Rohingya Refugee-Camp Innovations: Reinvigorating Humanitarianism

Abstract

From a begging-bowl association into an innovative machine, humanitarianism is revolutionizing itself. Such is the underlying finding of Rohingya influxes into congested Bangladesh: refugee-camp inventions carrying broader social relevance and market efficiency. In a small but growing crisis-spawned refugee-treatment literature, Alexander Betts’s Oxford-based Humanitarian Innovation Project (HIP) reported ‘digital music exchanges’ (in Ugandan camps), ‘refugee employment in host-country economic zones’ (Syrians in Jordan), and qualified refugees finding local jobs; Jessica Leber postulated ‘humanitarian visas’ (2016); and the RAND Corporation promoted solutions both hi-tech (‘InfoAid,’ ‘Bureaucracy App,’ ‘iris scanning technology’), and low-tech (‘Makapads’ sanitary pads, ‘wooden bicycles,’ ‘radios from old parts’), in defining ‘innovation’ as ‘new solutions and new applications.’ Battling time urgency, capacity pressures, community-camp segregation, and both environmental and cultural idiosyncrasies, several out-of-the-box Rohingya refugee-camp innovations rival those mentioned above: ‘anaerobic lagoons’ (the world’s largest fecal waste), environmental-friendly LPGs, solar-paneled water-pumps, and migrant workers insurance policy, among others. Not only were immediate local concerns alleviated, but humanitarian values were revitalized, especially against refugee-bashing populists, painted more refugee-management hope amid diminishing resources, and seem poised for regular-market entry.