10 big data science challenges facing humanitarian organizations

Using GIS technology to map shelter allocation in Azraq refugee camp

Yahya Hassune, doesn’t take no for an answer, quite fortunately for UNHCR.

About two years ago, Hassune was working on his first day as Associate Field Officer in Azraq, a new camp…

Implementing a geo-spatial health information system to better understand access to health care

In June 2012 inter-communal violence broke out in Rakhine state, Western Myanmar between the Buddhist Rakhine community and the Muslim Rohingya community, the largest…

A critical time for refugees and their environment (again)

In 2002, Ray Wilkinson wrote that it was a critical time for the environment. Looking 10 years into the past, he referenced then-High Commissioner Sadako Ogata, who said in 1992 that the “relationship between refugees and the…

Why we need to stop turning refugee stories into aid agency vanity projects and start listening

Is your app the best way to help refugees? Improving the collaboration between humanitarian actors and the tech industry.

Ever since the Syrian refugee crisis has come to the world’s attention, coders, designers and other professionals of the…

UNHCR launches Fund to drive innovation in operations

UNHCR’s funding mechanism for innovation-driven projects, the Innovation Fund, has received 102 applications for its first-ever call for proposals. The initiative is part of a wider effort spurred by the UNHCR’s Innovation Unit to…

How human-centered design can help create self-sustainable refugee communities

If war had not come to Johnny D.’s Angolan village, maybe he would still be selling books with his wife and ten children. But war did come, in 2006, and there was no time to grab any possessions…