Or how to optimize links and information with the population.
In humanitarian contexts marked by protracted crises, access constraints and growing pressure on resources, maintaining a direct and reliable link with populations has become a central issue. This reality led Solidarités International to develop SOLIS Bot, an innovative communication tool.
In this interview, Valentin Pistorozzi looks back at the genesis of the tool, its concrete uses in the field and the lessons learned from its deployment.
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Can you, in summary, present to us what the Solis Bot tool consists of?
The SOLIS Bot is a communication tool designed to maintain a direct link between humanitarian actors and affected populations in areas where access is restricted because of insecurity, disasters or epidemics.
Available at all times (24/7) and free for beneficiary populations, it works mainly via WhatsApp – the messaging application most used in many humanitarian intervention contexts.
Thanks to it, beneficiaries can obtain information on the aid available in their region, access useful contacts, ask questions or make assistance requests, take part in satisfaction surveys, or even submit complaints directly by writing to the SOLIS Bot number via WhatsApp.
The objective is to make these exchanges inclusive and accessible to all: voice messages are accepted, which allows everyone, even without being able to read or write, to use the service. For beneficiaries without Internet access, it is also possible to share messages with them by SMS.
For humanitarian teams, the SOLIS Bot represents a considerable gain in time and reach. It makes it possible to broadcast messages or questionnaires to thousands of people via a web platform, to automate responses and to collect structured data.
These interactions, which would not have been possible for reasons of cost or complexity, are now possible. Indeed, an instant message broadcast through this channel costs only a few cents, and a response to a questionnaire only a few tens of cents.
Deployed in our country offices in Lebanon, Ukraine and Haiti, as well as with five partner NGOs, the SOLIS Bot enabled in 2025 50,000 beneficiaries to exchange more than one million messages:
In Lebanon, it serves as an entry point to the Complaints and Feedback Mechanism (MGPRI) to monitor our 300 sites, collect information during needs assessments or other surveys, and to share emergency messages with our beneficiaries.
In Ukraine, it simplifies the collection of indicators for donors in areas impacted by war and difficult to access.
In Haiti, it offers a permanent and discreet channel of exchange with beneficiaries living in areas controlled by gangs.
In summary, the SOLIS Bot is a better link between beneficiaries and a humanitarian organization: it gives a voice to isolated populations and facilitates their access to adapted and responsive aid.
To find out more in video, it’s here: What is the SOLIS bot?
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Let’s go back to the starting point: in what context was Solis Bot born and what were the first problems you were seeking to solve on the ground?
The SOLIS Bot was born in Lebanon, in a context marked by the still significant presence of Syrian refugees and by the COVID-19 pandemic. Faced with essential needs for information on available services, on modalities of access to aid, as well as constraints of movement and communication, Solidarités International teams developed a tailor-made digital solution to respond to them.
Before the implementation of the SOLIS Bot, classic channels, like hotlines or field visits, often proved too time-consuming and diverted teams from other priority activities. By relying on WhatsApp, used by more than 80% of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, the tool became an additional entry point and always accessible to obtain information or submit requests.
The initial objective was therefore to fill this communication gap by offering populations a simple way to be informed and heard, and humanitarian teams a direct channel to strengthen the organization’s accountability, better understand unmet needs and organize our actions more effectively.
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Lebanon played a central role in the creation of the tool. What did this specific crisis reveal about the limits of classic methods of collecting information? How did beneficiaries react to this tool ?)
The limits of classic methods in Lebanon were mainly linked to the COVID context. Field visits, hotlines or paper surveys proved insufficient to continuously capture the needs of a dispersed population, especially when access is restricted by insecurity, limited mobility or protracted crises. These approaches were also much slower than targeted digital collections. The widespread use of digital tools among beneficiaries therefore made it possible to set up this new channel, which became indispensable during periods of restricted access, during the pandemic and phases of confinement.
We thus set up a participatory collection channel adapted to several sectors (EHA, SAME, SERA), useful both for recurring activities (monitoring distributions, frequency of water deliveries, latrine desludging, maintenance of infrastructures) and for difficult access contexts. The bot facilitates the structured reporting of needs, complaints and indicators from communities to teams, without the need for systematic travel. It also makes it possible to automate questionnaires or large-scale surveys.
The SOLIS Bot is also used by our SERA teams as an entry point to the Complaints and Feedback Management Mechanism (MGPRI) for all of our bases. This makes it possible to collect feedback even outside field visits or contacts via the hotline. Thanks to this tool, our SERA teams save on average one hour per day and the load on the hotline is reduced by 40%.
On the ground, populations mostly welcomed this tool well, with a satisfaction rate above 80% during our surveys. Obviously, the bot does not replace classic methods, it complements and strengthens them. It helps reduce the number of field visits by orienting interventions towards areas where needs are really confirmed, eases the burden on hotlines and frees up time for teams, while improving the frequency and availability of operational data.
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Concretely, how does Solis Bot work for beneficiaries and for humanitarian teams?
The SOLIS Bot is a deliberately simple tool, built with the aim of having an interface and a handling as accessible as possible. For humanitarian teams, the SOLIS bot is available from a web browser. It was designed to be fully flexible, and can be used by all sectors of intervention: EHA, SAME, SERA, medical, etc. The configuration of messages is quick and intuitive, it requires only the time to write the content. A first handling and an initial deployment can be carried out in less than an hour.
Teams thus define:
- The automatic messages that beneficiaries receive when they write to the SOLIS Bot via WhatsApp
- Information messages to broadcast instantly to lists of beneficiaries
- Questionnaires or surveys to share remotely
- Fully controlled content, ready to be broadcast in the field.
This makes it possible to establish a two-way communication between populations and our teams, who can both share essential information — on activities carried out by Solidarités International, visiting times in camps, available services or registration modalities — and collect data when remote collection proves relevant or necessary, notably in contexts of limited access or protracted crises
For beneficiaries it is enough to write to the SOLIS Bot number on WhatsApp to obtain information on the aid available in their area, ask questions, submit complaints or feedback, respond to surveys, and more broadly interact with teams. WhatsApp is used as the main channel because it is widely used, familiar for users and without cost for beneficiaries.
The next version of the SOLIS Bot, currently being tested, will integrate advanced functionalities of automatic classification of data, alert reporting (early warnings) and visualization, in order to facilitate the analysis of collected information and accelerate the identification of operational needs in the field.
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Why has the speed of information reporting become a key issue in current humanitarian crises, and how does Solis Bot respond to it?
The speed of information reporting has become a key issue in current humanitarian crises, due to increasingly complex contexts, marked by protracted crises (for example the Syrian crisis, which has lasted for more than a decade), extreme climatic hazards and needs that evolve rapidly. Early Warning Systems allow a significant reduction of human and material losses by ensuring that critical information, whether weather forecasts, signs of infrastructure rupture or community needs, are disseminated and received early enough to trigger an appropriate action.
In operational management, rapid information reporting directly improves the quality of interventions. Knowing in time that populations have not received assistance, or that first cases of cholera are suspected, makes it possible to intervene immediately and to prioritize our actions in the field. This goes beyond a simple flow of data: it is a condition to make information targeted, truly available and usable.
The bot facilitates the collection, integration and rapid sharing of information between teams and with affected communities. Although it does not replace the essential roles of direct communication or official alert channels, the SOLIS Bot opens new possibilities for exchanges with populations, in order to accelerate the detection of problems, decision-making and the adjustment of our programs, while ensuring a greater availability of information — a point as crucial as the speed of its reporting itself.
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How does this tool complement the way of collecting information and making humanitarian decisions?
The SOLIS Bot complements classic methods by offering an additional channel, accessible 24/7. It reduces access constraints and makes it possible to obtain operational information in areas where field visits are costly, slow or even impossible to carry out. Rather than replacing field surveys or travel, it helps to better target and prioritize actions: thanks to the bot, we can quickly identify the areas or groups whose needs are the most priority, thus making field interventions more precise and more effective. Very concretely, this allowed our partner CARE to reallocate 40% of their aid to households identified as the most vulnerable thanks to the SOLIS Bot.
The bot offers quasi real-time access to community feedback: questions, complaints or satisfaction indicators. This reactivity accelerates operational decision-making, for example to reallocate resources, send a water truck or plan a maintenance visit, without having to wait several days, even weeks, as with traditional methods. Time gains are significant: Solidarités International observed a reduction by a factor 80 of the average response delay to information requests thanks to this automation.
The use of the bot also makes it possible to reduce field costs (travel, human resources, logistics) while widening the reach of collections. It makes possible recurring surveys or post-distribution polls that would previously have been too costly in resources.
It nevertheless remains essential to recall that the effectiveness of the bot depends on the context. Gender, local political situation, level of connectivity or communication habits can influence results. The data collected by the bot must therefore always be triangulated with other sources and integrated into a validation and escalation process in order to avoid any decision based on a single channel.
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Can you share one or two concrete examples where Solis Bot made it possible to save time, money or improve the humanitarian response?
The effectiveness of the SOLIS Bot appeared clearly to us during a SAME needs assessment in Lebanon. We first shared a questionnaire with 90 people, asking them to disseminate the link in their network. Result: 700 responses in 48 hours. Thanks to this mass sharing, the direct cost of this collection amounted to 8 €, against nearly 2,000 € for a classic survey — that is a reduction of costs by 80x — and during a period where we would barely have had the time to organize the logistics to start the survey.
These savings are made possible by very low unit costs. A message broadcast on WhatsApp costs about 0.02 € and receiving a response to a ten-question questionnaire costs 0.20 €. These amounts, multiplied at the scale of each project, make it possible to reallocate thousands of euros to the benefit of other humanitarian activities.
For our EHA and SAME teams, these gains translate both into a better quality of service and greater operational efficiency:
For EHA teams, the rapid reporting of alerts (water delivery not carried out, latrine desludging, breakdown of a pump) makes it possible to send a targeted technician to the right place, at the right time, rather than multiplying systematic rounds. At the scale of a project covering ten sites, the gain in fuel, labor and logistics costs is estimated between 2,000 and 4,000 € per month, while reducing service interruptions for beneficiaries.
For SAME teams, the implementation of short and recurring polls — for example monitoring local prices, needs in inputs or requests for agricultural support — makes it possible to adjust in-kind distributions or cash transfers in a few days, where a classic collection would have taken several weeks. For an agricultural project involving 1,000 households, the reduction of operational cost reaches 1,000 to 4,000 € per monitoring campaign.
The SOLIS Bot thus makes possible frequent surveys (post-distribution surveys, supplier satisfaction monitoring, EHA monitoring), which were previously unrealistic for reasons of costs and human resources. The operational result is clear: better reactivity and more precise targeting of interventions. These gains do not replace field verification nor data triangulation, but they allow, on the contrary, to prioritize and make more targeted human actions: visits, inspections and individual support
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Some fear that digital tools reduce human contact with beneficiaries. How to avoid this pitfall? / Does this technology risk reducing the human part of humanitarian action ?
The risk is not technological, but organizational. A digital tool becomes problematic when it is designed to replace the human where human presence is indispensable.
The SOLIS Bot must be thought of as a complement, since it automates simple information requests and frees up time for human interactions with higher added value (targeted visits, support for vulnerable people, follow-up of complex cases).
Moreover, the bot offers the population a communication channel accessible when physical access is interrupted for reasons of security, natural disasters, epidemics or conflicts. It also remains available when teams are absent (outside working hours), thus ensuring a continuity of the link without ever removing it.
Finally, it helps improve the quality of responses and the accountability of our organization: we can reach a very large population sample and receive data from the field instantly, to carry out assessments in a few hours or to triangulate data obtained from other sources.
Solis Bot operator in interaction with beneficiaries: the human remains at the heart of the follow-up of exchanges -©Solidarités International
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You chose not to use conversational artificial intelligence with beneficiaries. Why, and what guarantees do you provide on data protection?
We do indeed have a red line: no generative AI in direct contact with beneficiaries. All messages are written and validated by our teams, in order to guarantee the reliability of the transmitted information and the transparency in our relationship with communities. But a data minimization policy is the key for a responsible use of the SOLIS Bot thus, the only totally secured data is the one that is not collected. We choose to collect only what is strictly necessary, inform people and obtain their consent, aggregate data and define strict rules of access and retention. The tool natively allows a pseudonymization system and planned deletion of data for each organization.
Before any deployment, we carry out a risk analysis in order to validate the scope of use of the SOLIS Bot. The tool is intended for the dissemination of logistical information (schedules, places, modalities), as well as for the collection of feedback or non-sensitive complaints, for example within the framework of post-distribution satisfaction surveys, technical reports or aggregated polls.
It must in no case serve to collect or disseminate sensitive information likely to be used maliciously by external actors, such as GPS coordinates of shelters in conflict zones, medical data, political or ethnic affiliation, or any confidential-type report.
Teams are sensitized to this subject during their initial training: the bot must always be used in accordance with the principle of “do no harm”.
From a technical point of view, the infrastructure is hosted in France with a provider certified ISO 27001 and compliant with GDPR, access to administration is restricted (VPN / IP whitelist / MFA) and server logs are kept. Security audits and penetration tests are carried out periodically by professionals in these subjects.
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How does the SOLIS bot fit into this context of a decrease in humanitarian funding, and an increase in needs at the global scale ?
In a context of a structural decrease in humanitarian funding and a continuous increase in needs, the cost of access to information becomes a central issue, in particular during phases of needs assessments, project monitoring and accountability.
These costs are common to all organizations – all sectors combined – because they rely on the same constraints: field travel, human resources, and deadlines to adapt to emergency contexts.
The SOLIS bot responds to this need by offering a channel for collecting and disseminating information for a very low unit cost. The logic of mutualization is at the heart of our model: development, maintenance, hosting and security costs are shared between country offices, partners and partner organizations, which makes the tool accessible both for international and local NGOs. This approach allows organizations that would not have the means to develop their own solution to benefit from a proven tool adaptable to local realities.
At the scale of projects, this mutualization translates into a systematically positive return on investment: the cost of an annual license is always very largely lower than the budget that would be necessary to collect or disseminate the same volume of information via classic methods. Donors finance these licenses in a logic of optimization of SERA and program activities, while the savings generated – on surveys, control visits or hotlines – can be reallocated towards direct action.
In the medium term, the widening of partnerships makes it possible to reach a sustainable financial balance, reduce unit costs and establish the SOLIS bot as an operational common good at the service of the humanitarian community.
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How would you like to conclude this interview on SOLIS bot?
Solutions such as the SOLIS bot today represent key opportunities to improve the quality of our projects, while responding to increasingly strong requirements of efficiency and mutualization within the sector. Our vision is to share the SOLIS bot with local and international NGOs contributing to its evolution and its impact.
Solidarités International will very soon make available, free of charge, test lines of the SOLIS bot, in order to allow interested organizations to evaluate its operational value and its impact registrations are open! We would be very happy to share our experience on the collection and sharing of information in contexts where humanitarian access is limited.
Do not hesitate to contact the project team at solisbot@solidarites.org if you want to know more.
Valentin Pistorozzi.
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