Change means action: Start Network's new 3-year strategy for 2024-2026 has just launched. It crystallises our value offer as a systems change organisation and sets out how we will address the challenges in the humanitarian sector.
A locally led humanitarian system is only possible through innovating, experimenting and testing different ways of working.
Currently endorsed definitions of accountability to affected people continue to reinforce and be reflective of realities in which humanitarian organisations and donors hold power over crisis affected people...
In October 2021, Complexity University in partnership with Start Network and The Global Fund for Community Foundations (GFCF) launched the first radical, action-focused innovation programme for community-led impact in the aid sector. The Crisis Response and Resilience Lab was a 2-week intensive action-learning programme, the first of its kind, aimed at supporting humanitarian practitioners to experience and learn a new way of working in response to complex humanitarian challenges. The Lab was an experiment in itself—an opportunity to create a place where different people could build new practices, relationships and learning, whilst experiencing a professional and personal journey taking them from business as usual towards a new, better, humanitarian system.
With support from the Asian Disaster Reduction and Response Network (ADRRN), the Center for Disaster Preparedness will work with top community innovators in the Philippines to strengthen the disaster risk reduction (DRR) innovation system in the country through the Pinnovation Academy.
There is no shortage of problems in our modern world. COVID-19, climate change, migration, and increasing economic inequality are just some complex social challenges that we are facing. These challenges surpass our existing solutions toolkit, requiring us to stretch our creative muscles and innovate in order to keep up.
In 2020, as part of Start Network’s commitment to localisation and collective innovation, we embarked on a journey to develop innovative and locally-driven solutions that place communities affected by humanitarian crises at the forefront of humanitarian action. We have been working with Start Network hubs to start building community innovation initiatives in Guatemala and the DRC.
As the pandemic and its economic impact started to bite, A Single Drop for Safe Water (ASDSW) in the Philippines reflected on how humanitarian assistance should change in the face of this extended crisis. Working with social enterprises like Ashoka, Xchange, Firetree Trust, and Limitless Lab, we developed a programme that looked at and improved the systems in place for emergency response, and worked to strengthen these systems to better serve impacted communities.
Blockchain technology has been making waves in many industries with its transparency and security-oriented technology. From tracking funding to offering refugees financial services and even improving the processing of asylum requests, blockchain is revolutionising the way the world welcomes refugees.
The proverb sure does ring a bell for the Maarifa Kona Innovation Lab team in Kenya as each month provides new insights and it also shapes our outlook on this innovation path shuttled by the DEPP Labs programme.
