The Humanitarian Club: Barriers to the Localisation of Aid

The international humanitarian system is in trouble. There is widespread consensus that relief operations are not as efficient and effective as they should be. Funding is chronically inadequate and the limited resources that are available do not always find their way to the people and communities that need them most. Concerns have been raised about skewed incentives, mismanagement of funds, and the lack of coordination between different humanitarian agencies resulting in conflicting or duplicated activities. 

Even more fundamentally, humanitarianism faces a crisis of legitimacy. It remains a Western-driven endeavour, dominated by a handful of agencies that are largely unrepresentative of and unaccountable to the communities they serve. There is now increasing recognition that a greater involvement of local actors has the potential to enhance both the legitimacy and efficiency of humanitarian interventions. ‘Localisation’ has become the new buzzword in the humanitarian community, gaining particular momentum at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit which highlighted the need to ‘respect, support and strengthen local leadership and capacity in crises’.

But three years on, not much has changed. Local actors remain largely marginalised, under-resourced, and without real decision making power. Why has progress been so slow despite the sector-wide embracement of the localisation agenda? At a recent Global Governance Institute lecture, Professor Michael Barnett (George Washington University) suggested that, in order to answer this question, we have to gain a better understanding of the structure, mentality, and political economy of the humanitarian sector. 

The emergence of a humanitarian club 

Humanitarianism as a ‘field’ took shape largely during the 1990s, when it became increasingly institutionalised. This development was propelled by a variety of factors, including the growing diversity of humanitarian actors, the greater public visibility of humanitarian emergencies, as well as a number of high-profile failures, most notably during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. In light of ever-more complex humanitarian challenges, there was a growing sense that relief operations should no longer be left in the hands of well-meaning amateurs. Consequently, leading Western aid agencies started to develop standardised codes of conduct, rules, guidelines, training programmes, and clearly defined career paths.

Barnett argued that this shift towards increased bureaucratisation, rationalisation, and professionalization marked the beginning of a ‘humanitarian club’. Large Western agencies that were at the forefront of this process developed a sense of shared identity and purpose. Sector-wide network structures emerged that allowed club members to meet and communicate on a regular basis, sharing information and lessons learned. This facilitated better coordination of relief interventions, however, as Barnett pointed out, it also gave rise to a clear hierarchy between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ of the club. 

Just like a football club, a fraternity, or a professional association, the humanitarian club offers advantages that go beyond direct material benefits. It can provide a sense of belonging, reputational gains, and avenues to gain valuable contacts, knowledge and skills. Building on Bourdieu, Barnett argued that the humanitarian club produces four different kinds of capital for its members: privileged access to funding (economic capital), trust and familiarity through networks and shared experiences (social capital), a shared identity and set of principles (symbolic capital), and the accumulation of knowledge and expert authority (cultural capital). 

Breaking into the club 

Why has it been so difficult for non-Western organisations to join the humanitarian club? The most obvious explanation is self-interest: club members will seek to limit membership to protect their own privileged position. While this is certainly part of the puzzle, Barnett suggested that the story is somewhat more complicated. This is because, when it comes to humanitarian action, there is more at stake than private interests – there is a sense that we cannot afford to ‘experiment’ if it means putting human lives at risk. And although most Western agencies pay lip service to the importance of localisation, many doubt that Southern organisations are actually up to the task. This, Barnett argued, is particularly obvious in three areas:

• Money: Opening up the humanitarian club to local agencies creates threats to current club members with regard to funding. Beyond that, Western donors and aid agencies may question whether local actors can meet the administrative demands involved in managing large sums of money in a transparent and accountable way and whether they are able to use the money efficiently to provide life-saving assistance. 
• Principles: Humanitarian principles are not uncontested but, according to Barnett, club members generally share a commitment to the impartial, neutral, and independent provision of relief to those in immediate need. Many doubt whether local organisations would be able and willing to adhere to these principles as they are more enmeshed in local power struggles. 
• Knowledge: Finally, Southern actors have only limited access to specialised education and training. Current members of the humanitarian club possess a monopoly over knowledge production and thus the power to define what counts as expertise. Although the value of ‘local knowledge’ is now routinely evoked, in practice, there is a clear preference for specialised expert knowledge acquired through Western education and field experience.

As Barnett observed, these arguments have a strong paternalistic undertone: if we know better how to provide aid effectively and efficiently and in a way that is compliant with our fundamental principles, then why would we shift power and resources towards local actors? At the same time, not all of these concerns can simply be brushed aside. As Barnett put it, for many in the club this is not about ‘hurt feelings’ but about how we can save human lives most effectively.  

That said, it is doubtful whether the club can really be defended in terms of its ‘effectiveness’. Although the empirical evidence is still thin, there is an emerging consensus in the literature that localisation is both more cost-effective and more impactful. The underlying assumption is that local organisations can provide relief quicker and in a more sustainable manner. They are also likely to have a better understanding of affected populations’ needs and priorities as well as the cultural and political context they operate in. 

However, local agencies will not be able to deliver effective and impactful aid without money. And, as it stands, the money is almost exclusively reserved for members of the humanitarian club. In 2017, local and national responders received just 2.9% of the total directly provided international humanitarian assistance, most of which went to national governments. While this is an improvement on previous years, it is still a long shot away from commitments made by some of the biggest donors and aid providers in 2016: to ‘achieve a global, aggregated target of at least 25 per cent of humanitarian funding to local and national responders as directly as possible’ by 2020.