Thank you for the question, Betül! I’m really excited for all of our partners & ConnexUs users to join us on Wednesday, 20 July, for this conversation!

In the meantime, my name is Zander Willoughby, I’m a Communications Officer for ConnexUs here at Search for Common Ground. I’m based in Washington, DC, but am originally from Michigan, in the USA. I have local experience as a mediator & mediation trainer in Northern Indiana, and global/international experience working on advocacy and collective action for peacebuilding as well as working on ConnexUs, a global learning platform. I’m so excited to learn a lot from each of you & to hear so many important perspectives on local-international partnerships.

See you all Wednesday! Feel free to introduce yourself in the comments before then.

I like your thought-provoking question Betül! I’m looking forward to the discussion that sprouts from this!

I’m Sydney and I am currently an intern with Search and ConnexUs. I’m getting my Master’s from Gallaudet University in International Development with a focus on language rights, education policy, and gender equality. Really looking forward to learning from the local and international perspectives here this Wednesday.

Hello, I am Antonio and I am an intern with Search for Common Ground. I am a Master in Public Policy student at the University of Maryland.

I look forward to exploring the localization agenda through the discussion. To prepare myself, I plan to dig deeper into some of the resources on ConnexUs and other sites! Below are some resources I will be looking at.

Shorter Articles

• • • Global Embrace of Localization: Changing the Power Dynamics in Development and Humanitarian Aid Systems
    • As USAID looks to define ‘local,’ here’s where it can start
    • Opinion: Why localization is the only way forward in Haiti
    • Localization is key to stemming migration from Guatemala, report finds
    • International aid sector in a ‘crisis of legitimacy’, study finds

Longer Research and a Book

• • • Responsible INGO Transitions and Locally Led Development: Findings From a Global Online Consultation
    • What Transformation Takes: Evidence of Responsible INGO Transitions to Locally Led Development Around the World
    • Localizing Humanitarian Action in Africa
    • TOWARDS THE LOCALIZATION OF THE SDGs 6th Report: Local and regional governments breaking through for a sustainable and just recovery

Looking forward to today’s conversation! I’m really curious, has anyone made any videos, podcasts, short stories, etc. about really effective local-international partnerships? I’d love to see those stories! If not, is anyone working on telling their story?

Hi there,
My name is Melinda, joining this discussion from Johannesburg, South Africa. I work for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) as a Project Officer for a pan-African peace education project Africa Peacebuilding Institute (API). I represent an international org partnering with local participants. I can speak broadly on how MCC does local partnerships, but will focus on API for now…

This is our 2nd year providing API’s annual training online! In the previous 20 years, all participants would travel to a venue in South Africa or Zambia. Whether we liked it or not, Covid-19 caused us to look at the “localization” of API. With help of an external grant, we were able to try this out in February 2022. We offered a week-long peacebuilding course to 30 participants in 3 different countries through “learning pods.” The facilitator joined via Zoom from Zimbabwe, while the participants gathered in conference venues in Chad, Nigeria and South Sudan and joined via one large Zoom screen.
None of this would have been possible without our existing MCC local partner networks. For months leading up to the training, we regularly met (via Zoom) with 3 “focal points” in each country to discuss the logistics of the course. These focal points were recruited from existing contacts, one is a current MCC staff. They were truly our key to success! Each focal point in each location was tasked with venue hire, transport and meals, recruiting participants, enforcing Covid-19 regulations in their context, and ensuring internet and other needs were met for the week of the training. They even went the extra mile and organized local field trips outside of class hours, as well! No API staff traveled internationally  (or even provincially) for this training.
There was only one occasion where protests near the learning pod in Chad caused the power (and internet) to drop. The participants lost nearly 2 days of the course. However, together with the focal point who is also a trained facilitator, they were able to carry their own discussions and found the time was not wasted, after all.
In fact, it was such a success that API has decided “localization” is the way forward for us. Apart from our annual training taking place online in August, we will continue to offer special courses in this “learning pod” format. We have found that this hybrid format of technology and in-person gathering is the best way for us to expand our networks and continue to offer peace education to more and more African peacebuilders.

P.S. to Zander’s question, I have not produced any report on this but, I am hoping that this discussion will guide my writing for MCC’s online publication “Intersections” (https://mcc.org/stories/intersections) on the very topic of localization. Thanks!

Thank you for sharing Melinda, and thank you ConnexUs for hosting this conversation! My name is Anaïs Caput, I work on program design at Search for Common Ground.

Reading your post Melinda, and from my experience supporting design, I see having local partners or local stakeholders play a key role in the design of a program as critical – such as the 3 focal points you mentioned! Too often, we see programs being designed without significant or meaningful contribution from local actors, and then we expect that it will lead to effective partnerships between local actors and international organizations.

I have seen design processes where we pass a pre-defined set of activities onto a local partner, and then expect them to implement them as such, and ask them to have ownership and a strong sense of accountability towards impact as they are asked to implement. It often leads to frustration and ineffective partnerships. On the other hand, I have see well co-designed processes, during which both international organizations and local actors take the time to share their analysis of the contexts, and offer ideas and solutions based on their respective strength and added value, it definitely leads to much stronger partnerships! But often, organizations are constrained by tight proposal development timelines, and lack of resources to invest in these design processes…

Hopefully we can see more and more long term partnerships between international organizations and local actors, not only transactional, or one-way partnerships, but rather based on information and expertise exchanges, peer-to-peer support, etc. – like this platform supports!

Thank you ConnexUs and looking forward to hearing other perspectives!

Hi Emily,

So it has really been difficult. I have a team of young people who I gathered together to set up the Mind Reformers Network team and we help get young people interested in and committed to peacebuilding processes in their communities. I have led the team to hold projects reaching over 5000 young people across seven Nigerian cities. However, I struggle to hold all these projects as it’s really pretty difficult assessing funding or support or getting a solid structure as we’re a team of young people (though willing to do the work). We do pull through using ourselves to spread the message of peace and peace education. We have held talks in schools, trainings and workshops for young people across Nigeria https://m.facebook.com/mrn4youths/ . It’s been five years in this and I just try to improve myself more with positioning and capacity building to see if I can attract funding to build a solid structure.  I believe that young people should be at the centre of peacebuilding in Africa because of the high rate of young people being used as instruments of violence and extremism and this is why I’m focused on youths in peacebuilding inclusion.

Hi Michael,

Truly, I have been able to collaborate with a few local organizations and a few international organizations but it has only been on one off projects and on few occasions to collaborate but not on the long run. For example, I got mini grant funding from Peace First to hold a three day online Peacebuilding training for 104 Nigerian youths in 2020 and a few others. However, I had always looked for an organization or mentor partner who can help provide funding and as well as Mentorship to build structure for the fellow passionate youths who are ready and eager to build peace in their localities. This has been seemingly impossible over the years. This is the challenge many grassroots led peacebuilders across Nigeria and Africa face.

For grassroots Peacebuilders and grassroots led initiatives there’s need for partnership support and funding to build solid structure because workers at the grassroots are closer to the people and understand the problem more but just handicapped

My Name is Joy Baiye, I work for Search for Common Ground in Nigeria, missed this conversation, will read through .

<p>This has been a great thread of discussion to follow. </p>

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