Beyond Localization: Proposals for Systemic Reform of Global Humanitarian Action

In the tenth year after the World Humanitarian Summit it is clear that the world of humanitarian action needs systemic change that will build equitable institutions, dynamize funding patterns, decentralize leadership roles, and undo colonial and racist legacies of international humanitarian practices. Systemic change will not just empower but leave leadership in the hands of organizations that are based in communities facing disasters.

In 2016, over 9000 states, international organizations and civil society actors made more than 3,500 commitments intended to strengthen the international humanitarian system and deliver much needed assistance and protection to affected people. Their agreement became known as the “Grand Bargain” or the “Agenda for Humanity”. The commitment to empowering actors from affected communities and countries, subsequently named localization, has dominated the post-summit activities since 2016. United Nations agencies, major international humanitarian organizations, and civil society organizations became change champions under the "Agenda for Humanity".  

Programs under the Grand Bargain, have prioritized strengthening the administrative, operational, and financial capacities of local actors, mostly across the Global South. Localization has helped improve aid delivery in Fiji andEthiopia, with modest progress even in conflict-ridden Syria. Across the Global South, several organizations are also nurturing domestic philanthropy as complementary to external funding that could, hopefully, become a fully-fledged alternative.

Lack of fundamental progress

Efforts at localization have broadly kept alive the conversation that humanitarian leadership should be reserved for local actors, and spotlighted the need for critical reflection on neocolonialism, racism, and other inequities in the system.

Yet localization has failed to deliver systemic change. Its failure to meet the target of providing 25% of funding to local actors is well documented. For one, the system remains heavily dependent on Western funding, NGOs, and leadership, and the whims of the powerful. The demise of the USAID (US Agency for International Development) and the continued violation of humanitarian principles in Ukraine, Syria, Gaza, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo show that a well-intentioned agenda alone will not cause systemic change.

Overall, localization lacks a clear vision. Champions of the Grand Bargain do not know when or whether localization will be complete, and what the international humanitarian system should look like once the agenda is indeed complete. We also do not know how successful localization will alter the roles of the UN, international NGOs (INGOs), donors, and host communities. In short, localization seems to be a well-intentioned journey without destination.

While captured in the localization gaze, much of the humanitarian system has failed to effectively engage with another reform agenda, namely that proper investment would expedite the normalization of homegrown leadership and cause systemic change. One such project is South-South Humanitarianism (SSH) about which conversation has become significantly muted since the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit. SSH is part of the broader world of South-South Cooperation (SSC) which examines relational dynamics among countries of the Global South. Within this world, SSH spotlights the initiatives, institutions, and resources that states and civil society in the Global South mobilize to help one another when disasters occur. For instance, several policy briefs including from the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance (ALNAP) consideredBrazil, India, South Africa, China (to the extent that it self-identifies as a member of the Global South), and the Gulf countries as the vanguards of humanitarianism from the South.

Humanitarian Actors in the Global South

It is not just Brazil, India, South Africa, and other relatively wealthier Southern countries that give aid to others – several of them part of the BRICS+ grouping (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa plus additional members). Others, especially in the middle- and lower-income bracket that are often considered as perennial recipients of both economic and humanitarian aid, occasionally extend humanitarian aid both within the South and beyond. In 2010, several African states donated to Haiti towards earthquake relief. During the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, African countries similarly mobilized to help their affected colleagues. Besides recent aid to Sierra Leone, Ghana in August 2025 sent 40 tons of cocoa products to Gaza for starvation relief.

Humanitarian acts from the Global South, however, go beyond the South to targeted recipients in the West. In 2005, for instance, several Global South countries offered funding and logistics support to the US in response to Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf oil spill, though the American government declined such help. Japan received[H5] [OB6] some money from the Government of Botswana  in response to  the Tohoku  Pacific Ocean earthquake.

At the systems level, SSH has the potential to mobilize and streamline humanitarian institutions and resources within the Global South where most disasters occur for timely, and potentially more legitimate responses. This will also come with reduced accusations of neocolonialism or racism. A more organized Global South can generate some leverage that can be used to renegotiate terms and reshape relations with the North. Major humanitarian actors from the South can serve as subcontractors for external donors.

Humanitarian projects of regional organizations

Another development that the localization agenda has not meaningfully engaged with have been the various humanitarian projects by regional organizations from Africa, the Americas and Asia. Since 2007, for instance, the African Union has implemented various humanitarian reforms that have resulted in the establishment of the African Humanitarian Agency in Uganda. ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations), the Caribbean Community (Caricom), and several of Africa’s regional economic communities have their respective humanitarian structures.

To cause systemic change, each regional organization aims to properly organize humanitarian spaces under their leadership. This would mean that the regional organizations will lead the mobilization of both internal and external funding, oversee decision-making at its constituent levels, help member states build bottom-up institutions, and create structures that respond to disasters in humane, timely, and efficient manners. Well-functioning regional humanitarian systems will provide aid and protection to affected people in ways that may not always necessitate external involvement. Like the broader SSH, regional humanitarian structures can leverage institutions and resources to renegotiate external relations and even become subcontractors for foreign donors.

Both Global South processes and regionalization – if properly supported – will leave leadership in the hands of those affected by disasters and minimize accusations of neocolonialism and racism. They will also leave substantial resources in the control of Southern actors and make them less susceptible to changes like the demise of USAID or Europe’s fixation on the Russia-Ukraine war, both of which have diverted humanitarian funding from other crises. However, localization has not purposefully engaged with SSH and has in many cases bypassed regional humanitarian projects to engage with individual civil society organisations (CSOs).

Meaningful reforms of the system

With the 10^th anniversary of the localization agenda approaching in 2026, humanitarian actors should be looking for ways to bring meaningful reforms to the system. Humanitarian reforms need to transcend their fixation on localization as a process of empowerment and resource reallocation. Humanitarian actors must support other ongoing developments that will deliver systemic changes.

With the US’s self-imposed retraction from humanitarian duties, European actors have a chance to provide a more constructive leadership. Just as the European Union facilitated the access of many African countries to Covid-19 vaccines, it can lead the search for solutions to some of today’s most urgent humanitarian crises in Sudan, Ukraine, DR Congo, and Gaza.

The EU must support regionalization of humanitarian action across Africa, the Caribbean, and Asia. The EU invests a lot in humanitarian aid, but not nearly as much into helping build Global South institutions that can adequately respond to disasters without direct or perennial external involvement. For instance, the EU can share experiences and provide some funding for the African Humanitarian Agency, Caricom’s disaster response systems and ASEAN’s humanitarian institutions. All of these can be supported to be humanitarian anchors in their respective regions.

Additionally, the humanitarian system should stop the compartmentalization of issues and normalize discussing the connections between economic growth and the ability of a country to give humanitarian aid. If a country is wealthy or sustains economic growth, it is better placed to meet its humanitarian needs and even help others. China, India, and Brazil with their expanded foreign humanitarian aid over the past two decades have  provided proof of this under SSH, while South Africa has recently seen a slowdown of economic growth and diminished its foreign aid commitments as a result.

Powerful platforms for discussing global economic relations such as the World Economic Forum, G-7 and G-20 must integrate into their agenda how economic growth can spur a country’s sovereignty and its ability to respond to its own disasters. Global South countries within such economic forums must push for the inclusion of a discussion on humanitarian issues. Some of these synergies already exist in the development-humanitarian-peace nexus approach to the provision of international aissistance adopted by both international organizations and governments but it must be implemented with more consistency.

An act of self-determination

It ultimately lies with communities, countries, and regions affected by humanitarian disasters to take leadership –as they are doing with SSH and regional humanitarian projects. Localization, as one observer argued, must be conceptualized as an exercise in self-determination of affected societies. Not only must external actors respect such sovereignty, but societies facing disasters must also leverage local, state, and regional resources to build external relations on their own terms.

Those facing disasters must also tell their own stories. Rather than seeing countries and regions as either donors or recipients, it must be recognized that they can play the roles of both donors and recipients. Once fully embraced and internalized, this recognition will help countries and regions facing disaster to better mobilize themselves.  

This should come with the shared understanding that African, Caribbean, and Asian actors ultimately commit to funding most of their own responses and reduce external dependence.

The concept of localization has helped sustain the conversation on the Grand Bargain since 2016. But to bring about real, meaningful change as we look beyond 2026, humanitarian actors must invest in SSH and regional humanitarian projects while embracing a system that operates mostly under local leadership, be it within a community, a country, or at regional levels.