When former Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon encouraged the
humanitarian sector to innovate and create a new paradigm to respond to people
in crisis, the sector answered with an unbridled number of new enterprises and
laboratories to create tools, products and new initiatives. As these emerged, so
did the reality of the changing complexity of communities in need of
humanitarian assistance. The deterioration of the natural physical environment,
along with burgeoning population dynamics and threats to humanitarian workers
themselves, has tipped the balance of complexity beyond the capability of the
system to respond effectively. The humanitarian sector as a whole must urgently
commit to reconciling four critical challenges to reinvent itself and its
effectiveness: reconciling the meaning of innovation; developing an overarching
strategy that addresses the radically changing global context in which
communities require assistance; agreeing on an integrated structure to deliver
innovation; and addressing how innovation is financed. Unless the sector
addresses these four elements, the action and effect of innovation will fail to
realise the transformational change necessary, to respond to communities in
crisis now and in the future.
