What is innovation?
Innovation was the main issue discussed in AidEx, event held on 12th and 13th of November in Brussels that gathers, once a year since 2010, professionals in aid delivery and development assistance. The participants, coming from donor agencies, NGOs, private enterprises and suppliers of essential aid equipment, had a unique opportunity to work together on improving aid delivery.
But, why innovation? Humanitarian aid and cooperation for development face continuously challenges to respond to emergencies and to achieve social changes in complex situations. Since the 90s, many have criticized its lack of effectiveness and results in the assistance to other countries or people in need. The “donor fatigue” is also appeared as a result of a decrease of funds for aid in individual and country-level donors. In this situation, some believe that being more innovative may improve the humanitarian and development work. Now, even donors include innovation as eligibility criteria for funds. Everyone seems to be concerned about innovation yet, is it clear what does it mean? The participants of AidEx could learn some features from the different conferences held during the event.
1. Innovation as of many parts at the same time. Innovation is about processes, tools, mechanisms, organizations and systems. In the words of Keen Crossley, Senior Programme Advisor in Innovation for UN WPF: “it is not only gadgets or ideas such as smartphones. It is about processes”. As an example, at present, the humanitarian response for refugees has to adapt to new contexts because refugees, in many cases, do not live anymore in tents but in cities. Consequently, the aid has to be innovative in order to provide them assistance and protection.
2. Innovation in aid delivery and development assistance is linked to ethics and values. Aid professionals can and should be innovative but, in the case of humanitarian aid, they have always to respect the set of principles that guide this field such as Humanity, Neutrality, Impartiality, or Independence, among others. For those working in cooperation for development other values such as participation, coordination and harmonization of procedures are also important to take into account.
3. Innovation may be at small scale. Most of the innovative ideas are small, as Andrea Debbane, Executive Director for the Airbus Coorporate Foundation, showed in the event. She explained how the Airbus Foundation, established to support the work of different NGOs and humanitarian programmes, was reinforced with the inclusion of a representative of the development field into the board of the company. This innovative approach helped the foundation to better address the needs of the work in the humanitarian and development field.
4. Innovation needs to be placed "on the ground". Speakers of the conferences all agreed that the most creative ideas come out from the ground and, therefore, innovation has to take place in the field. In their opinion, innovation has to be citizen-driven and be implemented at scale. In words of some participants, an innovative way to reach this approach is “getting out of the way” or, what it is the same, leaving behind the role of the organizations as implementers of the aid. Beneficiaries can prioritize and look for (innovative) solutions to their problems if they receive directly the funds from donors.
5. Innovation has to be measured. A way to know if a project or activity has been innovative is to evaluate it: Does it have an impact? Does it take into account the needs of beneficiaries? Those are the questions to put in order to understand whether the innovation has been successful. As it was highlighted during the conferences, innovations have to be evidence-based. It has been shown that innovation is a concern for many organizations in this field. Many of them have already set up their “Innovation” teams with the aim to foster new solutions in the different areas such as supplies, processes, projects and systems. But organizations should also be aware that innovation can come from anyone in their internal structures, as well as, from any stakeholder or beneficiary. Therefore, the main characteristic for professionals to achieve innovation is to be open-minded in order to identify orthodoxies in their work. The AidEx event has been an opportunity to keep thinking how to improve humanitarian aid and cooperation for development trough the implementation of creative and alternative solutions to the current challenges.
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