Local is today’s reality
The view from my tiny home office is of my neighborhood community center. It is a view that I hardly noticed before the days of the Coronavirus, social-distancing, and shelter-in-place. It was a view of little significance as I spent my time jetting off to locations overseas to ensure aid organizations were taking local priorities seriously. But now, as I am tied to my desk, in my small apartment, in my neighborhood in Boston, it is all that I can see.
COVID-19 has fundamentally redefined the way we see the world. As rapidly as it has altered our daily lives, it has also disrupted our ability to affect change outside of our own community, let alone outside of our own country. Today it feels almost unimaginable to hop on a plane to help others going through this crisis, which offers a firm reminder of my relative place of privilege to do so. Further, as a consequence, I increasingly feel powerless in my ability to support others, as my sphere of influence has been limited to and defined by my own physical surroundings.
With humanitarian colleagues either turning an eye towards home or prohibited from traveling afar, we are witnessing an unanticipated but emphatic shift in power and responsibility to ‘local’ actors – who lead response efforts in their communities. Locally-led humanitarian response has a completely different meaning now than it did even a month ago. Debates about definitions, policies, and funding structures feel less urgent now in the face of unprecedented global loss of life and livelihoods, where action will occur out of necessity, regardless of the support of international donors and actors. Inherently, this global pandemic is forcing the rigid hand of the humanitarian system. It is applying enormous pressure across an aid architecture that has, for decades, resisted and battled against such change.
And so I wonder, what will be our collective response? In the time of COVID-19, “localization” is no longer a policy-level debate with little practical action or application. It is an essential reality. A reality that is likely here to stay.
This blog is part of CDA’s From Where I Stand series, designed to listen to people most affected by aid as they explore and amplify their leadership experiences, stories, and lessons for the aid sector.
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