Partnerships with national and local actors have long been identified as a source of problems in international humanitarian aid. Major evaluations of numerous high profile humanitarian crises have identified insufficient investment in, and commitment to, such partnerships as the biggest hindrance to effective performance. Efforts to work with national and local actors do not play a central role in the majority of international humanitarian work. This amounts to a long-standing systemic issue for the sector as a whole.
This study is the first output of a research project commissioned by five UK-based international humanitarian NGOs. The research process involved interviews with INGO and NNGO staff, workshops and meetings with INGO representatives, and a review of relevant documentation.
A number of the INGO organisations have used partnerships – partly or exclusively – as the means by which they respond to new and emerging humanitarian crises. However, the approach taken to partnerships in the majority of humanitarian responses tends to be reactive, driven by emergency, and shaped by ad-hoc interactions that take place at the point of crisis. The sector is not yet systematic about partnerships: how they are thought about, designed, implemented or assessed.
Despite this, and the well-known constraints faced in many response settings, the research found a significant number of benefits that stem from working through such collaborative mechanisms. Such partnerships were identified as helping to:
- Enhance the relevance and appropriateness of humanitarian responses. National and local actors’ understanding of context and internal dynamics allow them to shape programmes accordingly.
- Enhance the effectiveness of assistance, by ensuring accountability to disaster-affected populations.
- Smooth the transition between the different elements of the disaster cycle. Unlike the international system where tasks such as resilience, response and recovery might be undertaken by different teams and organisations, local NGOs (LNGO) and NNGOs typically work in all of these spaces. This enables them to enhance connectedness and ensure that responses take place in ways that respect longer-term perspectives.
On other issues, however, the picture is more mixed:
- Partnerships take time and resources to set up and manage, and require a complex engagement which is not amenable to simplistic measurements of efficiency and value for money.
- The majority of partners are relatively localised, and have small-scale operations, meaning that issues of coverage were not straightforward.
Both the pros and cons need to be put in context. There is a general lack of financing for partnerships and capacity both before and after major crises. Many of the benefits that have been realised to date have been achieved with minimal investments, and little official donor support outside of emergency contexts. This suggests that the potential benefits of partnerships in response have not been maximised.
The study concludes that there are four areas where the commissioning organisations might consider further investment. These are:
- Investing in change
- Setting the agenda
- Building knowledge and shared understanding
- Strengthening practices.
