ICTworks

Humanitarian aid organizations use ICT4D tools with refugees to provide displaced people with many lifesaving services. Education, healthcare, livelihoods, protection, and social cohesion are all more efficient with digital development solutions.

Here are four more ways humanitarian aid organizations can use ICT4D to help refugees:

• Stay connected with their communities and access information and services via mobile phones, social media, chatbots that are relevant to their needs, rights, legal status, protection mechanisms, or resettlement opportunities.
• Establish their identity and nationality via biometrics and access mobile money and digital financial services that are essential for their survival, financial security, and human dignity.
• Improve their learning outcomes and skills development by providing access to quality digital libraries, online courses, e-learning platforms, educational apps, and curriculum materials for higher education or vocational training.
• Cope with the psychological and emotional challenges of displacement by providing access to telemedicine, online counseling, self-help apps, and digital storytelling mental health support and well-being resources.

10 Relief Organizations Using ICT4D to Help Refugees

Many humanitarian relief organizations use ICT4D to improve refugee program coverage, efficiency, transparency and accountability. Here is a list of ten development firms that are assisting displaced persons with digital development tools:

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• CRS Nigeria: ICT4D solutions improved humanitarian program efficiency in Nigeria by using digital beneficiary registration and electronic vouchers to reduce fraud and increase transparency with people affected by conflict, displacement, and food insecurity.
• Médecins Sans Frontières: ICT4D solutions such as mobile health services, digital data collection, and telemedicine to improve the health care delivery and quality for refugees and host communities in Dadaab, Kenya.
• Mercy Corps: digital solutions such as mobile health services, digital financial inclusion, and agricultural market information systems improve the health, livelihoods and resilience of refugees and host communities.
• Nigeria Red Cross Society: ICT enhances disaster preparedness and response, including using SMS to communicate with volunteers and constituents, social media to raise awareness and mobilize resources, and satellite imagery and GIS to map vulnerabilities.
• Save the Children: digital solutions such as digital storytelling, mobile education, child protection systems, and more empower refugees, children, and their families to access quality education, protection services, and psychosocial support.
• UNHCR West Africa: ICT4D solutions such as biometric registration, mobile connectivity, and online learning platforms enhance protection and assistance for refugees.
• UNICEF:  ICT4D solutions including digital education, digital storytelling, and child protection systems empower Syrian refugee children and their families to access quality education, protection services, and psychosocial support.
• USAID: ICT4D solutions including mobile cash transfers, digital vouchers, and digital health services improve the food security, health care access, livelihood opportunities, and resilience of Syrian refugees and host communities.
• World Food Programme: digital solutions such as biometric registration, mobile cash transfers, blockchain technology, and more to provide food assistance, nutrition support, livelihood opportunities, and resilience building for refugees.
• World Vision: ICT4D solutions such as mobile education, digital storytelling, digital literacy, and more to empower refugees and other marginalized groups to access quality education, participate in decision-making, and express their voices.

3 Challenges Using ICT4D with Refugees

Sadly, there are no perfect digital humanitarian relief solutions. Each one fails somehow, and overall there are at least three major challenges that organizations face when deploying digital development solutions.

ICT4D solutions for refugees can:

• Create digital divides and inequalities among refugees who have different levels of access, affordability, and literacy to use technology. For example, refugees may not have reliable internet connectivity, adequate devices, or sufficient data plans to access online services.
• Pose ethical, security, and privacy risks for refugees who share their personal data and information with humanitarian aid organizations. For example, refugees may not consent to data collection and have no protection against hacking or misuse their data.
• Reduce human interaction and trust between refugees and humanitarian actors who rely on technology to communicate or deliver assistance when refugees prefer face-to-face contact or personal support from humanitarian staff.

These challenges can be mitigated by adopting good practices for using technology in humanitarian contexts. For example, you can use the Digital Principles to evaluate ICT4D solutions when working with displaced persons.