Evaluation of Innovation at the ICRC
Evaluation of innovation at the ICRC
The problem
The ICRC launched a dedicated innovation effort in 2014 and formalised it through a Directorate Resolution in 2017, which set three aims: build a culture of innovation, support bottom-up initiatives, and drive top-down innovation on strategic challenges. An Innovation Facilitation Team of 4.5 staff, with a budget of 3 million CHF a year, sat in the Executive Office of the Director General and worked across an organisation of more than 21,000 people. Five years in, the team wanted to know what its approach had achieved and what should come next, at a moment when the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the ICRC's own financial crisis were reshaping the context for innovating with the organisation.
What we did
The ICRC commissioned us to evaluate the Innovation Facilitation Team and its overall approach, covering January 2018 to June 2023 across relevance, effectiveness, impact and lessons learned.
We built the evaluation around four questions: was this the right approach for the ICRC, did it achieve what the team intended, what changed as a result, and what should come next.
We reviewed more than 160 documents, including every project submission form, and interviewed 61 people spanning the Board, the team, innovators, senior leaders and external actors. We surveyed initiative leads on 31 initiatives, held four in-person workshops with the team and built a meta-analysis of all 128 funded initiatives covering dates, funding, location, lead and outcome. We took deep dives into nine individual initiatives, exploring how they had contributed to the goals for innovation at the ICRC.
Making it accessible
We presented emerging findings to the team and the Inno Board to test them and build support for the recommendations, then took the final findings to a wider group of ICRC stakeholders during evaluation week in December 2023.
The full report was published and an additional 10-page summary of key findings was designed for readability.
The evaluation set out nine recommendations for the Board, the team and innovation leads, and offered three clear options for the future direction of innovation at the ICRC for the Board to choose between. It also recommended an annual Board workshop to set strategic direction and investment criteria, and clearer roles for supporting uptake and scaling.
In the annexes we included a review of how other humanitarian organisations structure innovation, which other teams can also use.
Resources
The evaluation report, summary and Annexes are available on the ICRC website.
GPS
Geneva, 2023
EVALUATION team
Lydia Tanner, Fiona Mwenda, Sali Hafez and Liddy Greenaway
