Localisation

Overview

Localisation in humanitarian action refers to the process of recognising, respecting, and strengthening the leadership of local and national actors in humanitarian preparedness, response, and recovery. It is among the most discussed and contested reform agendas in the humanitarian system, touching fundamental questions about who holds power, who controls resources, and whose knowledge counts in responding to crises.

The concept gained formal international policy recognition through the Grand Bargain, a set of commitments made at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of humanitarian action. One of its central pledges was to increase direct funding to local and national responders to at least 25% of international humanitarian funding. Nearly a decade later, this target remains overwhelmingly unmet: direct funding to local actors hovers around 1-2% of the total.

The Structural Problem

The gap between rhetoric and reality on localisation reflects deep structural issues in how the humanitarian system is organised. International organisations, both UN agencies and large international NGOs, dominate the architecture of humanitarian coordination, funding, and standard-setting. This architecture was built in the post-World War II period and expanded during the Cold War, and its institutional incentives favour the maintenance of centralised, international control over humanitarian resources.

Local organisations frequently serve as subcontractors to international agencies rather than as equal partners or lead responders. They bear disproportionate compliance burdens, receive funding late and through multiple intermediaries (each taking overhead), and are often excluded from coordination mechanisms where strategic decisions are made. The result is a system in which the actors closest to affected populations and most knowledgeable about local contexts have the least institutional power.

Localisation and Decolonisation

Increasingly, the localisation debate has converged with broader discussions about decolonising humanitarian action. Scholars and practitioners, particularly from the Global South, argue that the power dynamics in the humanitarian system are not incidental inefficiencies but structural features rooted in colonial histories and sustained by contemporary economic and political arrangements.

This analysis points to the ways in which humanitarian knowledge production, priority-setting, and accountability mechanisms are dominated by institutions in the Global North. It questions not only who receives funding but who defines what counts as a crisis, what constitutes an appropriate response, and what standards of accountability apply. The decolonisation lens reframes localisation from a technical reform agenda to a political project concerned with justice and self-determination.

Challenges and Critiques

The localisation agenda itself has faced criticism from multiple directions. Some argue that it romanticises “the local” without acknowledging the diversity, inequalities, and power dynamics within local contexts. Others point to legitimate concerns about fiduciary risk, accountability to affected populations, and the capacity of some local organisations to manage large-scale funding. There is also the question of whether “localisation” as framed by the international system is genuinely transformative or merely a rebranding of existing power relations.

Despite these critiques, the fundamental observation underlying the localisation agenda remains difficult to contest: the humanitarian system’s current configuration systematically marginalises the actors best positioned to respond to crises, and this marginalisation has consequences for the quality, relevance, and sustainability of humanitarian assistance.