STATEMENT
The Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Week (HNPW)
HIP Norway, « Increasing Innovation Adoption».
Statement delivered by Ms. Rannveig Skofteland, Senio Adviser Ministry of Foreign Affairs Norway.
Check against delivery
7 May 2022
Great pleasure to be here with you today, at this very timely session on how to increase adoption of innovations in the humanitarian sector.
Humanitarian needs have increased drastically over the last years, the financing has also increased, but the gap between needs and available resources is large and growing, and is expected to continue to widen in the years to come.
Therefore, we need to be more innovative and efficient.
Norway has supported innovation in the humanitarian sector for many years. Right now we are finalising the revision of our Humanitarian Strategy, that will set the course for Norway’s humanitarian policy and efforts the next five years. The strategy will be launched 15 May in Oslo, and it will be available online if you would like to take a look.
The aim of the strategy is to, in the best & most efficient way, contribute to addressing the humanitarian challenges of our time. Promoting innovation remains one of our main goals.
And what will we do? We will continue the Humanitarian Innovation Programme, HIP Norway. The programme has been implemented now for several years, and we are very pleased with the results.
But we share the concern with all of you; that there is a need for developing skills and a culture of innovation in the humanitarian sector, and promote cooperation, sharing and learning, in order to improve adoption of innovation in the sector.
Both through HIP Norway, other investments, and by encouraging innovation efforts from other partners, we aim to support the development of such a culture of innovation.
Impact:
Humanitarian innovation, including the adoption of new solutions, is today unfortunately slowed by a number of challenges, including short-term financing, limited risk tolerance, and weak links between the humanitarian and business sector.
When adoption of innovation is slowed down, impact is slowed down Norway aims to be a strategic partner for strengthened innovation in the humanitarian sector.
We do this by sharing risks with our partners and by being a flexible and agile donor to the humanitarian organisations’ innovation work.
HIP Norway is a blended finance mechanism, where part of our funding is matched with funding from the privat sector.
We see through this work that flexible public funding is important to leverage funding from private sources, strengthening the organisations ability to innovate and adopt new solutions.
Affected population:
One weakness of innovation in the humanitarian sector is that the affected population is rarely involved. When they are not involved, we risk developing tools and solutions that are not fit for purpose and thus of course not adopted.
In the panel debate in this session, we will hear from innovators that are leading innovation partnerships that actively involve end-users and therefore in a better way develop solutions that meet the affected population’s needs.
For example, in the very first meetings held by Save the Children and Kumwe Hub in Rwanda, in the context of their project on digital inclusion, refugee children, parents and business owners sat down with the wider private sector and humanitarian actors to discuss what it will take to facilitate digital inclusion for refugees.
The outcome of these meetings informed the design of the innovation process they are now working on.
In another project, led by IOM and aiming to tackle E-waste, the direct dialogue between people affected by crises and the private sector partners has been key.
One of the private sector partners, Bright products, was for example able to change their product design to better fit the needs of the population, after dialogue with the users and close observation of how their products are used.
This needs-based and participatory approach is setting these projects up for scale and adoption of the solutions they are developing.
Organisational readiness and procurement:
However, we do also see that great solutions are not being adopted, even if they meet needs. This needs to change.
Zainah mentioned a number of factors that can prevent innovations from being adopted, including some that relate to how humanitarian organizations operate: procurement processes, budget structures etc.
We need to work on the organisations’ systems so that they can support the adoption of innovations and new and better solutions.
In HIP we use a framework called innovation friendly procurement. This is a framework that both safeguards against corruption and makes sure that solutions are procured because of the impact they can make.
How we work on innovation and think about adoption also needs to move from a linear understanding that once we have a good solution, it will be adopted, to a more ecosystem-based approach, where we identify all the various components and all the partners that need to work together to make change happen.
This requires coordination, it requires organisational regulations and procedures that facilitate innovation friendly procurement and partnerships, smoothly and without delay.
As we will hear from the participants in the panels in this session, there are some excellent examples of this work taking place. However, it is not mainstreamed.
I look forward to the conversation taking place here today. With the widening gap between needs and available resources, our future humanitarian efforts depend on new solutions and new, systemic ways of working.
Our joint understanding of the challenges, can provide the bases for a joint approach to address them and make the needed change.
Thank you.