Reframing the way aid works

Tue, Mar 1, 2022

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At Cohere, our vision isn’t to transfer aid. It’s to transfer power. We are reframing the way humanitarian aid works.

Reframing the way aid works

At Cohere, our vision isn’t to transfer aid. It’s to transfer power.

That’s why, along with some of our partners, we developed Reframe - a website that showcases refugee-led organisations (RLOs) in order to help them connect to funding,  partners, networks and other opportunities. The aim of the site is to support refugee leadership in humanitarian response, shift power towards them, and increase their share of aid funding.

We currently have over 70 RLOs registered on Reframe, in locations across Africa. These organisations are all doing inspiring work in their communities, from education, to livelihoods to protection, provision of basic needs and advocacy. Some of them have been doing so for over 20 years, like Bondeko in Kampala, which was founded by refugees in 1997. In other cases, RLOs who have emerged in recent years have the chance to share their plans with people all over the world - such as WeVDO, a youth group working in Kakuma refugee camp. These 70 RLOs are using the site, not only to profile their work, but also to discover the great work of other RLOs and other opportunities posted regularly on the opportunities page.

In addition to the features already in use on Reframe, the platform is designed to facilitate funding to RLOs in the near future. We expect that the site will support donations from individuals, community fundraising initiatives and even funding bodies looking for efficient ways to disburse funding. Software for project and financial planning, monitoring and reporting will be integrated into the platform too so that RLOs and donors can track a project’s progress or the use of funding. We also expect to see the existing learning resource library become more dynamic, with engaging content that can benefit RLO leaders as well as donors and other platform users.

Cohere is fortunate to have funding to work on the development of the platform, but Reframe should not be seen as only a Cohere product. Over time we intend to decentralise the ownership and leadership of the platform so that it is genuinely community led. If you are a refugee leader, you could play a part in this. As a start, signing up on Reframe is easy. Use the platform to find out about the great work other refugee led organisations are doing in different locations and reach out to them so that you can share your experiences.