Humanitarian innovation, which first emerged in 2009 through a UN-initiated working group, is currently under discussion. Over the past decades, the humanitarian sector has been working with a top-down approach, i.e. donating aid. The result has been that social groups affected by crises and disasters have become dependent on organisations. Though it was possible to alleviate suffering, it was not possible to overcome crises in the long term. This meant that aid organisations remained tied to individual crises, while other crises emerged on a global scale. Attempts were undertaken to tackle this qualitative and quantitative burden through increased efforts. Additional funds were mobilised and the number of humanitarian projects has doubled in the last thirty years.

New working paradigms, such as helping people to help themselves, are now on the agenda under the theme of humanitarian innovation. With more quality oriented projects, crises can be overcome in a sustainable way, the needs of those affected can be better understood and they can be empowered to solve their problems themselves. Services and / or products should be made available to ensure the most sustainable and efficient help in the crisis.

Optimising products and systems is the basic expertise of designers. However, designers have not yet been integrated into the research on humanitarian innovation. This thesis discusses the role that designers can potentially play within projects and sectors and the contribution they can make to the humanitarian ecosystem and in particular to the people affected.