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Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mark Lowcock, Opening remarks at meeting on: Leveraging innovation for humanitarian action: are drone and digital technology up to the task?

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UN Headquarters, NY, 19 April 2018

As delivered

It is great to see the room so full. There is lots of interest in this tropic, which is very encouraging.

I think Minister De Croo has been a bit modest about the extent to which Belgium has been a trail blazer in this space.

Belgium is backing innovation projects that span 3-D printing, blockchain financing and digital tools to promote grassroots advocacy.

There is a massive opportunity but things need to be managed well to exploit it.

Already because of advances in data science, artificial intelligence and technology in the humanitarian space as well as in wider human activity, there has been more innovation in the past 5 years than we have seen in the previous 50.

Lots of developing countries, including ones that are affected crises, are on a different development path and a lot of that is because of connectivity and innovation.

Today, 40 per cent of the global population in developing countries is digitally connected through a broadband subscription, which unlocks a lot of possibilities.

UN agencies are already plugged into this. From Malawi to Jordan, UN agencies now routinely work with global satellite communications providers to connect refugee and IDP camps.

Financing is also evolving. Mobile money solutions are letting us tap into local markets and reach inaccessible areas. Parametric insurance, forecast-based financing, and other blended financing tools enable Governments, local authorities and NGOs, to fund swift responses.

One example that I have been very struck by was that two weeks after I started this job on 1 September 2017, the hurricanes hit the Caribbean. And within days of that happening there were pay-outs by insurance companies to Governments that had taken out insurance, so that the path to recovery and rebuilding started much earlier.

Also on the financing side, blockchain technology can boost transparency and accountability and give beneficiaries more autonomy.

In Amman today, this is what food aid looks like for Syrian refugees. Heads of household are identified through a Bioscan of their eyes. That triggers an automatic blockchain payment linked to the World Food Programme’s database. And by the end of the year this form of food aid will reach 500,000 refugees.

Aid:Tech and the Kenyan Red Cross will soon use the blockchain to transfer cash. Beneficiaries control their own data and use a plastic card or a Smart phone, if they have one, to collect the cash.

What a far cry from waiting in line for a food parcel. Faster, safer and much more dignified.

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles, which is what some people call drones, is growing by the day. They are being used by IOM to map displaced populations. By Catholic Relief Services to track coastal rebuilding. By MSF and the American Red Cross to map flood risks in remote areas. And soon by UNICEF to deliver vaccines to remote locations.

Today we will hear in more detail from the agencies and from, Mozambique and the UK on how they are harnessing the power of technology to improve people’s lives.

Before we do, I want to step back and talk a bit about what needs to be in place to enable us to get the best out of digital technology in humanitarian action. And I’ve got five points I want to flag.

First, crisis-affected people are best served by digital innovation when they are closely involved in developing the projects that use it.

Many well-intentioned projects fail when they are flown in from the outside.
Involving people means reciprocating data back to them, rather than simply extracting it.
It means ensuring camp dwellers help design call centres set up to respond to their complaints.

And it means evidenced-based action that meets the needs of everybody – men and women, boys and girls.

Secondly, innovation is less about shiny new gadgets than about how we use them.

Many of us get excited by a fancy new tech device.

Getting the best use of technology means we have to incentivize collaboration over competition.

In OCHA we’re trying to do our part on that. In data-sharing for example, I am pleased, for instance, that heads of IASC agencies are discussing how to coordinate our information services and our data architecture better.

We have an open-source HDX data-sharing platform in OCHA, which was set up to spur the sharing of accurate data, based on principles of trust and transparency.

The Secretary-General has set up an innovation lab and UN bodies are working collaboratively in the UN Innovation network.

These developments do need to be backed up by infrastructure, coordination and communication systems, if we’re going to get the impact we want.

Third, if we are to bring the power of technology to scale, we need to extend and connect partnerships with the private sector.

There are already hundreds of exciting partnerships making a difference in the lives of crisis-affected people. We will hear about some of them today.

What we now we need to a networked approach to partnership.

This approach is fostered through innovation labs, including the Global Humanitarian Lab which connects innovators—whether they’re refugee entrepreneurs, computer scientists or humanitarian agencies—with public and private sector partners.

We’ve seen quite good examples of that happening, including in a fabrication lab in a Rwanda refugee camp; an energy efficiency project for aid agencies; and a centre of excellence to seek advice on blended finance solutions. So, people replicate innovations that are good value for money and work, and we don’t replicate those that don’t pass those tests.

You only get that learning if you network well.

There are a number of initiatives that are starting to take root that promote that networking approach.

The Global Alliance for Humanitarian Innovation for example. Or the Humanitarian Innovation Fund has launched a ‘Progress to Scale framework’ to foster scale-up.
Humanitarians organisations also need to consider market-based approaches to apply more sustainable aid models. For example, when providing digital connectivity to refugee or IDP camps, I think a lot of tech providers will want to take a market-based approach over the long term, which means charging at least a minimal connection fee to create a sustainable revenue stream.

Fourth, in our humanitarian action we need to move from an approach that is about responding to a crisis once it’s crystalized and more about anticipating crises in advance.

That means planning for earthquakes and floods and droughts and their consequences, and putting in place response plans and money in advance so you can release money before a problem crystalizes.

Technology plays a central role in this, especially through data analytics. When aligned with pre-set response thresholds, you can automatically trigger funding or insurance pay outs to stop humanitarian crises from getting out of control. So, Technology can help us build a rational, automatic trigger-system, which can replace the emotional pull we rely on when we appeal for resources when a crisis reaches atrocious levels.

If we respond in that way we won’t only have better responses, but cheaper responses.
We’re starting to see that approach happening.

Forecast financing and parametric insurance, are already being piloted and used Pacific, sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and parts of Asia.

But I think we’re still in the foothills of the potential use of these types of approaches.

Fifth and finally, and this is a point you mentioned, Mr. De Croo, we need to underpin digital innovation with ethical frameworks.

The trawling of mobile data, gathering and sharing biometric identity information, like other innovations can, if not managed sensitively, put people at harm, violate their privacy, and even break laws.

Anybody who’s watched a television screen or read a newspaper over the past few weeks has seen that in very visible form.

We need to develop appropriate ethical standards. The UN Innovation Network, co-led by UNICEF and WFP, has developed a set of principles for innovation and technology in development.

There’s also a code of conduct—almost complete—on the use of drones.

The Centre for Humanitarian Data and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative are developing a policy on ethical humanitarian data-sharing.

As a convener, a coordinator, and mobiliser, we do think we in OCHA have a role to play in advocating for standards and policies, and fostering lesson learning.

We think there is a lot to build on in all of these areas. We need to work in a spirit of openness and collaboration. Collaborating rather than competing. We need to demonstrate a willingness to learn, to experiment, and to make mistakes, but not to repeat those mistakes.

Thank you.

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