There are ‘partnerships’ all over the world between international, national and local organisations working together towards a mutual goal. That mutual goal is meeting the immediate needs of crisis-affected people in a timely, relevant, efficient, coherent and sustainable way. But how many of these partnerships are led by local or national actors? Or, at the very least, are truly fair, where partners share power and decision-making, and value a diversity of experience and capacity? Realistically, not many. Partnerships tend to reinforce the wider power imbalances inherent in the aid industry, where international actors have greater access to funds and greater influence over humanitarian funding decisions.
Yet, there was hope that this power imbalance might shift. In 2016, signatories of the Grand Bargain committed to making humanitarian action as local as possible, as international as necessary, and they created a workstream to focus on just that: ‘localisation’. However, from where I stand, we still have a long way to go before humanitarian action is locally led. I believe that improving partnerships between international, and local and national humanitarian actors, is one way to start shifting the power and moving towards this goal.
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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