The Humanitarian Innovation Fund External Evaluation 2017
Programme: Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF)
Evaluation period: 2011–2016
About the evaluation
This independent evaluation reviewed the Humanitarian Innovation Fund’s first five years, assessing its performance, processes and strategy. It examined how effectively HIF supported humanitarian innovation through grant-making, learning and advocacy, and how its approach could develop for the future.
Key findings
The evaluation found that HIF had become a leader in humanitarian innovation grant-making, providing structured funding and valuable support to innovations at different stages of development. It highlighted particular strengths in grant-making, learning and advocacy, alongside an efficient overall approach. HIF-supported projects contributed to improving humanitarian practice, with several demonstrating notable benefits for humanitarian action and crisis-affected people.
The evaluation also identified opportunities to strengthen evidence of impact, improve monitoring and evaluation, expand learning across the portfolio and increase the involvement of national and local actors and people affected by humanitarian crises.
Recommendations
Recommendations included developing a clearer long-term strategy, rebalancing grant-making towards impact, streamlining grant management, strengthening monitoring and evaluation, widening learning on innovation management, and involving crisis-affected people more directly in humanitarian innovation