The Localization Agenda

This book tells the story of the humanitarian industry’s latest failed attempt at reform, identifies the key contradiction at the heart of it, and suggests ways to do things better.

In 2016, the United Nations, international organizations and heads of state launched the Grand Bargain - “A Shared Commitment to Better Serve People in Need” - thereby announcing a systemwide reform. Key among the commitments was localization: placing local organizations at the centre of emergency responses. However, today, very little has changed, with most attributing the lack of progress to technical issues, such as donor requirements, contracting mechanisms, and local responders’ capacities.

However, this book argues that a paradox within the localization agenda is to blame. Drawing from in-depth research with diverse aid organizations, however, Marie-Claude Savard argues that the real problem is that the humanitarian industry is a territory upon which knowledge – the currency of technocratic regimes – is produced and guarded by power-wielding gatekeepers, who determine what constitutes a legitimate emergency responder. Those gatekeepers mandate international NGOs and standard-setting organizations to shepherd nonconforming local organizations towards their standards. This process only reaffirms enduring North-South hierarchies. Ultimately, the reformative potential of the localization agenda is thwarted by its own, internal contradictions—but there are ways of doing things differently by aiming for a true polycentrism that could lead to more sustainable, enduring change.