Good practice partnership models for localisation
21-02-2018
FINAL
1. Background and Rationale
The ‘Accelerating Localisation through Partnerships’ programme in Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria and South Sudan is intended to help support local leadership of humanitarian response and move forward the localisation agenda set out in the Grand Bargain[1]. The programme includes research into the partnership models used between international and national/local NGOs in those four countries, in order to identify and inform best practice in partnership models that support localisation. Building on the research findings, the programme will then work with national and local NGO groups in those four countries to implement the findings through pilots conducted in real time ie in current humanitarian programmes, and from this practice develop locally-generated plans for moving the localisation agenda forward (national-level localisation plans). These localisation plans from the four countries will generate recommendations and guidance, and emerging good practice in a meta analysis, and jointly will generate ‘pathways to localisation’ which will feed into the global Grand Bargain process so as to influence progress on localisation more widely.
The agencies within the consortium have been involved in related initiatives whose previous work can feed into the research. A similar consortium commissioned a series of Missed Opportunities reports(Missed Opportunities, 2013[i]; Missed Again, 2014[ii]; Missed Out, 2016[iii], Opportunity Knocks, 2016[iv]) which researched the role, experience and potential of national and local NGOs in a series of different key crises (DRC, Haiti, Pakistan, Philippines, South Sudan, Nepal, Kenya). The Missed Opportunities reports identified the need to build partnerships with national NGOs that can go to scale as part of good preparedness; and the value of quality partnerships that support local and national NGO leadership for humanitarian effectiveness. Recommendations were captured in the meta-analysis ‘Six Years: Seven Emergencies’.
Similar consortia have been involved in multi-stakeholder multi-country capacity-buiding and preparedness programming funded by DFID’s Disasters and Emergencies Preparedness Programme, which include the OXFAM-led Financial Enablers programme, which experiments with providing unearmarked grants to national NGO consortia to lead and determine their own capacity-building programmes; the Christian Aid-led Linking Preparedness Response and Resilience[v] programme, which asked crisis survivors how aid should be remodelled to better respond to their expectations, and which, in collaboration with Local2Global Protection’s Survivor-Led Response (SLR) initiative, is developing modalities to help affected populations to lead the response to their own crises; the Action Aid-led Shifting the Power[vi]programme, which is strengthening the capacity of national partners to claim a stronger role in the leadership and coordination of humanitarian response in their countries; as well as researching to what extent its consortium member agencies are walking the talk of localisation and partnership; and Action Aid-led Transforming Surge Capacity[vii] programme, which is looking at local, national and regional alternative modalities to traditional global surge capacity models, as well as researching the challenge of LNGO and NNGO staff being poached by international agencies[viii]. In addition, several consortium members have signed up to the Charter for Change[ix], a pledge by 30 INGOs launched at the World Humanitarian Summit to implement 8 concrete steps toward more equitable partnership practice.
There is interest from Grand Bargain signatories and others in the sector about how NGOs, including consortium members, strengthen and promote the types of partnerships with local NGOs and other citizens or community groups that are conducive to local leadership of response, but there is scant guidance of how these models work in practice to support localisation. This is the gap in research that this project seeks to address.
What we mean by“localisation” in this context is the direction of travel in the humanitarian sector, strongly endorsed by the World Humanitarian Summit and the Grand Bargain, that national and local humanitarian actors should increasingly be empowered to take a greater role in the leadership, coordination and delivery of humanitarian preparedness and response in their countries. Local leadership of response encompasses decision-making and ownership of response, builds/strengthens local/traditional practices and people, maximises local/national/regional capacity before requiring international assistance, retains control over response even if international resources are engaged, and uses nationally appropriate tools and systems).
What we mean by “partnership”in this context is the relationship between international humanitarian actors, especially INGOs, and national and local humanitarian actors, especially national and local NGOs, whereby the international actors work with, support and resource the national and local actors to design and implement humanitarian preparedness and response programming. It is recognised that partnerships are dynamic and the temporal aspect may influence practice, for example, how the partnership responds to evolving circumstances over time such as preparedness, surge to respond to rapid onset or escalating crises, and recovery, and the effects of the length of partnerships.
Critically, the focus must be on nationally-driven and contextually relevant localisation frameworks that identify “good partnership pratice”. This may build from current understandings. It is considered that “good partnership practice” empowers and strengthens the national and local partner, rather than treating them as a sub-contractor who is simply paid to execute a specific activity, such as a food distribution, and follows the prescriptions set out in the Charter for Change. Shifting the Power developed MoUs with INGOs and national NGOs that advance the Charter for Change with the National Humanitarian Network in Pakistan, and a Charter with NAHAB, Bangladesh.
These understandings of localisation, partnerships that support localisation, and good partnership practice will be tested with national and local NGOs.
Practitioner literature on partnerships between international NGOs and local organisations include the “WWF partnership toolbox” (2009)[x], “Partnership matters: a reflective guide” (2012)[xi] and Oxfam’s “Putting partnership principles into practice” (2016)[xii]. ChristianAid has also conducted internal research on its global partnership approach (2017) and developed some learning on localisation and human resources (2017)[xiii] , and examined partnership in Nepal and Bangladesh[xiv]. Oxfam has recently completed a study on the impact of conflict on civil society with specific recommendations on partnership in the conflict context[xv], and is planning research in South Sudan on the conditions needed to localise humanitarian assistance. CARE has delivered research on gender and localising aid[xvi].ICRC is planning research with BRC on the complementarity between local, national and international actors, and the application of the Fundamental Principles, potentially in South Sudan.
This research will also benefit from exchanges between organizations convened by the IFRC and Government of Switzerland withi the Grand Bargain Localisation Workstream who are undertaking complementary research related to localisation, for example, on donor funding models.
Academic literature on localisation and partnerships in the humanitarian sector include “Humanitarian Partnerships—Drivers, Facilitators, and Components” in Sudan (2012, chapter 2)[xvii], “Localising humanitarian response” in South Sudan (2015)[xviii] and the “Localisation of Humanitarian Response in the Syrian Crisis” (2016)[xix]. ODI’s “From Grand Bargain to beneficiary” specifically looks at funding flows through the humanitarian system (2017)[xx]. A thorough literature review is to be done during the initial phase of the research process (see section 5).
2. Audience and Use of Findings
The intended audience for the outcomes of the research includes firstly, national and local NGOs and networksin the four focus countries, who can build on the research to develop activities, plans, priorities and strategies to accelerate progress toward localisation in their context; secondly, participating INGOs, including the consortium members who can learn from each other and improve their practice in the light of the findings, and test the approaches recommended by the research; and thirdly Grand Bargain signatories, including major donors, UN agencies, Red Cross actors and other INGOs, who can make use of the findings to help them to strengthen and scale up their practice in working with local actors in accordance with Grand Bargain commitments.
3. Objectives
The core business of the research will be to:
identify, articulate and recommend good practice in partnerships between INGOs and NNGOs/LNGOs in Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria and S Sudan. The primary objective for doing so is to develop a new evidence-based paradigm for partner relationships that will help to facilitate greater national and local leadership of response.
The four reports will describe some of the best practices, criteria for partnership models that support localisation, identify challenges, and provide lessons learned. Case-studies will be chosen to understand how practice may change according to the length of partnerships, and the type of humanitarian response including how to core operations within a partnership can respond to an escalating crisis in ways that support localisation. Case-studies will offer concrete specific recommendations to NGOs, including consortium agencies about how they can start evolving their existing practices to learn from the better practice of others.
Other objectives that this is designed to achieve include:
-to provide Grand Bargain signatories practical approaches to strengthen and scale up their own partnership practices, in terms of quality and quantity of partnerships with local/national NGOs;
-to inspire consortium members, other INGOs and national NGO partners to improve their practice by learning from each other;, and understand how to surge to rapid onsets and escalating crises, and exit from these, in ways that foster local leadership of humanitarian response.
-to provide recommendations, suggested tools and methodology for national and local NGOs, and the practical actions Charter for Change signatories can take to deliver the the Charter’s principles.
4. Research Questions
Main research question
- What are the good practice partnership models between INGOs and national/local NGOs towards localisation?
Sub research questions
- What are the hard (eg operational and business model, including financial management, due diligence, security and risk management, programme oversight authority and responsibility), elements of the partnership models that best foster local leadership of humanitarian response? (This includes the way partnerships are funded and invested into (quality, quantity, length of funding), the level of equity in partnership (subcontracting versus more equitable with deeper engagement and decision-making of local actors), the importance of due diligence versus other driving forces in the partnership, the extent to which capacity strengthening is part and parcel of the relationship (and is it two-way), whether partnerships are struck ahead of disasters (are they strategic or reactive in the midst of emergency?), and how risks are assessed and managed.
- What are the soft (eg trust, respect, behaviours, culture) elements of the partnership models that best foster local leadership of humanitarian response?
- What are the continuing or newinternal and external factors that act as barriersto local and national leadership of humanitarian response, and how are these addressed? (eg what partnership practices continue to be unhelpful? What constraints are imposed by funding, government, the humanitarian setting including security management)that constrain local and national leadership of humanitarian response? What have been the most effective ways of overcoming or mitigating the impact of these barriers? Is the external environment conducive to local leadership of humanitarian action? What are the barriers that constrain INGOs from leadership of devolving power to local and national partners?
For both sub-questions, national and local NGOs in each context will shape this by providing their understanding of local leadership of humanitarian response, partnerships that support localisation, and what constitutes effective partnerships. This will build on existing views evidenced in existing country-focussed research (eg Missed Opportunities report series).
Partnerships are dynamic, so it will be important to understand how these may need to change over time, and how time affects partnerships. It will be important to choose case-studies that allow us to consider how operational partnerships may surge to respond to rapid onset or escalating crises.
For subquestion 1, we would describe the characteristics of emerging and/or existing cases of partnerships that support localisation – what are the financial, operational and business models? This is the focus of the research addressing a gap in existing practical evidence and models. How can existing funding modalities/chains work better for the national/local NGOs? Are there new ‘hard’ modalities that can be set up to transform partnerships? What are the mechanisms for quality control, learning and reporting? This would include dimensions such as the shape of the funding relationships between the INGO and the national/local NGO (for example decision-making and definitions apportioning direct and indirect costs), the organisational features of the INGO and the organisational features of the national/local partner. What kind of partnership operational models are best-positioned to ensure local leadership of humanitarian response that supports the humanitarian effectiveness, and to operationalise the relevant commitments of the Charter for Change?
For sub-question 2, we would explore the less tangible, less nitty-gritty enabling environment aspects that characterise the most effective models for partnerships that inspire local and national leadership of humanitarian response. How are relationships of trust and respect that are required to support and strengthen local leadership of humanitarian response most effectively fostered? This would build from existing literature and practice which focuses on the values and principles that support partnerships enabling localisation. It will be important to not overly focus on this sub-question given the existing literature.
For subquestion 3, this would need to build on existing research on the barriers to localisation (see Missed Opportunities report series ). We would explore in brief the contextual challenges that are preventing widespread scale-up of best practice partnerships and holding back local leadership of humanitarian preparedness and response; how funding constraints may impact investment in capacity; the role of the government, donors and the UN and other actors outside the partnership in creating an enabling environment that affects the development of good practice; the nature of the humanitarian setting (e.g. protracted conflict, rapid onset natural disaster and differences in best practice), etc. How does the nature of emergency affect good partnership practice? If there are significant obstacles which are particularly holding back best practice partnership practices from flourishing, what have been the most effective ways of overcoming or mitigating the impact of these impediments? Here, we would also wish to explore the power relationships and political economy through the aid chain that help or hinder localisation.
5. Methods
We would welcome suggestions for analytical approaches and research designs that best address the objectives and research questions. Critical to design is our intention to work with local and national NGOs to “localise” the research process as far as possible to enable a locally-driven research process (see A Localised Approach to Humanitarian Research, IFRC, 2017[xxi] (Grand Bargain Localisation Workstream research database on Podio). One suggestion is that the design might include the following data collection methods and methodological sequencing:
Research Method / Reason for choosing the method / Research Question(s) it responds to1. Literature review of existing evidence on best practice partnership models / Before proceeding with primary data collection, we want to summarise all that has been said about good or best practice partnership models, drawing on localisation and partnership literature including national and local resources in each of the countries. It should review current practice by NGOs – what are the characteristics of these models that support localisation (without over-focussing on the typology and diversity of these models)? Have they been effective with regards to localisation? What makes these approaches effective? Are there criteria that identify good practice?
The review will consider the link between good practice partnerships that support effective localisation and the effectiveness of humanitarian response[xxii].
The review will distil national/local NGO understandings of local leadership of humanitarian response and partnership, and good practice. / SRQ1, SRQ2 and