Shirin Madon from LSE will talk with the DIN group.
ABSTRACT
Interoperability is of increasing concern within the humanitarian sector as new actors, systems and technologies combine to provide solutions to disaster victims. While a few studies have focused on the challenges of humanitarian systems working together to harmonise technical and organisational standards, interoperability is also about addressing reform objectives in a joined-up way. Two key reform objectives identified as important for improving the effectiveness of humanitarian aid are to promote the humanitarian-development nexus as well as to work towards pursuing a localisation agenda. A significant area of innovation assumed to work towards achieving these two reform objectives is CVA (Cash & Voucher Assistance) delivered through financial service providers. The digital technologies that enable CVA are widely perceived to enable interoperability and advance these reform objectives.
While CVA is rapidly becoming the preferred modality of delivering humanitarian assistance, the sector is at the early stages of understanding and developing an approach to interoperability, with limited research undertaken to study its impact on the way organisations work together and the implications for the beneficiaries of the service these organisations provide. To address this gap, we study how CVA interoperability is currently being strategized and operationalised drawing on a qualitative case study of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). We focus on identifying key mechanisms deployed by the IFRC to promote interoperability through CVA technology, major contextual barriers for achieving interoperability and the implications of CVA interoperability for the way humanitarian organisations work together, particularly the operation of power and aspects of governance within the humanitarian sector.
BIO
Shirin Madon is an Associate Professor at the LSE in the Departments of International Development and Management. She teaches two postgraduate courses 'ICT and Socioeconomic Development’, and 'Digital Innovation and Humanitarian Intervention'. Shirin is currently involved in two research projects. The first is on primary healthcare in India where she has been studying how community health governance structures at the village level have evolved and their impact on primary healthcare resilience particularly focusing on sanitation, nutrition and hygiene. The second research area focuses on digital innovation in the humanitarian sector where Shirin is studying digital innovation and its implications for improving the effectiveness of humanitarian assistance with recent studies carried out with the UNHCR on refugee identity systems and currently with the IFRC on digital cash transfer systems.
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