Acceleraid is a distributed and real-time humanitarian and development response platform that facilitates the collaboration and coordination of all stakeholders, and facilitates interoperability with existing services and solutions.  Acceleraid is committed to delivering agency to recipient communities, enabling them to determine and own the future shape of their communities.

Central to persistent humanitarian response vulnerabilities is the legacy of Western-oriented response priorities, namely:

• Low trust of local response capacity, leading to heavy reliance on international agencies:
  • relegating local capacity;
  • reduced local inclusion/engagement;
  • reduced local economic resilience (local aid jobs);
  • non-inclusive responder profile (non-native, non-local).
• Lack of inclusion of sub-national/local stakeholders in response structure and delivery
  • compliance requirement challenges
  • lack of visibility/transparency of local trust/response networks

The humanitarian response ecosystem is anyway facing multiple challenges:

Covid-19 has:

• Reduced available public sector funding (high national debt, COVID- recovery costs)
• Reduced private donations to the international sector (local/domestic focussed responses have seen rising donations)
• Driven millions of vulnerable people into poverty
• Exacerbated challenges arising from Climate Change (food vulnerability)
• Exacerbated existing civil society resilience challenges

Pre-existing challenges include:

• Lack of capacity visibility : overlapping response capabilities or actions among responder agencies)
• Lack of real-time collaboration and communication tools
  • replicated response
  • reduced efficacy
• Zero-sum funding markets : “robbing Peter to feed Paul” within a relatively static funding pool, especially among international NGOs
• High sector overheads, with many large organisations serving similar “sector management” functions
• Increasing complexity of response needs, coordination and delivery, particularly in fragile states:
  • Urbanisation of recipient communities
• Rising in total number of NGOs (and of for-profit funding platforms) driving up fund raising costs:
  • more organisations competing for the same market through the same channels
• Transition delivery:
  • moving from emergency to reconstruction to development;
  • difficult to maintain donor engagement to support the journey;
  • orphaned response initiatives reduces efficiency.
• Lack of transparent monitoring processes
  • lack of technology capacity; non-core competence
• Challenges of size vs efficacy in NGOs : i.e. large enough to use funds efficiently without destructive competition but responsive enough manage their own actors and to collaborate with multiple stakeholders

A path forward : 

A platform that puts local response capability and resilience at the centre of future humanitarian initiatives; that grows from local, sub-national networks of SMEs and local NGOs, that makes transparent their own trust-networks, response actions, and data and finance flows, and that supports their ability to satisfy supranational (U.N., local government) compliance requirements.

• Improved real-time communication (by sector and geography):
  • Collaboration to maximise effect of each dollar invested
  • Coordinated responses:
    • Cross-sectorial by location
    • Geographical within sector
• Accessibility data on local capacity to drive delivery closer to the community:
  • improved local language capacity
  • local, contextual knowledge to ensure sustainability of response
  • improved inclusion/representation metrics
• Transparent response process:
  • donors can follow response flow and narrative,
    • reducing marketing costs,
    • improving trust, engagement.
  • Responders can build trust in their competencies/capabilities
    • larger agencies/actors can monitor and measure deliverables
    • established networks demonstrate credibility/authenticity
• Incorporated valuable data services, for a single interface
  • Weather, seismic, natural risks
  • Supranational engagements (OCHA, Global Marketplace)
  • Geographical etc.

Acceleraid is designed as a distributed and real-time humanitarian aid and response platform that facilitates the collaboration and coordination of all stakeholders, while putting local recipient communities and stakeholders at the centre of humanitarian solutions.

As a result, the Acceleraid brings to the market a platform which is:

• Transparent, accountable, measurable
• A solution-based approach
• A deliverable-based approach
• A broader construct of stakeholder actors
• A broader method for knowing your counter-parties to reduce risk
• More cost-efficient and sustainable
• Smoothing transition from emergency response to reconstruction and development
• Compliance-supporting :
  • network and engagement visibility
  • funding visibility
  • deliverables visibility 
  • in-country support for counter-party identification and verfication

A re-imagined response paradigm can also :

• Weaken the position of unhelpful actors (terrorists, organised crime, extremists) through improved KYC/AML processes,
• Open up new response opportunities through a scaleable, inclusive platform that supports new service/support plug-ins.