uganda, including the key actors, financing mechanisms, instruments, and best practices for financing social enterprises in Uganda. The main objective of this research was to guide U-RIL’s approach to continuing to provide support for innovators and social enterprises in the humanitarian ecosystem. U-RIL sought to answer the main question; “Beyond grants, how else are social enterprises in Uganda being financed?”. Read the full report here.

On May 30, 2024, in Gaziantep, Turkey, we officially launched the Northwest Syria Response Innovation Lab (NW Syria RIL). This initiative, led by World Vision International and the Response Innovation Lab (RIL), is set to transform humanitarian response in Northwest Syria, particularly in the aftermath of the 2023 earthquakes.

Nestled within the challenging terrain of the Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement in Uganda, a beacon of hope is meticulously emerging through the collaboration of Gulu University, the Response Innovation Lab (RIL), and Save the Children. This unfolding narrative, generously backed by Innovation Norway under the Local Innovations for Nutrition Solutions (LINS) project, unfolds against the backdrop of two critical issues plaguing refugee-hosting communities—malnutrition and limited access to diverse, nutritious foods.

In the heart of Uganda, a transformative story unfolds—Prum Ventures, a beacon of innovation and compassion, is rewriting the narrative of community well-being. This is the inspiring chronicle of Walter Dunga and Prudence Mucunguzi, visionary entrepreneurs on a mission to combat micronutrient deficiencies and reshape the health landscape of the region.

Under the support function, the Uganda Response Innovation Lab (U-RIL) supports innovators and implementers to maximise their ability to deliver successful innovations in a specific humanitarian context. One of these support avenues is seed funding to test prototypes or conduct pilots. The seed funding is open to entities registered in Uganda (Uganda-led or refugee-led) and with an existing proof of concept.

The Local Innovation Nutrition Solutions (LINS) project aimed to create viable business models to enable the sustainable demand of local nutritious foods in refugee-hosting communities in Uganda. The goal of LINS was to address underlying determinants of malnutrition in refugee children living in Kyaka II and Rhino refugee settlements through the analysis and testing of appropriate small-scale solutions and practices, developed through a human-centered design process. The process aimed to ensure high standards of quality and safety in complementary foods for improved nutrition and associated sustainable business and marketing models. 

Response Innovation Lab has just released two short videos summarizing key 2023 achievements in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and East and Central Africa (ECA) regions.

You can watch the MENA recap here and the ECA recap here.

The global Response Innovation Lab partnership is proud to welcome Danish Refugee Council as its newest Member. DRC has joined founding partners World Vision International, Save the Children International, Oxfam International and Civic to help further RIL’s mission to transform response innovation ecosystems in humanitarian contexts. DRC’s singular focus on displacement programming and community empowerment will help drive our programme to further explore how grassroots level innovation initiatives can better connect with response-level humanitarian innovation systems so that community-led solutions can impact populations at scale.

Response Innovation Lab and the World Food Programme have joined forces to facilitate the development and adoption of innovative solutions to key challenges in the Somali food system space. This collaboration culminated in a workshop held in Hargeisa on September 19-21 and co-facilitated by the two partners.

On Friday, 29 September 2023, Uganda's Response Innovation Lab (U-RIL), in partnership with Startup Uganda, hosted an event to disseminate the findings of the Landscape Analysis of the Uganda Innovation Ecosystem and to launch SMILE, an interactive ecosystem map.