Social Innovation Consultant
Services
I offer a range of consulting services to help humanitarian and development organizations identify challenges, spot innovation opportunities, ideate and design solutions, and mainstream innovation into projects and programs. All grounded in evidence and learning to inform strategic decision-making and achieve impact.
Who I Help
I work with international development and humanitarian organizations and teams that are looking to design, co-create, test and scale innovative solutions to complex social challenges.
How I Do It
I use a human-centered design approach to problem-solving, while incorporating principles of systems thinking, user research and behavioural insights, and methodologies such as open innovation, co-creation and ideation.
What's in It for You
I bring my extensive experience of working across countries and contexts. I work hand in hand with you to also build your teams' understanding and capacities of how to identify and create innovative solutions to real challenges.
Scoping: opportunity identification
Example projects
Who: UNDP Innovation Portfolio
Where: Pakistan
What: Youth Empowerment Programme challenge "how can we reach millions of youth that are illiterate, in rural and/or remote locations and deliver training to them on entrepreneurship as an employment option?”
How: in partnership with a Telecom provider and social enterprise focused on behaviour insights work via mobile tech, rolled out pilot on integrated voice response training programme on entrepreneurship
Tools: mobile, technology, strategic partnerships
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Who: Caribbean Corporate Investment for Resilience (CCIR) Initiative, with Global Knowledge Initiative (funded by USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance)
Where: Latin America & Caribbean (LAC)
What: Discovery & Research phase to map system of private sector engagement and investment for resilience in the Caribbean.
How: Applying principles of human-centered design and process of systems mapping to identify challenge points and opportunities for solution ideation.
Tools: systems mapping, user research, stakeholder analysis, mapping & insights tracking, facilitation and challenge identification (insights statements & "How Might We").
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Who: UNDP Governance Program
Where: Pakistan
What: Investigating the restriction on women’s engagement in public life and identify potential programming strategies to mitigate this.
How: Designed and implemented a behavioural insights pilot based on "positive deviance" methodology to identify outliers and models for intervention
Tools: behavioural insights research, positive deviance methodology, outliers, bright spots.
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Co-Creation: Ideation & Design
Example projects
Who: Caribbean Corporate Investment for Resilience (CCIR) Initiative, with Global Knowledge Initiative (funded by USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance)
Where: Latin America & Caribbean (LAC)
What: In response to prioritized shared challenges of resilience, identify potential solutions and select key opportunities to pursue.
How: Facilitate series of workshops for identification of pain points, development of problem statements, challenge prioritization & solution ideation. Established cross-sectoral stakeholder action group for refinement of solution concept - a technology platform for tracking of resources within the region.
Tools: challenge identification, problem statements, facilitation, ideation, concept development.
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Who: UNDP Innovation Portfolio & Youth Empowerment Programme
Where: Pakistan
What: Believing that a wealth of untapped problem-solving potential sits within Pakistan's youth population - how can we harness it for work on the SDGs?
How: Co-design of a youth-focused open innovation challenge.
Tools: innovation challenge, youth-empowerment, co-design
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Collaboration: Strategic Partnerships
Example projects
Who: United Nations (UNDP) Governance Programme
Where: Pakistan
What: Leading strategic partnerships & coordination with internal and external stakeholder on UNDP's $20 million < governance programme in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
How: Management of 2 new project proposals securing over $20 million in funding. Lead focal piont for UNDP governance programme on all inter-Agency UN coordination for Governance.
Tools: donor relations, inter-agency coordination, business development
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Who: Caribbean Corporate Investment for Resilience (CCIR) Initiative, with Global Knowledge Initiative (funded by USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance)
Where: Latin America & Caribbean (LAC)
What: Identify & engage key regional public and private sector stakeholders for addressing resilience challenges
How: Conducted extensive stakeholder analysis & engagement including key information interviews, building an insights tracker for capture and coding of qualitative information, turning information into actionable insights to
inform program strategy. Using stakeholder mapping data, information and visuals for project implementation.
Tools: stakeholder analysis & mapping, qualitative research, stakeholder engagement strategy, CRM.
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Learning: Knowledge Management & Evaluation
Example projects
Who: Danish Church Aid
Where: Global/Remote
What: Design and deliver learning toolkit for DCA's Innovation Learning Hub - to strengthen understanding and capacity of DCA staff globally to design and implement innovative approaches across humanitarian and development programming
How: By identifying a complete user journey, developed a comprehensive suite of innovation tools aligned with human-centered design principles, ethical humanitarian innovation, and linked to DCAs existing program management approaches.
Tools: User journey, learning experience, learning, toolkits, human-centered design.
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Who: UN Women (UN Agency on Gender Equality & Women's Empowerment)
Where: Kenya / Eastern & Southern Africa Regional Office
What: Building & strengthening decentralised Monitoring, Evaluation & Reporting systems in the Eastern and Southern Africa region. Use evaluation to inform strategic planning & decision-making.
How: Designed & conducted a meta-evaluation to develop evidence-based programming guides for each thematic area of UN Women’s work. Reviewed 4 years of evaluations in the region, building of a database for insights capture.
Tools: Qualitative research, key information interviews, stakeholder insights, literature review, meta-evaluation, Access Database.
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Who: Plan International
Where: Global (based in UK)
What: Knowledge & Information Management for Child Protection in Emergencies (CPiE) global team to strengthen capacity building and learning systems. ​
How: Designed & implemented new Sharepoint system, online library, technical network pages. Drafted training modules on Sexual Exploitation, Abuse & Gender-Based Violence in emergencies. Lead research on the use of ICT for capacity building of CPiE Specialists.
Tools: Qualitative research, capacity building, online learning/training.