Are we ready for localisation?

As the year starts for most international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) it is the time to open funding cycles for prospective implementing partners in the country or probably conducting their due diligence.

As exciting as it may be for the hopeful local NGOs, there have been calls for localisation.

A call to decentralise the power, money and resources that international NGOs hold in developmental aid, this is against the usual business of building presence in an area and implementing multiple large-scale projects simultaneously against the capacity of the local NGO.

Localisation is all about local actors influencing action and making decisions throughout the project with only the international NGO coming in if and when necessary to do so, helping to implement the strategies and programmes of local actors where their capabilities are stretched.

The localisation would result in a global system where national and local actors remain at the forefront and lead the action and receive a much larger share of available funding directly, rather than via international funding.

At the moment, the funding and power are too concentrated in few agency hands.

Localisation would mean funding going directly to local NGO leaving the international actors including the UN cut out of a significant income since till now they have been the ‘first-receivers’ and kept a percentage for their transaction costs before sub-granting it to others.

Local actors are best suitable because they are already in the field (ground) it begs the question why an outsider should decide what’s best for the people in the community. A full adaptation of localisation would mean that full funds go directly to local NGOs to aid theiroperations, which means that aid could be executed more effectively and efficiently.

But then we need to ask what our main objective is for calling and advocating for localisation. Are local NGOs just being greedy and wanting to be custodians of the large sum of funds or is this really the need of the communities that they are better served by people from within their communities.

With so much misuse of donor funds, it is a cause of worry of what the localisation can unleash, but it is also a moment of testing on what the local NGOs are capable of handling.

This comes in especially where we have so many young-led and community-based organisations that have the zeal, the knowledge of different issues in their communities but are unable to secure funding because they cannot be trusted with a lot of money.

Not because they have any financial crimes but  their annual budgets are not reaching the minimum requirements of the sub-granter, this also keeps the money revolving with in the same organisations.

Having attended a few meetings online about probing for localisation, one thing standing out very loud and clear is that the international NGOs are a not for the localisation for reasons best known to themselves.

There’s a hidden message behind that they would still like to be in power of the resources and determine how they are used.

And when it comes to the local NGOs the bigger ones are together with the international NGOs opposing the localisation, they are hesitant to level the playing field with small and community-based organisations.

It is like the food chain where everyone wants to keep their share of power over the other and not considering the results and impact that would come out if it was different.