The Puerto Rico RIL has fulfilled its initial mandate and closeout all Hurricane Maria activities. Working with our local host entity - The Puerto Rico Science Trust (PRST) - we have determined the same need and output of the RIL wouldn't be needed, especially as other activities within the PRST are filling current gaps. As of June 2020, we have sunset the Puerto Rico lab, which is a RIL success!

A principal of the RIL isn't to be around forever, but rather to fill a gap in the response ecosystem and build local capacity to respond. As we continue to expand with additional labs and pop-ups, we are thrilled to have worked through our first lab transition and exit strategy. We are excited to see PRST build on RIL activities, advance humanitarian innovation locally, and continue looking for ways to support their efforts across Puerto Rico.

>>> Click to see a full recap of the lab’s activities.

In December 2020, RIL held a week-long virtual global retreat to share reflections from the past year on each of the humanitarian responses and the challenges, successes, and plans for the upcoming year. Each session is about 30 minutes long.

>>> Click to view.

In December 2020, RIL held a week-long virtual global retreat to share reflections from the past year on each of the humanitarian responses and the challenges, successes, and plans for the upcoming year. Each session is about 30 minutes long.

>>> Click to view.

In December 2020, RIL held a week-long virtual global retreat to share reflections from the past year on each of the humanitarian responses and the challenges, successes, and plans for the upcoming year. Each session is about 30 minutes long.

>>> Click to view.

The Somalia Response Innovation Lab successfully completed our 7th Solution Package. This was done to address challenges identified by the Somali Food Security Cluster around sustainable agricultural institutional capacity in Somalia. The pandemic delayed our recommendations, but we used this time to do further market research into the demand for agricultural training in Somalia. We are now in the process of brokering a partnership between the government, academic institutions,s and a consortium of NGOs to work together to address these challenges.

>>> Click to view the packet.

Nishant Das, Somali RIL Lab Lead, was recently recognized by The Start Network for "Faster and Early Action" regarding the coordination of local innovators to support preventative COVID-19 messaging to high-risk vulnerable populations in Somalia.

>>> Click to read the recognition.

The Somali RIL presented at the Global Digital Development Forum in May 2020 on the collaborative public-private approach in Somalia to build partnerships and leverage humanitarian mechanisms in the co-creation of open-sourced public health messaging products that scaled to a national prevention response campaign to COVID-19.

>>> Click to view

After conducting a Convene with the WASH cluster in 2019 to determine the top challenges in Somalia, WV Somalia decided to ‘own’ one of the problems brought to light. The RIL worked with WV Somalia and WV Canada to successfully win Grand Challenges Canada funding from their Humanitarian Innovation Fund. The project will pilot a WASH monitoring system to track water quality and flow in hard-to-access areas.

Somalia reported the first confirmed case of COVID-19 on 16 March 2020. Quickly, responding to COVID-19 became the major priority for the government, humanitarian actors, and stakeholders working in the region. Due to the limitations in existing infrastructure, plus the challenges around resourcing the response, and openness has been created for more collaboration and coordination.

The Response Innovation Lab (RIL) mobilized quickly to support those directly involved in the COVID-19 response by identifying and defining challenges, then working to rapidly provide solutions that can be deployed. To further support stakeholders involved in the response, the RIL conducted a rapid mini-assessment (survey) in April 2020, focused on understanding the needs and priorities of humanitarian actors in the COVID-19 response. These results are being shared openly to foster learning, improve coordination, and prioritize resources to areas of need.

>>> Click to learn more.

Even before COVID-19 struck, nearly 3.2 million Somali's lacked access to health services. The need for health systems that protect everyone has never been more urgent. The SomRIL brokered a pilot between OGOW EMR and World Vision Somalia to utilize innovation to support rural and urban health facilities with medical records, health promotion, and immunization uptake. Providing needed information to providers and caregivers Somalis is benefited and empowered, especially women and girls, to access community health and primary care services. This collaboration is critical to providing life-saving information to providers and caregivers to make informed decisions.

>>> Click to learn more about OGOW EMR.

The RIL is working with Save the Children and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to bring a bar soap innovation that was piloted in Iraq to Somalia. Surprise Soap is a bar of soap with a toy inside. SomRIL is coordinating with different stakeholders, including the SomRep, to bring this into the Somalia humanitarian response. Locally, a local soap manufacturer has been identified to support the production capacity in order to make the soap locally. The completion of this project will be great to see as it bridges, the Somalia humanitarian response with economic recovery.

>>> Click to learn more.

To combat misinformation and rumors, the RIL partnered with the SomReP consortium (an NGO association) to equip trusted local leaders with the right tools. In this project, 44 Early Warning Committees, made up of trusted local leaders, were equipped with tablets that have pre-loaded public health material.

The Somali Response Innovation Lab (SomRIL) began leveraging our network before a confirmed COVID-19 case in Somalia. Working with various innovators, we developed public health messaging in local Somali languages to reach across the country through a network of partners. By March 2020, the RIL had four videos in wide circulation that the RIL's innovation partners produced on a pro-bono basis. The videos were the first Somali language public health tool for the country. As a result, these materials circulated widely, and the RIL found itself at the forefront of a public health awareness campaign for Somalia.

A co-creation process was used to gather input from the government, humanitarian actors, the private sector, donors, and academia to inform the videos and the distribution. The focus was to bridge global and local expertise, quickly determining local needs and priorities, and contextualize inputs from these actors into the execution. Additionally, by involving actors in the video development, they became vested in its success and supported the wide endorsement, adoption, and dissemination across Somalia.

RIL supported the development of messaging tools through three main partners:

OGOW EMR: A Somali health-tech start-up with an Electronic Medical Records platform incorporates a Somali language public health library. The RIL supported them in developing videos targeted to adults and health care workers.

• COVID-19 Awareness

• Basic Protective measures against the new Coronavirus:

Poet Nation Media: The RIL partnered with education-entertainment innovators, Poet Nation Media, to build off their early childhood education program called Geedka Mooska. Together, we developed a segment called Hiddo & Hirsi – the Protector Twins. These twins envision themselves as superheroes protecting their community from the Coronavirus and show how they deal with closed school challenges, psycho-social and mental health awareness, gender inclusivity and handicap representation, and much more! The stories creatively wove together Somali folktales and proverbs and gave them a fresh spin on current events.

• As part of this initiative, a case study video was also created to provide some background on the process: Behind the Scenes of Hiddo & Hirsi.

IMS Radio Ergo: RIL is partnering with International Media Support (IMS), which runs the Radio Ergo platform in Somalia. This short-wave radio broadcast covers the entire Somali-speaking region, and their partnership with 18 local FM partners rebroadcast their programs. Together we have developed a radio drama that will entertain listeners and address COVID-19 related subject matter.

• Click to view

Somaliland specific video: To address concerns from the Somaliland Ministry of Health, the RIL worked with Somaliland actors Shaqadoon and HarHub to develop a Somaliland-specific message.

• Click to view

The approach utilized by the RIL in Somalia was turned into a framework that could be replicated for other responses - the Adaptive Response Messaging (ARM). Humanitarian actors in Yemen approached the Somali RIL to replicate this approach in a small-scale pilot that was completed with wide success in December 2020. The content has been endorsed by the Somali government (Ministry of Health). It can also be found in the official Repository of COVID-19 Resources under the joint coordination body between the Ministry of Health and the UN, the Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) taskforce.

Due to RIL's early mobilization of ARM, the materials have been widely shared on social media, through official communication channels, embedded into digital beneficiary registration processes, audio clips used as pre-recorded messages for COVID-19 hotlines, television, and much more.

>>> Click to learn more.

A core part of the Response Innovation Lab’s core activities is supporting the process and development of mapping the actors, innovation, and challenges of the humanitarian response. The objective of these activities is to help partners navigate the humanitarian innovation ecosystem and find potential partners.

The Uganda Response Innovation Lab ( Uganda RIL) has developed a dynamic map of the local ecosystem to better identify actors, innovators, in the response. The map is comprehensive of the humanitarian and social impact innovation stakeholders and supporters in the innovation ecosystem.

>>> Click to learn more.

The Iraq RIL developed an awareness-raising animated video based on WHO guidelines for the Iraqi population and those working in-country, on the risk and protective measures in regards to COVID-19. The video specifically focuses on protecting the elderly population. The animated video is a part of the broader Oxfam program - “BIBI Says” - being disseminated on all local social networks, such as radio and TV, in addition to Oxfam and RIL’s media channels.

“BIBISays” is a public health awareness campaign, with grandmothers leading the way and imparting essential advice and guidance on how to protect yourself, loved ones, and the communities from COVID-19.

>>> Click to view the video.

Response Innovation Lab worked with Save the Children’s Migration and Displacement Initiative (MDI) and their Predictive Displacement Project to host local Convener events - in Iraq and Jordan - around the development of a predictive analytics tool that will anticipate the scale and duration of conflict-driven displacement crises. At present, the lack of good data on the eventual scale and duration of forced displacement crises makes it difficult for humanitarian actors to efficiently and sustainably plan for early-stage interventions. Lack of demographical data also limits the efficiency and effectiveness with which they can plan for the specific needs of vulnerable groups within displaced populations. MDI seeks to use historical and contemporary data and machine learning to predict these characteristics of displacement, enabling better responses.

The use of predictive analytics in displacement work in the humanitarian sector has grown significantly amongst international organizations. However limited involvement or consultation has happened with field-level stakeholders. The convening events held with the Response Innovation Lab in Iraq and Jordan focus on identifying and gathering the perspectives and input of other potential end-users and other relevant stakeholders of predictive analytics tools, with Save the Children’s displacement model as an initial reference.

Particularly, the interest is in actors not well represented in typical discussions around predictive analytics in the humanitarian sector, such as

1. National and sub-national level actors working on displacement issues

2. Local and regional research and policy centers

3. Commercial actors with a stake in predicting population movements

The input of these actors will help shape the thinking for the third, external-facing phase of the project, and be a network through which to rollout other predictive tools. Learnings from the exercise will be shared with other humanitarian actors to similarly inform their work.

>>> Click to learn more.

South Sudan has been devastated by decades of war that caused the deaths of two million people and forced four million to flee. The crisis continues to face multiple humanitarian challenges including internal conflict and displacement, food insecurity and high rates of malnutrition, poor access to basic services including education and healthcare, and weak child protection mechanisms

Save the Children South Sudan asked the Response Innovation Lab to support in convening their team of problem solvers from the country office and its implementation partners to define challenges in their humanitarian response, identify priorities, and innovations that can make a long-term difference.

The RIL team ran an innovation workshop to build capacity across Save the Children staff and partners by identifying 3-4 program implementation challenges and working towards adopting innovations that are currently ready to use in South Sudan. The end-goal is finding new ways to overcome obstacles to impact through the creation of an organizational space to learn and practice innovation concepts and methods. The end result will be to increase capacity in the Save the Children South Sudan office and to be an effective adopter of innovation that leads to concrete projects ready to be piloted.

Save the Children South Sudan and the Response Innovation lab conducted a Convening of local actors to map who exists in the ecosystem, their roles, addressing the challenges, and setting the stage for solution-finding.

The Convening workshops ran over nine weeks with innovation experts conducting a “learn-by-doing” approach by:

1. diving into programmatic challenges

2. refinement of problems to facilitate finding a solution

3. matching innovations, how they can be adapted

4. concluding with a basic project design you can build on for funding and implementation

The following challenges were identified and selected by the participants:

1. The low capacity of teachers leads to poor educational outcomes for children.

2. Traditional attitudes toward gender roles and attitude toward education lead to poor educational outcomes and high dropout rates.

3. Lack of monitoring and accuracy of data of screening by community nutrition volunteers (CNVs) leads to children with malnutrition (SAM and MAM) not accessing nutrition services in a timely manner

4. Severe food production gaps lead to farmers applying negative livelihood coping strategies and contribute to acute malnutrition in children under five and pregnant and lactating women.

>>> Click to see the ecosystem & challenge maps

A pilot project called Adaptive Response Messaging (ARM) led by the Response Innovation Lab launched in Yemen between World Vision, Save the Children, and Oxfam on August 2020 to support coordinated preventative messaging across Yemeni social media platforms on COVID-19. The intent is a singular message being pushed by key NGO, Ministry, and local stakeholders with lifesaving information on household and community actions to prevent COVID-19 transmission. The pilot in Yemen is scaled off the ARM model established in Somalia in early 2020 in their COVID-19 response (which was able to reach large scale and endorsements across the Somali speaking region)

The Response Innovation Lab is an initiative led by World Vision globally, with Save the Children and Oxfam to support the integration of humanitarian innovation (global and local) into protracted and early onset emergencies worldwide. The Somali Response Innovation Lab is hosted by World Vision, under the SomRep Consortium (an association of NGOs operating in the response). The activities undertaken in Yemen are conducted as a pop-up lab in support of specific activities and led by the Somali Response Innovation Lab.

The ARM pilot in Yemen utilized two Somali media innovators to support the development of the videos based on their work with the Somali Response Innovation Lab around COVID-19 messaging. The Phase II of the ARM project in Yemen will localize the media content providers and establish a localized network to conduct ARM in further communication outreaches around COVID-19 and beyond.

As of December 2020, just three of the four videos had reached the eyes of over 108,000 + viewers. The Sana'a and Aden Governorates were having the most extensive viewership, but others stretch across Yemen.

To date, the following videos have been published:

• Personal Protective Equipment needed to combat COVID-19 and other illnesses

• Leila & Latif, is a child-focused puppet mini-series about two Superhero siblings that become protectors of their community against COVID-19 and other illnesses. Click to see the videos in Colloquial Yemeni Arabic / Classical Arabic)

• Handwashing short video targeted to kids

• Nutrition and Dietary Diversity, which touches on COVID-19, but is much broader around nutrition to prevent illness

• Physical Distancing (Arabic)

>>> Click to see the full repository