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HAI is one of the founders of The Alliance for Empowering Partnerships (A4EP), a network of organisations committed to rebalancing the humanitarian architecture and practices to enable locally-led responses. This position paper is a contribution to discussions during the ECOSOC meeting and side events from June 24-27 June, in Geneva. It has four attention points.

The paper, published on the Relief Web, can be accessed here.

The composition of the IASC membership remains as per established in 2008, well before the World Humanitarian Summit and the Grand Bargain Commitments. It seems inappropriate to continue with structures which are outdated, reflect unequal power dynamics and do not reflect the current commitments to localisation. Although both ICVA and InerAction have local and national NGOs as members, there are increased calls by local and national actors for direct inclusion in international policy discussions and decision making processes. The new structure does not take note of the commitments that are made on localisation and does not formally recognise local and national actors on equitable basis.

The International Convening Committee of Alliance for Empowering Partnerships calls for Local/ National networks to be invited as an IASC standing Invitee on permanent basis. This will proactively demonstrate the seriousness of the localisation commitments and give recognition to the important role they play nationally, regionally and globally. We urge that at each level there should be a recognised role for local/national/ regional network and at least two result group should have a local/ national/regional NGOs network as co-chairs and that local and national NGO network should play an active role in setting the results. The time frame for feedback and participation should be appropriate so broad consultation can take place.

Please read the complete paper here:

HAI is one of the conveners of Alliance for Empowering Partnerships (A4EP) – a global network on humanitarian advocacy. A4EP has issued it statement on Cyclone Idai to remind the international actors about the localisation commitments they have made. The statement asks for the following:

1. The international headquarters of the GB and C4C signatories should remind their
   national offices about the commitments they are expected to adhere
2. Unless it could be justified, responses of national offices of international
   organisations should be through partnership with homegrown local and national
   actors. This should be an opportunity to reinforce, not replace
3. It is of utmost importance not only to pass on 25% and 20% of humanitarian funding
   by the GB and C4C signatories respectively, but also try to exceed it whenever and
   wherever possible
4. C4C signatories should constantly highlight the role of their local partners in all
   media communications
5. Better partnership modalities with local and national actors must be explored by the
   donors and intermediary agencies, instead of merely transferring implementation
   related risks to them through sub-contracting
6. In order to seek durable solutions, the recognition of the impacts of climate change
   is crucial. Not only is climate resilience important for planning for disasters but it is
   also important because we now know more of these extreme climate events will
   come. The response and recovery needs to plan to ensure that risk management or
   risk mitigation is factored into disaster recovery. it is important to work through
   humanitarian-development nexus by ensuring multi-year financing, beyond short
   term humanitarian funding.

Please click here to read the full statement.