Elrha at HNPW 2026: Exploring what’s next for the humanitarian system

As the humanitarian sector faces escalating and increasingly complex crises, Elrha and partners will join UN OCHA’s Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Weeks (HNPW) to explore where the system must go next. With needs rising and pressures mounting, the sector stands at an inflection point that demands practical innovation that puts people affected by crisis at the centre.

Throughout HNPW, we will convene and contribute to a series of 11 sessions. Each session will tackle urgent challenges shaping humanitarian action today and identify meaningful pathways towards the system-wide transformation that our sector needs.  

HNPW is a unique forum for actors and experts across the humanitarian sector to engage and collaborate on the challenges and solutions that impact their work and the lives of people affected by crisis. This year’s HNPW will run from 2–12 March 2026.

Our session agenda represents the core aims of our new programme of work: real‑time learning, better preparation for future crises, stronger local leadership, and practical support for ideas that can make a meaningful difference.  

Whether online or in Geneva, we invite researchers, practitioners, researchers, and donors to join us to help shape a humanitarian system equipped for the challenges ahead. Explore all the sessions we will be taking part in below, and register today to secure your spot.  

Build your skills in championing local leadership  

All humanitarian actors must work to shift power closer to the people living and working in crises. Join these sessions to learn how more inclusive ways of knowing can lead to better decisions and more accountable humanitarian action, whether through locally led data, lived experience, community‑driven research, or participatory technology design.

• Trusted in practice, sidelined in systems: Tacit knowledge & adaptive learning

• Building what counts: Local leadership & innovation in humanitarian mortality estimation

• Unsettling the status quo: The case for locally led humanitarian research

• Advancing responsible tech development in humanitarian contexts: How communities gain agency

Apply project learning for impact

When real-world experience translates into practical learning, the whole sector benefits. Drawing on our experience of funding safer gender-based violence (GBV) technology, applying AI research in practice, and rethinking Value for Money, these sessions will share insights on what works, what doesn’t, and how those lessons can shape more responsible humanitarian approaches.

• More than spend: exploring Value for Money in the humanitarian system

• Lessons learnt from funding GBV Tech Innovation

• From Insight to Action: Applying AI Research in Humanitarian Practice

Safeguard progress for a brighter future

We know that a more resilient humanitarian future must be grounded in the evidence, memory and progress we've achieved to date. From archiving at‑risk digital knowledge to renewing research and innovation agendas, these sessions look back on a decade of system change, and apply learning to evolving health challenges. Join us to explore how our collective learning can shape a brighter future.  

• Responding to changing needs: Leveraging research and innovation to address the silent killers of humanitarian crises – non-communicable diseases

• From reset to renewal: A new agenda for humanitarian research, innovation and learning  

• Safeguarding humanitarian memory: Challenges and a practical toolkit for digital archives

• Addressing the digital infrastructure shortfall to safeguard humanitarian knowledge (registration link coming soon)