Nestled within the challenging terrain of the Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement in Uganda, a beacon of hope is meticulously emerging through the collaboration of Gulu University, the Response Innovation Lab (RIL), and Save the Children. This unfolding narrative, generously backed by Innovation Norway under the Local Innovations for Nutrition Solutions (LINS) project, unfolds against the backdrop of two critical issues plaguing refugee-hosting communities—malnutrition and limited access to diverse, nutritious foods.

Under the support function, the Uganda Response Innovation Lab (U-RIL) supports innovators and implementers to maximise their ability to deliver successful innovations in a specific humanitarian context. One of these support avenues is seed funding to test prototypes or conduct pilots. The seed funding is open to entities registered in Uganda (Uganda-led or refugee-led) and with an existing proof of concept.

On Friday, 29 September 2023, Uganda's Response Innovation Lab (U-RIL), in partnership with Startup Uganda, hosted an event to disseminate the findings of the Landscape Analysis of the Uganda Innovation Ecosystem and to launch SMILE, an interactive ecosystem map.

The Uganda RIL has just published its first Matchmaker Solutions Pack of 2023, on the challenge of linking refugee employment seekers to available jobs in their areas. Read the report here to see what solutions were proposed.

In Uganda, refugee-led organizations (RLOs) are developing innovative solutions to everyday problems found throughout their settlements and host communities. In this blog post we shine a spotlight on 13 RLOs creating, testing, and providing new solutions for refugees and others.

Financial inclusion efforts and savings groups are common interventions in humanitarian and development programming. Individually or combined they help promote savings, increase access to credit and ultimately, build self-reliance. With more commercial and mainstream financial services moving online, there are also efforts to do the same at the community level. With this in mind, Ugandan company Akaboxi developed a way to help digitise village savings and loan associations (VSLAs) and link them to banks and other finance institutions. Akaboxi hoped their innovation would not only help people save but also help them build a base from which they could access commercial financial services in the future.

Starting around May 2022, RIL and Audiopedia Foundation ran three interactive events in Kampala. These events also included developing interesting case studies of open source in action and running a contribution competition. Through these events it was hoped that existing open-source users and developers would find humanitarian and development actors to partner with and that more people, regardless of their background, would feel more confident to try using open-source software.

The SafeBangle Team is developing a wearable safety bracelet that can be used by the would-be victims of assaults, SGBV, and other forms of injustice to call their trusted relatives and loved ones for help.RIL has been offering mentorship and capacity strengthening, helping the team access new partnerships and resources. Read about their experience here

In 2020-2021, RIL further supported investment in this field by facilitating the 3rd call of the Dutch Relief Alliance Innovation Fund – allowing an investment of EUR 2 million in locally-led innovative proposals. See more about this locally-driven approach to funding innovation and the great solutions that emerged here.

A tailored curriculum has been developed based on an analysis of capacity gaps and existing other training programmes in Uganda. It has been delivered in partnership with Save the Children, United Social Ventures and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. - Learn more about innovator trainings here

RIL Uganda runs a Learning Hub for the refugee response actors and has supported them to learn and uptake best practices around: the Refugee Engagement Forum- Learn more about U-Learn here

With the LINS project, RIL Uganda identified alternative solutions to the traditional distribution of free and imported nutritious foods (corn-soya blend/porridge) through a participative and competitive process.
Learn more about LINS here

In 2021, LINS issued a call for nutrition innovations/solutions that are locally rooted, market-driven, sustainable, with satisfactory proof of concept, and less dependent on humanitarian aid flows. The call sought to support quality solutions to at least one of the major challenges of malnutrition

Participation in the MIT D-Lab’s Co-Creation Summit in Arua, Uganda, which promoted locally designed solutions to energy and livelihoods challenges in refugee settlements.

The Open Source for Equality initiative aims to promote the development and use of open source that contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals with a focus on health, education and equality. In this video we get to hear the experience of how five organizations are using open source for their benefit.

RIL Uganda organized a half day kick-off workshop and launch on 21st July 2022 to officially introduce the Local Innovation for Nutrition Solutions project and selected innovators to key stakeholders and partners. The event was reported on by the national TV network UBC.

Read about the experience from innovator Saul Kabali with Response Innovation Lab developing SafeBangle Technologies for the past two years, a wearable technology for immediate reporting of violence attempts against women and girls.

Learn about the Uganda RIL’s Kampala Impact Day events, and the three innovators nominated by the team.

Check-in on the innovators who won the cash award from the Uganda Response Innovation Lab in 2020. The innovators submitted their innovations in prevention and response, continuous learning, livelihoods, and refugee-led innovations that were already proving effectivness in the fight against COVID -19.

Our labs are supporting several innovations that directly benefit refugee populations, learn more about these innovators and their pursuit to support their communities and others.