Moving from the Global to the Local - Co-creation for Humanitarian Energy
Watch the recording of this event.
The Humanitarian Engineering and Energy for Displacement project (HEED) based at the Centre for Computational Science and Mathematical Modelling, presented this webinar series throughout September 2021, which saw a host of leading experts, academics, practitioners, donors, and private sector actors come together to challenge the existing understanding of three dimensions of humanitarian energy access in the form of people, process, and policy.
On this page you will find a post-event summary for each webinar, alongside supporting event recordings and blog posts.
This series was designed to challenge and engage multi-level stakeholder’s who are central to solving the humanitarian energy access challenge. The webinar series took place throughout September 2021.
Watch the recording of this event.
Date/time: Thursday 02 September 2021, 10:30AM-12:00PM
Opening words: Professor Elena Gaura, Coventry University.
Panellists: Dr Khalid Koser MBE (GCRF - Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund), Natalie Rzehak (GIZ) and Milan Joshi (Practical Action).
Partnership: GIZ
Event chair: Benjamin Robinson, Coventry University.
Event overview: The co-creation of humanitarian response is deemed critical in effectively reacting to the needs of forcibly displaced people and communities. Yet, methods of co-creation are often fragmented and misunderstood resulting in the propagation of ineffective top-down humanitarian response. In this webinar, the panellists to answer questions around the meaning of co-creation, how we operationalise this abstract term and what the future of co-creation may look like. These cross-disciplinary perspectives enable energy policymakers, practitioners, manufactures and academics to challenge each other on the why, what, when, where and how of co-creation.
Four takeaways from the webinar:
Watch the recording of this event.
Date/time: Thursday 09 September 2021, 10:30AM-12:00PM
Opening words: DrJonathan Nixon, Coventry University.
Panellists: Professor Heaven Crawley (Coventry University), Vahid Jahangiri (International Lifeline Fund) and Joane Kayibanda (Bboxx Kenya).
Partnership: BBOXX.
Event chair: Sam Unsworth (Chalmers University).
Event overview: When well-practiced, innovation can be understood to mean enabling and institutionalising positive changes and practices, not just one-off projects: also creating new value which did not exist previously. In this webinar, panellists emphasised the need to be considered in how we discuss both “humanitarian energy” and “innovation” - even more so when we bring the two terms together, recognising that these communities of practice and academia are typically siloed. These terms can have exclusionary effects and may lead to a particular framing of a particular problem / solution. This could lead to a misplaced emphasis on novelty as a normative agenda, e.g. “new is good”. Innovation activities focused in humanitarian energy settings benefit from local context-driven, but new ideas and ways of doing things have the potential to be useful in areas such as data, information sharing and financing.
Three takeaways from the webinar:
Watch the recording of this event.
Date/time: Thursday 23 September 2021, 10:30AM-12:00PM
Opening words: Thomas Fohgrub (GPA).
Panellists: Katrina Pielli (Energy Consultant), Stephen Gitonga (UNDP), Dr Sarah Rosenberg-Jansen (University of Oxford and GPA) and Luc Severi (SEforALL).
Event chair: Hajar Al Kaddo (Coventry University).
Event overview: Humanitarian energy policy is complex, multi-level and is connected to global frameworks, national refugee host governments policies, and the long established humanitarian system and architecture. The need for better policies to engage quicker access, technological advancements, and new methodologies for sustainable energy for displaced populations was the core of this webinar and the discussion with experts. The webinar explored how to achieve higher level and more ambitious goals for energy within and outside of the humanitarian sector, including engaging multi-level partnerships with newer actors and stakeholders in the delivery of state of the art, innovative and co-created technological systems. The panellists addressed the following questions: How can refugee host country policies become more inclusive of displaced populations? How can we go beyond policy superficiality in the humanitarian sector to enable energy access? How can humanitarian energy become more inclusive and radical over the next 10 years?
Five takeaways from the webinar: