The World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 deliberately avoided hard talk of systemic reform; instead, we got incrementalism, with innovation one of the drivers of change. Today, only a small proportion of humanitarian spending goes toward activities labeled as innovation – it’s hard to find out just how much – but it fuels a proliferation of innovation labs across the humanitarian space. Given the ambition, the important question is whether the things labs generate make a difference.

Hard to say, because they are largely missing evaluative frameworks to assess whether their projects tip the balance, either individually or across the system. Rather than hard-headed analysis, we get sunny reports that extol the benefits of specific projects without delving into the challenges they face or explaining whether the innovation they introduce equals more than the sum of the parts.

Part of the problem is defining what constitutes innovation. An evaluation of the Humanitarian Innovation Fund describes innovation as “doing something different with the aim of improvement.” WFP’s Innovation Accelerator in Munich claims to promote partnership with the private sector and civil society, emphasizing cutting-edge techniques and human-centered design, while UNHCR’s Geneva-based lab has broader goals, encompassing “refugee protection, self-reliance, dignity, and education.” Without stifling creativity by over-determining what’s needed, it would help to have criteria that underline satisfying affected people’s needs – and engaging them in the process of innovation.

Read the full article by Nick Van Praag about humanitarian aid from Ground Truth Solutions