Humanitarian design needs co-creation and partnership
I read an interesting post by Bruce Nussbaum at Fast Company about whether or not American and European humanitarian design is a new form of imperialism. I think there’s something to this and immediately agree that a co-creation approach, and forming the right partnerships with the people/designers who are actually from, and live in, lower-income countries is critical here.
Some organizations are working really hard at this by setting up frameworks that are built to assess the success, need, validity, etc. of humanitarian design efforts before just assuming something will “help” people in need. I heard a great talk at the Design Research Conference by Kevin Starr of Rainer Arnhold Fellows about designing for impact and meaning about just that.
I know of a great example of bridging the gap between high-income and low-income countries in the realm of healthcare. One of our clients here at Normative, a large hospital in Toronto, is creating research networks that connect doctors and practitioners in North America and Europe with doctors and practitioners in African and South American countries. The research networks share knowledge about childhood disease in an effort to eliminate senseless infant deaths due to things like Malaria. And, yes, there has been much collaboration between doctors and practitioners on BOTH sides and not just solutions handed down.
