Creating an open platform to share lived experiences and shift power in the humanitarian sector
Impact
The Relief Watch proof-of-concept platform demonstrated how digital tools can shift power dynamics in humanitarian settings, giving recipients a direct voice in evaluating the organizations serving them.
Relief Watch was awarded the 2020 Core77 award for design for social impact.
Credit: Sonder Collective.
The Sonder team is a wonderful design partner… (Relief Watch was an) important but sensitive project (that) required deep expertise in service design for complex adaptive systems, a command of humanitarian aid challenges, and an ability to lead mixed groups of senior officials, aid workers and refugees through in-depth thought experiments and prototyping exercises, and primarily in Iraq. (The team) handled all aspects of the project with energy, professionalism and grace. They upheld a solution-oriented way of working and demonstrated high levels of creativity, honesty, flexibility and integrity.
Challenge
Humanitarian organizations lack transparent accountability mechanisms that give affected people direct channels to provide feedback. Despite calls for a "participation revolution" existing feedback channels—social media, complaint boxes, hotlines—yield inconsistent results, leaving communities without effective means to influence aid delivery or hold providers accountable.
Credit: Sonder Collective.
Approach
The Relief Watch project employed a collaborative, people-centred effort, combining iterative prototyping and participatory design methods, to develop an open platform concept that enables communities to provide direct feedback to humanitarian aid providers.
Sonder first carried out desk research and facilitated a series of workshops with stakeholders from affected communities and humanitarian organizations to guide the initial concept development. During this stage, the team developed paper prototypes to help stakeholders coalesce around tangible platform features and use cases.
The team then visited a number of refugee and internally displaced communities in Iraq to test various channels, ranging from phone calls to chatbots and meetings, in order to find the best feedback mechanisms.
Nobody comes here and sees our situation. This was the first time anybody asked us about these issues.
Community participant, Mosul, Iraq
Finally, Sonder built a proof-of-concept platform using Webflow, and also filmed a video featuring crisis-affected voices to help socialize the concept internationally.
