Abstract
AbstractDigital platforms are restructuring how many companies and industries function, including humanitarian organisations that operate in complex environments and serve vulnerable populations. To date, however, there has been limited study of their use in humanitarian and particularly refugee contexts. This paper seeks to address this gap by drawing on the concept of platformisation to study the opportunities and challenges arising from UNHCR's transition from a closed transactional system to an open innovation platform focusing on core processes of identification, value creation and platform governance that are relevant for refugee management and protection. Our empirical study captures the perspectives of the UNHCR, organisational stakeholders and refugees in the world's largest refugee camp in Northern Uganda with regards to UNHCR's strategy towards platform openness. We find that UNHCR's data transformation strategy introduces the potential for increasing institutional value in the form of more effective service delivery to refugees. However, these technological opportunities do not necessarily translate to greater value if they do not mesh with current work practices, incentives and activities of service provider organisations and refugees. Our study helps identify opportunities to address these constraints, primarily through improving understanding of the emergent governance‐related tensions that exist for digital platforms for development and surfacing existing issues of exclusion and vulnerability. We conclude with insights for the broader theorisation of identification platforms and with recommendations for policies and practices that together might help realise the potential value creation introduced through the platformisation of identification systems.
Highlights
Digital platforms increasingly structure our world, often in unnoticed ways and with far reaching consequences
As UNHCR transitions from a closed system to an open platform, the need to strengthen theoretical understanding of platformisation for improving refugee management drives our research question: How can we characterise the process of platformisation as it applies to refugee management systems? We study the process of platformisation as a move from a closed, transaction-based system to an open architecture which enables organisations from outside the humanitarian eco-system to provide services to refugees
Drawing on the refugee management literature, we identify three key issues which are implicated by this process, (a) how refugees are identified; (b) how value is created for different stakeholders and (c) how governance of the platform is orchestrated
Summary
Digital platforms increasingly structure our world, often in unnoticed ways and with far reaching consequences. The concept of platformisation as a process by which a closed system is turned into an open platform has emerged as a useful lens to study the emergence and evolution of digital platforms. An emergent strand of literature, platformisation has been found to be a useful lens to study the particular characteristics of governmental platforms which aim to generate value to society by encouraging citizen involvement in democratic processes whilst adhering to government regulations and structures (Dahl-Jorgensen & Parmiggiani, 2020). This paper aims to contribute to this nascent strand of literature focusing on inter-governmental organisations that are established to address issues of common interest using the case of the UNHCR, a UN agency mandated by law to protect refugees globally
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