Localization in Aid – why isn’t it happening? What to do about it?

Spent two days this week discussing ‘Localization in Conflict Settings’. The subject is littered with aid jargon, but important – how does the humanitarian system ‘transfer power and resources’ to ‘local actors’ rather than outsiders insisting on running the whole thing (badly) themselves? It was organized by Saferworld and Save the Children Sweden to help flesh out a research programme, but it was under the Chatham House Rule, so that’s all I can tell you about who said what.

First, what is localization? Check out this handy spectrum from the organizers – it runs the whole way from token consultation to properlyhanding over the stick (and the dollars). The starting point for the discussion is failure: everyone in the aid system agrees that localization is a good idea, but it isn’t happening. According to the background paper:

‘Of the US$16.4 billion of government funding for humanitarian assistance in 2016, 60% (US$12.3 billion) went to multilateral agencies, primarily the UN, and 20% (US$4.0 billion) went to NGOs. The NGO portion was divided between INGOs who received 85% and local and national NGOs who received 1.7% directly. In 2017, the local and national NGO portion increased to 2.7%.’

So first up we need a theory of non-change: why the inertia? A combination of ideas and institutions prevents progress:

Ideas:

‘Localization is risky’: it means relinquishing even the illusion of control in messy and dangerous places. That risk could be justified in terms of greater impact and long term strengthening of local organizations, but in practice, risk in aid seen not as something to be optimised, but just a bad thing, preferably kept to zero.

Aid Diversion: What if the bad guys somehow get hold of the money? The assumption is that local partners are more likely to divert the money than local INGO staff or governments. Really? Any evidence for that assumption (I tweeted a request for it, but got tumbleweed)? The falling level of tolerance of some degree of diversion as a ‘conflict tax’ – a way of getting resources to people in need – has made everything much harder. If donors really are demanding ‘zero tolerance’ of diversion in messy places like Syria or DRC, then they risk either making aid impossible, or creating a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ culture that could go horribly wrong at any moment.

From ‘Needs Assessment’ to ‘Strengths Assessment’: the humanitarian system sees the world as a series of deficits it has to plug: of infrastructure, food, basic goods, ‘capacity’. Yet the people on the ground, like Evans Onyiego, who I will feature tomorrow, start from a different place – what assets, capacity and skills do local people and organizations have (answer – lots)? How can we help them build on that? That switch suddenly makes localization look much more obviously a good idea, and suggests useful ways to achieve it. As a nice by-product, if you start with a people, community and strengths-focus, you inevitably have to confront and overcome the ‘silo problem’, whereby people experience their lives in holistic ways, rather than dividing them up into the weird and artificial categories preferred by aid (humanitarian, long term development, advocacy etc)

Institutions:

There are obvious institutional obstacles, like INGO bosses and fund raisers being judged by their turnover, but there are some less obvious ones too. Some INGOs are rebranding their local offices as independent organizations so that they can tap into localized funding pots. The really big conflicts like Syria generate comparably large amounts of aid: donors need to channel aid in huge chunks, that come with a massive bureaucracy of monitoring, evaluation and reporting (usually different for different donors). Local organizations are faced with either saying ‘no thanks’ and remaining subordinate players, or scaling up to become ‘mini-me’ big NGOs, with the risk that that diverts them from the kind of grassroots/ work that they actually want to do. And another comment that rang true from one INGO staffer: ‘we don’t want to devolve the power analysis etc to local partners because that’s the fun stuff!’

But there is lots of good news too, including some really interesting things going on in an effort to break the logjam:

First, find out what local partners really want: they may not want to become miniature INGOs, but they do want help with improving security for their staff and partners; core funding so they can respond quickly to the chaotic events that characterize conflict settings; long term relationships that are maintained despite the frenetic pace of donor and INGO staff turnover and support for transition when the big money inevitably moves on (eg building their leadership and ability to raise local money).

Second some smart new ways of supporting them:

‘Microgrants’ of a couple of thousand dollars that can be quickly disbursed to crisis-affected people and self-help groups, with minimal bureaucracy. This is happening, but is held back by fears of diversion – it feels a bit like the cash transfer discussion from 10 years ago, and a similar combination of research and advocacy could help reduce opposition. Also worth linking up with the Community Driven Development debate, which covers much of the same ground.

National pooled funds: donors chip into a national fund that is designed and managed by local organizations, who could also tap into other local resources like religious giving (zakat).

Get every INGO and aid agency that is bidding for funds to include a localization budget line in their proposals, which is handed over to national pooled funds or other ways to support local organizations. It needs a convincing name – best we could come up with was ‘local value add’.

Finally, coming from outside the humanitarian bubble, I was struck that people in the room seemed unaware of the amount of common

Pull in some campaigners and advocacy people to design a proper influencing strategy on localization. We just did a quick stakeholder mapping/power analysis for the internal players in a large (but nameless) INGO and even that produced some new ideas for getting things moving.

Finally, if we need an anthem, can we get someone to tweak Peter Tosh? All together now: ‘Got to localize it; don’t criticize it’ ……

About the author

This is a conversational blog written and maintained by Duncan Green, strategic adviser for Oxfam GB and author of ‘From Poverty to Power’. This personal reflection is not intended as a comprehensive statement of Oxfam's agreed policies.

2 Comments

Thanks for this Duncan, and to all the people that joined us in London to unpack the challenges and opportunities of approaching crisis-response in conflict situations differently.

Let’s add Gil Scott-Heron’s ‘the revolution will not be televised’ [https://youtu.be/qGaoXAwl9kw] to the ‘localisation in conflict settings’ play list, because, let’s face it, a large part of the media are playing their role in sustaining a system that doesn’t allow for an honest conversation about the complexity and risks involved in supporting crisis-affected people in conflict situations. Acknowledging complexity and risk is an important step to enabling us all (locals, nationals and internationals) to improve the impact of support to vulnerable crisis-affected people living in the midst of violent conflict.

Context is important. Let’s stop kidding ourselves that internationals are more able to uphold principled and effective action in conflict spaces, in some places they can, and in some places they can’t. And let’s start acknowledging that national and local actors are sometimes far better equipped to navigate the political, security and fiduciary risks of working in highly insecure, politicized and polarised conflict spaces, and that sometimes they’re not. It all depends on the conflict context, the quality of civic space within it, and the position of different local, national and international actors within all of that.

What we need is more local, national and international actors engaging in honest conversations about how they can better respond to the priorities (not externally determined needs) of vulnerable crisis-affected people. This isn’t romanticising the local, it’s about respecting the rights and agency of people facing crisis. It’s also about supporting crisis-affected people to reassure donors that aid is being used to best effect in difficult circumstances. We’re pleased to be embarking on this study and we’re ready for some challenging honest conversations…

In the spirit of common ground and linking up networks and conversations that really ought to be part of the same discussion, it’s worth recalling the recent work that Oxfam and Save the Children (US) did a couple years back, on localization of aid in the development context: https://www.powerofownership.org/ That project, among other things, set out a first draft of an assessment framework for defining and measuring “ownership” (which is “localization” in the US development parlance, as contrasted with humanitarian aid). Hopefully retreading common ground on different (development vs. humanitarian) footings leads us in an upward spiral of better practice, rather than going endlessly in circles–I’m optimistic!

This is a conversational blog written and maintained by Duncan Green, strategic adviser for Oxfam GB, author of ‘How Change Happens’ and Professor in Practice at the London School of Economics. This personal reflection is not intended as a comprehensive statement of the agreed policies of either Oxfam or the LSE.

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