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Localisation (humanitarian practice)

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Humanitarian Aid being distributed in Haiti

Localisation (or localization) is the practice, in humanitarian aid, to give more decision making power and funding to organizations and people that are based in countries affected by humanitarian emergencies.

The tendency of humanitarian aid agencies to promote Europeans and North Americans into leadership roles, limits the number of leadership positions filled by people with first hand experience of living in an emergency.

The need to localise was agreed upon by governments and humanitarian organizations in 2016, at the World Humanitarian Summit meeting in Turkey. Localisation was promoted by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in 2017, as part of a wider series of reforms called the "New Way of Working".

A target to increase the percentage of global spending on humanitarian aid flowing directly to local organizations to 25% by 2020 was not reached.

Nomenclature

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There is lack of consensus between humanitarian practitioners and scholars in defining localisation, with some believing that the definition should vary depending on the country and emergency.[1]: 14 

Most commonly, localisation is understood to mean the practice, in humanitarian aid, of giving donor funding to aid agencies that are geographically located close to an emergency.[2] The practice also includes increasing the number of people from communities affected by emergencies in senior leadership roles at humanitarian aid organizations.[2]

Background

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Humanitarian aid agencies tend to employ European and North Americans into senior leadership roles and tend to hire staff from countries more commonly affected by crises into more junior, local roles, blocking local staff from senior leadership roles.[3] This tendency prevents people from local communities from influencing decision making about emergency responses to disasters.[4]

Among humanitarian professionals, there is a widespread perception that increasing localisation will improve the quality of humanitarian aid.[4] Despite the logic of such perceptions, there is a lack of evidence to support the hypothesis.[5][6]: 69 [1]: 19 [1]: 29 [4] The lack of evidence is a battier to increasing localiastion.

Barriers to localisation include the self-reservation incentives that international humanitarian aid agencies.[1]: 28 

History

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Although the importance of local aid agencies is acknowledged by United Nations Resolution 46/182, by 2015, only 0.2% of humanitarian aid funding was allocated to local aid agencies, in contrast to national or international organisations.[7] An emphasis on localisation in the humanitarian sector occurred at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit.[8] At the summit, donor governments struck an agreement, known as the Grand Bargain, to increase that percentage to 25%.[7] In 2017, the practice of localisation was promoted by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in their publication "New Way of Working."[9] From 2016 and 2020 the percentage of funding that flowed to local organisations reduced from 3.5% to 2.1%.[10][11] In 2020, Degan Ali, described the Grand Bargain as a "failed effort".[12]

In 2020, Kristina Roepstorff of Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg criticised binary approaches localisation that defined people as local or western, noting complex social hierarchies and a risk of shifting power away from western humanitarians towards local elites, disconnected from the communities with needs.[7] In 2021, the European Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič was criticized for comments made in an interview with The New Humanitarian in which he suggested the lack of localisation was the result of a lack of capacity amongst local aid agencies.[13] His comments prompted criticisms from the Network for Empowered Aid Response and others who perceive the problem to be a result of those in power not relinquishing it.[13]

Limitations on international travel during the COVID-19 pandemic increased the workload of local organisations, while also increasing safety and health risks to local staff.[4][1]: 24 

Also in 2021, 60 donors took part in negotiations led by Norwegian diplomat Jan Egeland to create an updated Grand Bargain 2.0 that will contain targets to advance localisation.[14] Donors committed to more reforms, signing the Grand Bargain 2.0 agreement in mid-2022.[3] In October 2022, CARE International, Christian Aid, Oxfam, Plan International, and Save the Children International struck an agreement called the Pledge for Change, committing to only operate in humanitarian crises where local capacity was absent, by 2030.[15]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e Robillard, Sabina; Atim, Teddy; Maxwell, Daniel (December 2021). "Localization: A "Landscape" Report" (PDF). Tufts University.
  2. ^ a b Goodwin, Ellen; Ager, Alastair (2021). "Localisation in the Context of UK Government Engagement With the Humanitarian Reform Agenda". Frontiers in Political Science. 3: 114. doi:10.3389/fpos.2021.687063. ISSN 2673-3145.
  3. ^ a b "The State of Humanitarian Professions 2020 : Executive Summary". Bioforce. Retrieved 27 December 2021.
  4. ^ a b c d Barbelet, Veronique; Davies, Gemma; Flint, Josie; Davey, Eleanor (June 2021). "Interrogating the evidence base on humanitarian localisation. A literature study" (PDF). Overseas Development Institute.
  5. ^ Baguios, Arbie. "Localisation Re-imagined: Fertilising the soil of state-led solutions". ALNAP. Retrieved 27 January 2022.
  6. ^ Peach, Kathy; Berditchevskaia, Aleks; Gill, Issy; Whittington, Oli; Malliaraki, Eirini; Hussein, Nasra. "Collective crisis intelligence for frontline humanitarian response" (PDF). NESTA.
  7. ^ a b c ROEPSTORFF, K. A call for critical reflection on the localisation agenda in humanitarian action. Third World Quarterly, [s. l.], v. 41, n. 2, p. 284–301, 2020. doi:10.1080/01436597.2019.1644160 Disponível em: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=141601500&site=eds-live&scope=site. Acesso em: 23 fev. 2023.
  8. ^ PINCOCK, K.; BETTS, A.; EASTON-CALABRIA, E. The Rhetoric and Reality of Localisation: Refugee-Led Organisations in Humanitarian Governance. Journal of Development Studies, [s. l.], v. 57, n. 5, p. 719–734, 2021. doi:10.1080/00220388.2020.1802010 Disponível em: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=149844189&site=eds-live&scope=site. Acesso em: 23 fev. 2023.
  9. ^ "New Way of Working" (PDF). United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. 2017.
  10. ^ The Editorial Board (13 February 2021). "Foreign Aid Is Having a Reckoning". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 27 December 2021.
  11. ^ Mwaura, Gitura (21 February 2021). "Does Africa need foreign aid?". The New Times (Rwanda). Retrieved 27 December 2021.
  12. ^ Ali, Degan; Murphy, Marie-Rose Romain (19 July 2020). "Black Lives Matter is also a reckoning for foreign aid and international NGOs". openDemocracy. Retrieved 27 December 2021.
  13. ^ a b "EU commissioner creates a stir with statements on localisation". The New Humanitarian. 18 March 2021. Retrieved 27 December 2021.
  14. ^ Alexander, Jessica (10 June 2021). "A renewed push to make aid more efficient". The New Humanitarian. Retrieved 27 December 2021.
  15. ^ Alexander, Jessica (27 October 2022). "Five international NGOs launch fresh bid to tackle power imbalances in aid". The New Humanitarian. Retrieved 23 February 2023.


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