As part of GW/IDFR’s Response Innovation for Somalia Emergencies project, a convening will be held in Mogadishu tomorrow, 5th March 2018. The agenda for the program is found here for the event titled “Mapping Somalia’s Innovation Ecosystem: Innovate for Somalia & Response Innovation for Somalia Emergencies. The event is jointly held by Innovate for Somalia (Federal Government of Somalia Ministry of Planning, Investment and Economic Development and the United Nations Development Programme) and Response Innovation for Somalia Emergencies (RISE) (Somali Disaster Resilience Institute (SDRI) and SomReP).
We seek to bring together actors engaged in innovation in Somalia to map stakeholders and challenges, and begin to identify a pathway to build out the innovation ecosystem to better support innovation. The objectives of the day are to share knowledge of innovations, identify and prioritise humanitarian challenges which present an opportunity for innovative new approaches, to map the broader ecosystem of expertise and experience engaged in innovation in Somalia, and to discuss identified gaps in the ecosystem (such as financing for innovations). The Federal Government of Somalia and the United Nations Development Programme in Somalia have launched the project “Innovate for Somalia,” enabling Somali youth to develop innovative local solutions to tackle development challenges and build social and economic ventures.
Response Innovation for Somalia Emergencies (RISE) is a research project focusing the use of innovation to improve emergency response and resilience programmes, implemented by The George Washington University’s Institute for Disaster and Fragility Resilience, the Somali Disaster Resilience Institute, SomReP, and the Response Innovation Lab, with support from the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA).
