Nurturing Resilience from the Ground Up: The Safer Communities Innovation Lab

The Safer Communities Innovation Lab, part of a DFID-Start Network and CDAC supported Disasters and Emergencies Preparedness Programme (DEPP) Labs programme co-established by STS, identified and supported community-led innovations to reduce disaster risk. Based in Korail, Bangladesh’s largest informal settlement, the initiative moved beyond innovation buzzwords to empower vulnerable communities. It provided small grants and a supportive ecosystem, co-creating a vital community space that served as a hub for collaboration. The lab helped develop and refine hyper-local solutions such as green walls for cooling, mobile-based community radio, and a network of emergency-trained pharmacists. Through iterative mentoring, these community-led ideas matured into practical, scalable innovations. STS connected innovators with government and development organisations to sustain and scale impact, strengthening broader resilience ecosystems through complementary research and capacity building. The project was led in partnership with Dhaka Community Health Trust (DCH), University of New South Wales (UNSW), Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) at the University of Louvain, and the Asian NGO network ADRRN.

Leading with Lived Experience: Inclusive Evacuation in Indonesia

In Indonesia’s disaster-prone Mount Merapi region, we supported Yakkum Emergency Unit (YEU) and CIQAL to develop an inclusive disaster preparedness model. This innovation directly addressed the exclusion of persons with disabilities (PWDs) by creating a real-time database, a community-owned evacuation SOP, and a local advocacy group. Unique for its leadership by PWDs, the system ensured solutions reflected lived experience. With CLIP mentoring, the project explored scaling pathways—from integration into local governance to replication in neighbouring villages—anchored in procedural humility and sustainable community ownership.

Rethinking Scale: A Community-Led Framework for Innovation

Innovation scaling requires a radical departure from traditional models. Through the Community-Led Innovation Partnership (CLIP), we championed an approach rooted in the agency and aspirations of communities themselves. Moving beyond mere geographic expansion, we co-designed a framework defining scale from a community perspective: as impact depth, ownership transfer, and systemic embedding. This was supported by nine practical scaling attributes, hands-on tools, and training modules to help local actors sustain change. The strategies were successfully applied and tested with partners like CDP in the Philippines, YEU in Indonesia, CAFOD in South Sudan, and ASECSA in Guatemala.

Humanitarian Innovation for Resilience

Local communities possess valuable traditional wisdom on ways to address their risks. They constantly come up with creative ways to solve their problems. This approach to innovation complements technology and governance to improve the efficiency of humanitarian action. The project identifies and supports such innovations across geographies and co-creates pathways to scale them.