This Special Issue collection of articles in Third World Quarterly, titled Design Emergencies: Interrogating Innovation in Humanitarian Aid and International Development (Vol 47, 2026), investigates the growing trend since the 1960s of using ‘design’ and ‘design thinking’ to solve urgent global problems. As the world faces intersecting ecological, political and social emergencies, humanitarian aid and development organisations have increasingly turned to designers to find innovative, ‘human-centered’ solutions.
The articles look at historical and current examples of this phenomenon, such as:
- The design of refugee shelters.
- Biometric technologies used to register refugees.
- New sanitation systems in South Africa, like waterless toilets.
- Storytelling products used to combat disease in Kenya.
- State-led programmes to ‘improve’ traditional crafts in Chile
The Special Issue argues that while design promises to help, its role is complicated and needs to be criticised. Ultimately, the Special Issue concludes that design is never neutral. It argues that for design to be truly helpful, it must become more self-aware, context-sensitive, and decolonial.
“When money and resources are scarce, aid and development organisations scramble to defend their legitimacy by finding solutions that are cost-effective and sustainable. Innovation by design is thus often presented as the silver bullet to do more with less. Our Special Issue challenges this narrative. Bringing together scholars from the social sciences, humanities and design studies, this collection provides the critical analysis needed to stop us from funding well-intentioned, but ineffective, “techno-utopianism”.
Moreover, it allows us to ask: Is this design solution actually advancing social justice, or is it just a sleek, apolitical bandage on a deep political wound?”
Special issue Guest Editors, Laura Nkula-Wenz and Tania Messell
About the Special Issue Guest Editors
Laura Nkula-Wenz
Laura Nkula-Wenz (Dr phil University of Muenster) is a Lecturer and Researcher at the African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town, where she coordinates the partnership with the University of Basel on the MA in Critical Urbanisms. As a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the SNSF-funded ‘Governing Through Design’ project, she led the South Designs initiative. She is a human geographer by training, with a strong interest in postcolonial urban theory, African urbanism, new pedagogies of the city, and public culture
Tania Messell
Tania Messell (Dr phil University of Brighton) is a design historian whose research explores the professionalisation of design, the global circulation of design knowledge and practices, and the intersections between design and climate emergencies across the long twentieth century. Her work has appeared in several international peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes, and she is the co-editor of International Design Organisations: Histories, Legacies, Values (Bloomsbury, 2022). As a researcher, she has also contributed to exhibitions on design and material culture held at institutions including the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Vitra Design Museum.
