TOP 5 NGO TECHNOLOGY INNOVATIONS
Tech is changing humanitarian aid in ways we wouldn't have dreamed of only a decade ago. 21st century technologies and digital innovations have brought in a new era to the NGO world.
NGO & AID NEWS
By Geno Teofilo
7/31/20263 min read
Technology is advancing rapidly, perhaps more quickly than at any time in history. In recent years, NGOs and UN agencies have benefitted from many technological advances. These are making humanitarian aid and emergency response quicker, cheaper, and more efficient than ever before (in some places).
As part of this, there have been many software applications and computer programs which have also made great advances for the NGO aid world, but software, AI and specific computer applications will not be addressed here. Aside from them, here are the top 5 NGO tech innovations for humanitarian aid. These have brought major benefits to countless beneficiaries, and the NGOs using them.
1) Mobile money – cash relief by phone. For years and years, NGOs distributed aid to people in need: items like food, water, shelter, clothing, and other material items survivors needed after a crisis. Sometimes, people received supplies that they already had, and sold them. This flooded the local markets with cheap goods, hurting local economies. This century, in some areas aid evolved into giving people cash in their own currency, so they could buy exactly what they needed. Besides resulting in appropriate aid purchases, this strengthened local markets. Then with the rise of cheap mobile phones, a small number of daring NGOs, (including Oxfam, during the Somalia famine) decided to take the next step: give people in need digital money on mobile phones. If they didn’t have a phone, no problem, give them one. They were cheap, and even Somalia had cell phone coverage in most locations. This was safer than cash relief, as stacks of cash were more easily stolen. Encrypted phones with passwords for a digital wallet were more protected and discreet. Digital cash via mobile phones is definitely the way of the future for aid.
2) Drones – While drones recently gained reputations for destruction in Ukraine and in Middle East, on the positive end drones have quietly been making great advancements in the NGO world. In several countries in Africa, drones have already been delivering vaccines to remote villages for years. In Rwanda, drones have brought packages of medicines to over 1,000 distant communities. As the technology improves, more and more NGO aid will be carried via drones into remote areas and crisis zones, quicker than it’s ever been delivered before. Drones have also supplied dramatic video of fast breaking on humanitarian crises, such as the massive arrival of columns of thousands of Rohingya refugees fleeing to Bangladesh.
3) Satellite Phones – While these have been around since the late 20th century, the technology for these has also been improving by leaps and bounds. While mobile phone towers continue to be built throughout the world, many remote communities still have no mobile phone signals at all. Additionally, when a hurricane/earthquake/disaster/conflict devastates any area, regular mobile towers are often severely damaged, or electricity is knocked out, leaving no phone signals in disaster zones. So ‘sat phones’ will continue to be needed for NGOs responding to immediate disasters. Early versions of sat phones were bulky, had a base station plus a handset, and were terribly expensive to use per minute. Newer versions are far more compact now, with single handsets. They cost less to purchase, and there are more companies to choose with reasonable air time service.
4) Satellite Internet – Much like the need for satellite phones above, when there’s a new disaster, internet infrastructure is frequently knocked out. Sometimes UNOCHA steps up to help. After the Asia Tsunami in Indonesia, the hard hit provincial capital of Banda Aceh lost internet connectivity often. International NGO staff were frequently left sitting at their computers for hours, unable to send or receive vital emails. To fill in the gaps, UNOCHA installed a huge satellite dish at their compound, and a large tent with internet outlets. They allowed all NGO staff to walk in with their laptops, and plug into their internet whenever NGO offices lost their connections. Thanks UNOCHA. Breaking news video, live and taped, has also made major advances through satellites. Transmitting video by satellite used to be confined to expensive news satellite trucks, which had massive satellite dishes mounted on their rooftops. The technology has progressed to transmitting video with equipment hardly larger than a notebook or sat phone. These can now upload video from remote areas, to satellite, then directly to major news studios worldwide. This can happen in minutes, or can even be transmitted live, from the most remote locations on earth.
5) Satellite Imaging – As more and more satellites orbit our earth, they’re being used more and more for humanitarian uses. Immediately after major disasters, and during displacement crises, satellite photos can provide immediate aerial views of a disaster zone or crisis area. This aids analysis of what is happening on the ground. Topographical photos are also used to give seasonal analysis of growing crops, harvests and rainfall effects. These are vital for predicting possible food crises (even famines), droughts, forest fires and other wildfires, and measuring the effects, and aiding in planning the responses to these crises. For assessments, satellite photos have been used to count the number of shelters in refugee and IDP camps. As satellite imaging and resolution continues to improve, so will the accuracy of the analyses.