Paradigm change in humanitarian aid

"Together we launched a groundbreaking charter that places the most vulnerable at the heart of humanitarian decision-making," said the then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the closing of the first World Humanitarian Summit, which took place in Istanbul in 2016. He was referring to the Grand Bargain, where donor countries, UN agencies and NGOs agreed on various commitments.

One of the top priorities is the localisation of humanitarian aid. This involves strengthening local responders in disaster and crisis-affected countries and increasingly involving them in planning and implementing humanitarian actions. In concrete terms, 25% of all funding is to be channelled directly to national or local organisations.

"Local actors have a presence on the ground before a crisis starts and are still there after the acute phase has ended," says Simone Droz, who is responsible at the SDC for the institutional partnership with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). "They are most aware of the needs of the affected population and have access to areas that are sometimes denied to international organisations." They are thus in the best position to provide assistance adapted to local realities. Intersecting crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, war and climate change have lent urgency to this concept.

A major reform was initiated through the Grand Bargain, which is currently in its second round and now has 63 signatories. Droz sees this as nothing less than a paradigm change. "Local actors should be given more agency and move beyond the role of passive partners who implement projects designed by Western donors on their behalf."

An instrument to drive this development are the Country-Based Pooled Funds (CBPF). These are a total of about 20 funds managed primarily by OCHA, to which international donor countries contribute to make funding available to various recipient countries. The amounts are not earmarked and are channelled to international, national and local actors who can provide the most efficient response in a specific context. This also includes actors who have not been on the radar of the international community until now.

For donor countries, the bureaucratic outlay involved is small. Last year, Switzerland contributed about USD 55 million to funds in 16 countries. Most recently, following the devastating earthquakes in Syria and Turkey in February 2023, Switzerland pledged a total of CHF 3 million to the Syria Humanitarian Fund and the Syria Cross Border Humanitarian Fund.

In July 2022, Switzerland became co-chair of an international working group that sets the strategic direction of the CBPF and brings together partners from different countries. "We want to move forward with localisation this year and tackle the biggest obstacles," says Droz, who coordinates this group.

This includes ensuring that local responders are heard and increasingly involved in discussions on the strategic direction of the funds. At the last meeting of the working group in Geneva, which specifically addressed localisation, four representatives of local organisations took part in person for the first time. "Empowering the local population is the only sustainable solution in a humanitarian crisis," says Mazen Fadhl Maddi, who travelled from Yemen.

In future, a significantly larger number of local actors should benefit from the CBPF, for instance, by making information on how to apply for the funds accessible in national languages. "So far, organisations that are familiar with international mechanisms are the ones that receive most of the funding," says Droz. Changing this requires more capacity building for local actors, for instance, when it comes to writing project proposals, accounting and monitoring.

Pascal Richard of the Multilateral Affairs and NGO division at the SDC is of the view that localisation is primarily about self-determination and a meaningful sharing of responsibilities. "Local responders must be in a position to participate in strategic and operational decisions," he says. A precondition for this is having extensive knowledge of the context and local partners, and trusting them. Where this is not the case, donors tend to fall back on established organisations that they know. Ultimately, however, localisation will be inevitable. "Only if we respect and support local structures will we be able to launch an adequate response to multiple crises."