---
title: "Save the Children - Responder App for the Global Humanitarian Register"
description: "Save the Children works to protect children and respond rapidly when emergencies strike. To support its emergency teams, Relief Applications developed the…"
url: https://reliefapplications.org/projects/save-the-children-responder-app-save-the-children-global-humanitarian-register/
lang: en
updated: 2026-11-11
---

# Save the Children - Responder App for the Global Humanitarian Register

Save the Children works to protect children and respond rapidly when emergencies strike. To support its emergency teams, Relief Applications developed the Surge / Responder mobile application, a tool for the staff who deploy at the front line of humanitarian responses.

- **Client**: Save the Children
- **When**: Dec 2017–Dec 2018
- **Team**: 4+
- **Services**: [App development](https://reliefapplications.org/services/app-dev-and-maintenance/)
- **Technologies**: Ionic, .NET Core, Azure SQL, Azure, Twilio
- **Industry**: Protection
- **SDGs**: 8. Decent work and economic growth, 16. Peace, justice and strong institutions
- **Client website**: [savethechildren.net](https://www.savethechildren.net/)

Save the Children’s Global Humanitarian Register is critical to deploying experienced surge staff within 72 hours of a crisis. Yet, availability checks and approvals were managed through fragmented emails, spreadsheets and messaging apps across 28 member organisations. This manual process led to delays, limited visibility on who was deployable, and a high coordination burden during already time-critical emergencies. Save the Children wanted a mobile-first solution to rapidly alert roster members, collect availability, and manage approvals in one place, while synchronising with existing Azure-based deployment data and working in low-bandwidth environments. Relief Applications co-designed the RESPONDER APP with emergency HR teams, mapping the end-to-end surge workflow and integrating directly with the GHR database. We focused on secure authentication, simple user journeys for responders and supervisors, and secure offline/SMS fallbacks to ensure reliability during crises. We delivered a cross-platform mobile and web application featuring real-time alerts, in-app availability confirmation, supervisor approval flows, and a live reporting dashboard. The system is fully integrated with Save the Children’s central deployment systems and Azure AD, with encryption and SMS fallback for low connectivity. The result is a streamlined, user-friendly tool that turns hours of manual coordination into minutes.

## The challenge

- Fragmented communications
- Slow availability checks
- Complex approval chains
- Low-bandwidth field contexts

## What we did

- Centralised mobile platform
- In-app availability capture
- Integrated approval workflow
- Real-time dashboards
- SMS / offline fallback

![Responder App for the Global Humanitarian Register, Save the Children: screen 1](https://reliefapplications.org/images/projects/slides/p095/01.webp)

![Responder App for the Global Humanitarian Register, Save the Children: screen 2](https://reliefapplications.org/images/projects/slides/p095/02.webp)

![Responder App for the Global Humanitarian Register, Save the Children: screen 3](https://reliefapplications.org/images/projects/slides/p095/03.webp)

![Responder App for the Global Humanitarian Register, Save the Children: screen 4](https://reliefapplications.org/images/projects/slides/p095/04.webp)

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