Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Consultation Report

Our Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) regional consultation report takes a comprehensive look at the region’s priorities, examining the perspectives of those international and national actors engaged within the humanitarian research and innovation (HRI) space for this region. The report aims to understand how the HRI ecosystem functions, and offers ideas in developing culturally and contextually appropriate responses.

The LAC region is grappling with multiple humanitarian crises against a background of longstanding development challenges. Regional cooperation is essential to address issues confronting LAC which include political instability, internal displacement and cross-border migration, armed conflict and frequent natural disasters. In this region, the humanitarian-development nexus is particularly relevant, as invaluable learning can be gathered that could shape the global conversation on how our HRI ecosystem can evolve.

Key findings:

• Topics requiring attention: key topics that warrant attention such as how the humanitarian system operates, migration and displacement, protection, violence and organised crime, as well as climate change and planetary health.
• Improving humanitarian response: by designing and implementing evidence-based interventions, along with adapting existing solutions to new contexts.
• Diverse engagement levels: there is considerable variation in the engagement level of states within the region.
• Barriers to timely responsiveness: factors reported as impeding timely responsiveness include funding constraints, short funding cycles and insufficient human resources.
• Crisis realities: the importance of HRI was underscored yet there is an infeasibility of conducting research during a humanitarian crisis.

Recommendations:

• Building awareness: concerted efforts to improve awareness among all relevant stakeholder groups of the potential contributions of research and innovation (R&I) to informing and improving humanitarian action.
• Localising priorities: R&I priorities should be based on local needs and should be locally determined.
• Collaboration across sectors: encourage collaborative engagement between operational organisations, government, academia, and the private sector.

“…research and innovation go hand-in-hand. There can’t be any innovation if you don’t research, if you don’t understand what is going on, if you don’t quantify it, if you don’t put it into context.”

Anonymous respondent (GPE Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Consultation)

This regional consultation for Latin America and the Caribbean was undertaken by the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of São Paulo, the Alfred Deakin Institute and Deakin University as part of our landmark Global Prioritisation Exercise (GPE) for HRI. The consultation – a series of stakeholder interviews carried out across the region – was led by Camila Braga and Marian Abouzeid. Data collection was undertaken by Camila Braga and Gordon Finkbeiner, data transcription and translation were undertaken by Marina Bagatini, data analysis was undertaken by Chaza Akik, Camila Braga, Marian Abouzeid, Zeinab El Dirani, and Gordon Finkbeiner. This report was written by Camila Braga, Marian Abouzeid, Chaza Akik, and Gordon Finkbeiner.