Localization: power to local actors
- Page updated on18 de April de 2025
Historically, the humanitarian system has excluded and relegated to the margins local actors, who occupy few leadership and decision-making positions and receive only a small fraction of humanitarian funding. A change, which some call localization, is needed.
Table of contents:
Inequality and mistrust between international and local actors
Many international humanitarian actors have little confidence in local organizations. There is a deep-rooted perception that they have little operational and management capacity, poor quality in their interventions, little transparency and a lot of corruption. By corruption, in this case, we mean diversion of funds, bias in the selection of beneficiaries, favoritism towards companies, links to political interests, or internal procedures more typical of a small family-owned inherited business. As a result, it is sometimes considered that there are more risks than advantages in giving power to these local actors.
However, humanitarian action led by local and national actors who are well-established and accepted in communities may be more effective. These actors can respond more quickly and cost-effectively with fewer intermediaries, contribute to development objectives past the emergency, and be directly accountable to the community.
Regarding corruption, it is clear that more control and vigilance is needed, but for all actors. The same examples of corruption that are known in local actors exist, albeit sometimes in a different form, in international actors. Unfortunately, examples of this are numerous. Beyond prejudices, what the evidence shows is that the problem is not exclusive to one type of organization.
The weaknesses of local organizations are also, and at least in part, the result of a humanitarian system and funding mechanisms that relegate them to second place. It is impossible for many organizations to recruit (let alone retain) experienced personnel when the salaries they offer cannot compete with those offered by international organizations. Establishing better management, internal audit or accountability mechanisms also requires a strong organizational structure. However, this is impossible to sustain if the chain of intermediaries barely finances the indirect costs required to do so.
Localization is a proposal with multiple interpretations
Rather paradoxically, at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit, local actors were not represented. At its inception, the Grand Bargain was an agreement between international humanitarian actors who, among many other intentions, had the intention of inviting local actors to the table. However, they did not quite know what they were or what they were being invited for.
At that moment a word - localization - began to resonate, but it had hardly any clear scope. What's more, it still there is no single way to understand it. There are those who are satisfied with achieving a greater participation of local actors in the program cycle. On the other hand, others insist on the importance of giving "support" and more and better funding to local organizations. Moreover, some even suggest that local organizations should be the ones to lead the humanitarian response in their country. Some even suggest that local organizations should be in control of the humanitarian system.
To understand each other, I propose that we stick with the understanding of these terms of NEAR (Network for Empowered Aid Response), a movement of civil society organizations from the Global South. NEAR defines localization as a process of change in the way we activate, design, fund and deliver support and solidarity. NEAR sees localization as a solution to ensure that local communities and the local response systems that support them have the resources and capacity to address the challenges that affect them.
How to ensure that more resources are available to local stakeholders?
The first major objective set by the humanitarian community to move forward in localization was to increase funding to local and national stakeholders to 25% "as directly as possible".. However, to date, this goal has not been achieved. Most donors still face significant political, legal and administrative barriers to achieving their commitments. Moreover, to this day, the commitment has been lowered the 25% of financing to reach local stakeholders. directly or through a single intermediaryto measure and report it.
There have been no significant changes in the percentage of direct funding going to local and national stakeholders. This percentage is still lower than 3%. For now, the timid improvements around this commitment have come with the use of Country-Based Pooled Funds (CBPF). This new OCHA humanitarian funding mechanism has indeed reached 30% for local and national NGOs. However, it represents only a small fraction of total humanitarian funding.
Another key aspect of funding local and national organizations through international intermediaries lies in the overheads. Many international organizations, which do receive overheads from international donors, do not offer equivalent overheads to their national or local counterparts. In other cases they do offer them, but do not have an internal policy to ensure this in all cases. In this sense, the IASC is clear in its recommendations: international organizations should finance indirect costs to their local partners and counterparts, either by budgeting for them in the projects (and sometimes insisting on this to donors) or by sharing their own.
How to help increase the operational capacity of local stakeholders?
A new model of collaboration is needed...
The first step for local organizations to fully develop their potential and capabilities is to ensure that they have the commitment of international organizations. To this end, they must commit to a change in the dynamics of collaboration, a recognition of their capabilities and real needs, and an openness to greater representation.
It is necessary to build a new model of partnership and collaboration between international and local organizations, with new roles. To begin with, it has been proposed that the preferred modality of humanitarian intervention by international actors should be through equitable agreements with local and national implementing partners. The aim is for international actors to filter risks for donors and provide support to local and national actors, in an attempt to ensure that the latter receive as much funding as possible and as soon as possible. Local and national actors should not be mere subcontractors, but should have decision-making power and sufficient resources of their own.
...and a new approach to capacity building and representation
With regard to capacity building, there are important qualifications to be made.
On the one hand, training support already exists, but it often focuses on the aspects that the international actor needs from the local actor, so that the local actor can do the work required of it. For example, an international actor may be interested in training a local actor in the use of its own methodologies or approaches. However, perhaps the national stakeholder already has a valid methodology and a priority need for support in indirect cost management procedures and policies, for example.
On the other hand, it is false and unfair to consider that it is the international actors who should train local actors, since the latter may have greater capacities than the former in certain areas. It is necessary to recognize, value and take advantage of the capacities and knowledge that many local actors have, and to propose capacity building based on complementarity, equity, bidirectionality and prioritization of the needs expressed by them.
Finally, localization also includes measures and recommendations to increase the representation and leadership of local and national actors in national and global mechanisms for the coordination of humanitarian action.
Reforms and changes to the system
External links
- Grand Bargain Caucus on funding for localisation, 2023. Collective monitoring and accountability framework.
- NEAR, 2023. Localisation policy.
- ALNAP, 2023. A more localised aid system: current status discourse.
- Development initiatives, 2023. Indirect costs for local and national partners: A mapping of the current policies and practices of UN agencies and INGOs.
- IASC, 2022. Guidance on the provision of overheads to local and national partners.
- Grand Bargain Caucus on the role of intermediaries, 2022. Final outcome document.
- Tufts University, 2021. Localization: A “Landscape” Report.
- IASC, 2021. IASC Guidance on Strengthening Participation, Representation and Leadership of Local and National Actors in IASC Humanitarian Coordination Mechanisms.
- Hugo Slim, 2021 (HPN). Corruption and the localisation of humanitarian action.
- OECD, 2017. Localising the response.
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