Learning Priorities

Localisation

Local and national humanitarian actors are essential for effective humanitarian response. They are often the first responders when disasters strike. They can have the best access to local populations and they have critical knowledge of the local context and people.

The idea that local actors should be at the forefront of humanitarian response in their own country is increasingly widely accepted. Local actors often have the best understanding of the context and acceptance by the people in need of assistance and protection. The World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) in 2016 brought significant attention to a localisation agenda, and the Grand Bargain confirmed a commitment from the largest humanitarian donors and aid organisations to take steps to make sure national and local organisations are involved in decision-making processes in a humanitarian response, and are delivering assistance in accordance with humanitarian principles.

Localisation, particularly the engagement of local actors in decision-making bodies, has consistently been mentioned as a challenge for Humanitarian Coordinators (HCs) and Humanitarian Country Teams (HCTs) in many Peer 2 Peer missions. Despite recent international advocacy efforts, local actors still only receive approximately 2% of all humanitarian funds. On the other hand, critics raise concerns over the inability of local actors to operate in a principled manner as well as fulfill due diligence and quality requirements. It is important to recognise that strengthening the leadership of local actors will have different challenges depending on whether it is being implemented in a natural disaster or a conflict setting.

Localisation Learning Mission

The Peer 2 Peer Project organised a learning mission to Gaziantep (Turkey) in July 2017 to look at how the humanitarian leadership of the cross-border operation to northern Syria had prioritised a localisation agenda, and had put a significant effort into making sure national/local NGOs were strategically and operationally integrated in the humanitarian response. The mission was carried out on the invitation of the Deputy Regional Humanitarian Coordinator (Dep. RHC) for the Whole of Syria operation with the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), who is the co-chair of the Grand Bargain Workstream on Localisation.

The Peer 2 Peer Project produced a five-page accessible case study in the form of a ‘Support Note on Localisation‘ for HCs and HCTs, illustrating the steps that the humanitarian leadership took, in Gaziantep, to strengthen the integration of national and local NGOs in the cross-border response in a principled manner.

Some key steps of this approach for field leaders are:

Include national/local NGOs in the Humanitarian Country Team (or equivalent leadership body) and ensure their representation is based on a transparent and inclusive election process led by the national/local NGO constituency
Recruit dedicated, local language speaker human resources within UN Agencies and international NGOs to support partnership approaches and localisation processes
Coordinate training between organisations and clusters through a common platform to minimise duplication and gaps
Use country based pool funds as a possible inception source of funding
Encourage and incentivise cluster participation for national NGOs, through establishing national NGO co-coordinators and holding meetings in the local language, with simultaneous translation technology.

Peer 2 Peer webinars on localisation

The Peer 2 Peer Project also hosted various webinars on localisation: