Exploring Localized Humanitarian Innovation: A combined scoping study and case study of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement

Abstract: Within recent years, the concept of Humanitarian Innovation (HI) has emerged and received growing attention within the humanitarian system as a critical means of adapting to growing complexities, uncertainties and resource scarcity. While perceived as a means of stimulating broader system changes and increasing effectiveness and efficiency of humanitarian assistance, current efforts of HI have met criticism for being too top-down driven, Northern biased and detached from local actors priorities and needs. As a consequence, there appears to be a need to localize HI in order to ensure sustainable change. While there appears to be strong evidence suggesting that local actors and communities are uniquely positioned to innovate in ways that are relevant, effective and culturally and contextually appropriate, localized HI still appears to be under-researched and lacking practical guidelines. Through a scoping study and case study of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the concept of localized HI was investigated in terms of what it entails, how it is perceived, how it occurs and how it can be managed. The findings show growing interest in and a strong consensus on the need for localized HI, although a terminological and conceptual ambiguity exists, which may hinder the ability to manage it. It also appears critical to discuss who is considered ‘local’ and whether localized HI happens organically or can and should be facilitated. Not asking these questions means that the localized HI agenda will likely remain misdirected, scattered, vague and difficult to operationalize going forward.