From dealing with disasters to resilience-building, what matters is local leadership

“As local as possible, as international as necessary.” With these words, back in 2016¹, leaders declared that humanitarian action should be localised. Fast-forward to 2021, and the road to localisation is still arduous. There is no universal definition, yet the term often refers to the process² of “recognizing, respecting and strengthening the independence of leadership and decision-making of local actors in humanitarian and disaster response”.

More than location: local leadership

The reason for promoting and protecting localisation is simple: detailed local knowledge is vital to understand how to support risk reduction, response and recovery and to build a truly more sustainable future that is centred around people’s needs. But we need to move beyond the concept of localisation towards local leadership, which implies that there is a recalibration of the balance of power towards those who are most affected and who should have the most to say on how to best respond to crises. This includes communities, government institutions working at the national level, local authorities, and, more often than not, civil society organisations. The latter are, time and again, at the frontline of ‘everyday disasters’ – disasters that do not make the international news, but account for the vast majority of loss and damage at local level worldwide.

Everyday disasters are complex. Valuable information about them is found locally from communities and the civil society organisations working with them. As a result, relationships with external actors who have limited understanding of local contexts need to be carefully managed, ensuring local voices are heard.

As well as local consultations, local institution building allows people to express their needs and priorities, as explored in Forus’ Disaster Risk Reduction toolkit³. For example, in Uganda, DENIVA⁴ have supported the establishment of ‘Neighbourhood Assemblies’ – or community parliaments. In Colombia, the NGO platform CCONG⁵ created ‘Consejos de Gestión del Riesgo’ – Risk Management Councils – which in turn developed their own plans of action for their territory. In Dhaka’s slum areas, the Participatory Development Action Programme (PDAP)⁶ has worked closely with communities and has found that external partners come with short-term, project-based agendas that are not shaped by local needs. The PDAP’s experience has shown that longer-term relationships based on mutuality are more effective.

Local civil society groups play a significant role in disaster response, recovery and resilience-building by building bridges between different dimensions. They are the ones who stay and continue to provide assistance when most organisations have already packed their bags. According to PDAP, “When a cyclone happens, there is lots of government action, but post-disaster, they do not reach the people.”

Through questionnaires, qualitative community consultations and citizen-based processes, organisations pushing for local leadership are not only “shifting the power”, they are also understanding the depth and perspective that this approach can bring. In Bangladesh, findings have revealed that despite the prevalence of natural hazards, the “disasters” and threats cited by respondents are primarily social and economic. These range from unemployment and drug addiction to early marriage. The data collected by civil society organisations has both increased the understanding of local contexts and challenges, while also supporting advocacy for local action, challenging external perceptions of local realities.

Similarly, Julien Comlan Agbessi of REPAOC, the West African NGO Platforms Network, describes how working closely with local civil society “is a must” in the various stages of crisis and disaster management: “Whether in prevention, preparedness, response, recovery or reconstruction, civil society organisations, because of their operational proximity to communities and their knowledge of habits, customs, behaviours, interactions and affinities, are the most appropriate actors in terms of social mobilisation, risk awareness, observance of rules and measures for risk prevention and mitigation, as well as capacity building.” Civil society organisations are also best placed to trigger early warning systems, to communicate and inform the public during emergencies, and to collaborate with partners to provide crucial humanitarian assistance.

The many barriers to local leadership

Yet, the level of preparedness in communities remains low, especially after a crisis has passed. Too often, external actors leave without providing the necessary assistance to uphold local support ecosystems and capacities.

Julien Comlan Agbessi explains: “Prevention should be the rule in disaster risk management. This means prevention through the adoption of individual and collective attitudes, capacity building and the acquisition of technical means.” This is particularly important in the face of the cumulative hazards West Africa is facing – both natural and man-made. “The new form of risk, unprecedented in West Africa, is the security crisis due to jihadist attacks: a crisis with variable geometry and multifaceted consequences in Nigeria, in the countries of the central Sahel (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger) and in the countries of the Gulf of Guinea (Côte d’Ivoire, Benin).” He argues that the current security crisis is a complex emergency situation, with the characteristics of civil conflict: lack of authority or security throughout the territory, violations of human rights, massive displacement of populations as well as disruption in the use of infrastructures and access to the economic system. “The prolonged and extensive nature of this conflict, which is due to a complex interaction between different social, economic and political actors, requires a multi-sectoral intervention.”

However, the involvement of local actors and civil society organisations is not a given. This depends on the “level of acceptance of civil society organisations by the authorities and administrations” which are often seen as “rivals to the government, competing for funding”, instead of valuable allies. In some countries across the region, “they are targeted (…) because of the whistleblowing and watchdog role they play. This explains the government measures to suspend the renewal of NGO accreditation in some countries, or to ban them from operating in others”.

Because of the lack of willingness to cooperate with civil society organisations and local communities, REPAOC launched a call in April 2020 for solidarity and collaboration in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. The call was addressed to “governments and officials of state structures, to involve, at all levels, civil society organisations and their national, regional and global networks”.

Similarly, Koffi Mickael Yameogo, Project coordinator at SPONG⁷, the NGO network in Burkina Faso, told us about the efforts the platform is making for civil society organisations to be recognised and integrated into humanitarian responses: “Faced with the pressing demands of communities affected by the humanitarian crisis, exacerbated by our country’s security situation, national NGOs and associations traditionally active in development issues seem to be insufficiently prepared to respond to them, while international humanitarian NGOs have solutions, but are coming up against obstacles. The obstacles they encounter are linked to the physical accessibility of the areas of operation, knowledge of the terrain and targets, and the failure to take development issues into account, all of which call for a collaborative strategy between local actors, namely national development NGOs/associations and international NGOs active in humanitarian issues”.

SPONG has therefore set up a Humanitarian Working Group to fill this gap and allow for synergy of action between different actors. One of the main objectives of the working group is to promote the ‘localisation of aid’. Koffi explains that, “Although more needs to be done, civil society is inevitably involved in disaster risk reduction. It has a better grasp of what’s happening on the ground and is at the heart of the communities’ problems”.

Local leadership should be the rule, not the exception. Participatory consultations should be used to gather knowledge and priorities concerning complex everyday disasters. In addition, building and strengthening local institutions can enable people to share and communicate needs and priorities. And finally, qualitative partnerships and trust-building with external actors needs to be approached as a long-term, continuous effort, so that local leadership is respected and used as a basis for action, not the other way around.

Fore more information about Forus: www.forus-international.org

1. https://agendaforhumanity.org/summit.html
2. www.preventionweb.net/news/local-possible-study-localisation-disaster-management-during-pandemic
3. https://drr.forus-international.org/
4. https://asksource.info/organisations/development-network-indigenous-voluntary-associations-deniva
5. https://ccong.org.co/ccong/
6. www.pdapbd.org/
7. https://spong.bf/