Big strides towards localization of humanitarian action – the EHF experience

23 May 2016 was a day when national Governments, aid agencies, the private sector and members of the academia came in big numbers to convene in Istanbul for the World Humanitarian Summit. Under the initiative of the then Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, the Summit was organized by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) and had as its end goal to make the humanitarian system accountable, inclusive and more effective to respond to the increasing number of crises afflicting the world. To this end, the World Humanitarian Summit was a step in the right direction in that it attempted to bring all stakeholders together to share best practices and knowledge to feed into next steps.

The outcome of this two-day summit is what was termed the “Grand Bargain: Agenda for Humanity”, which is a collection of 51 specific commitments made by 30 government and aid agency signatories. The number of signatories had increased to 48 by March 2017 and to 64 by December 2021. The 51 commitments were grouped into ten focus areas, amongst which is LOCALIZATION. 

Under this theme, the signatories committed to provide multi-year funding to local and national aid agencies; remove barriers that block partnerships with local and national aid agencies; support and collaborate with national government coordination of humanitarian aid; provide 25 per cent of funding to local or national organizations as directly as possible; agree, with the Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC), key performance indicator about localization efforts; and increase the use of funding tools that enable more funding to local and national aid agencies. The rate of implementation of these grand and necessary commitments varies from country to country. But overall, the sentiment seems to be that the implementation is not near where it should be and that more needs to be done and fast.

In Ethiopia, the humanitarian community has been actively working to promote the localization agenda since the Grand Bargain of 2016. There is widespread agreement on the value of partnering with local organizations as they facilitate humanitarian action in hard-to-reach areas, and often have wide constituency to implement community-based projects, hence providing a comparative advantage in humanitarian access, timeliness of response and accountability to affected community. However, notwithstanding significant tangible achievements registered, actual results on the ground were by no means satisfactory in the initial years. But things have visibly started to change in recent years.

The OCHA-managed Ethiopia Humanitarian Fund (EHF) is one of the champions of the localization agenda in Ethiopia. The Fund has been exerting concrete efforts since 2018, but nothing compares to achievements registered in 2022 when it has made a complete overhaul of the way the Fund operates in order to accommodate local partners and to implement the Ethiopia Humanitarian Country Team’s (EHCT) National NGO (NNGO) Engagement Strategy.

Localization is now the second strategic priority for EHF after lifesaving interventions. In parallel to gradually increasing the number of national NGOs eligible for funding, EHF has drastically increased the percentage of funds allocated for the latter. To this end, EHF has prioritized national NGOs, especially women-led and faith-based organizations, in its capacity assessment strategy for eligibility of partners in 2022. By the end of 2022, seven (7) new national NGOs became eligible to receive direct funding from the EHF. Overall, between 2018 and 2022, the number of eligible national partners has increased from three (3) to 15, and the total fund allocated to national NGOs during the same period increased from 6 per cent to 36 per cent. An additional 11 national NGOs (including four women-led organizations) are going through the eligibility assessment process and a good portion are likely to become EHF partners in 2023.

Zemede Zewdie, Country Representative of the International NGO Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and member of the EHF Advisory Board stated, “EHF has made remarkable progress in the implementation of the localization agenda and in supporting local organizations’ involvement in the humanitarian response. Two noteworthy positive developments include the decision for 30% of the funding to go to local organizations, and the policy of international partners partnering with local organizations to proportionally allocate the overhead budget with the local partner. Members of the Humanitarian INGOs forum (HINGO) like CRS have already established a system for building the capacity of local organizations, sharing risks, and accompanying them in institutional and technical capacity development. CRS fully works with local organizations.”

The year 2022 also saw significant changes in the structure and make-up of the EHF, enabling a more inclusive and more transparent Fund management, which is also in line with the new Global Guidelines for Country Based Pooled Funds (CBPF). To this end, the composition of the EHF’s senior governance structure where strategy and policy issues of the Fund are discussed and agreed upon (The Advisory Board) was completely changed. It was in 2018 that the first national NGO was granted membership to the Advisory Board, and since then and until mid-2022, four donors, two INGOs, two UN agencies and one NNGO constituted the Board and made decisions that turned the wheel of the Fund. However, by end-2022, equal seat and equal voices were allocated to the bodies represented in the Board. Therefore, since 2022, the most senior body, the Advisory Board, is run by three donors, three INGOs, three NNGOs and three UN agencies, with rotating membership.

In addition to the Advisory Board, the composition of the Review Committee was changed. This Committee, which is responsible for technically reviewing and vetting hundreds of project proposals and recommend projects to be prioritized for funding was not standardized across the clusters. But in 2022, inclusive, transparent and fair selection of project proposals was ensured by manning the review committee with one representative from an INGO, one from a NNGO, one from UN agency and one cluster coordinator. The review committee and its processes are now led by UNOCHA.

Mihreteab Belay, Director of the National NGO ASDEPO and member of the EHF Advisory Board commended the significant strides made towards localization of humanitarian action through EHF’s committed efforts as follows, “National NGOs are ideal partners to deliver life-saving assistance in the complex and highly fragile humanitarian context in Ethiopia. Despite capacity and structural limitations that have long limited our humanitarian activities and active involvement in the Ethiopia humanitarian coordination architecture, we have done a lot and continue to be close to the affected population listening to their plight and addressing their priority needs as much as our resources allow. The successful measures recently taken by EHF are significant steps in the right direction to empower National NGOs to more efficiently engage in humanitarian action in Ethiopia. I am happy to see the seeds of localization starting to bear fruit.” 

EHF’s achievements, particularly in 2022, reflect the renewed overall commitment of the leadership at all levels of the Ethiopia humanitarian response and coordination architecture. Through maintaining these commitments and pushing through these changes in 2023 and beyond, we are certain to see a humanitarian system that is more accountable, more inclusive and more effective to respond to the increasing number of conflict, violence and natural disaster-driven crises in Ethiopia. This will not only have better value for money, but more importantly, will help in reducing unnecessary morbidity and mortality and the resulting suffering of millions of men, women and children affected by crises.