At the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit, local/national actors with experience of crisis response united to call for improved recognition of their role. Their initiative led to one of the Grand Bargain commitments to ‘making principled humanitarian action as local as possible and as international as necessary’. Signatories of the Grand Bargain, including the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO), undertook to take concrete action, including the commitment to achieve a target of at least 25 % of humanitarian funds being allocated to local/national actors.
This guidance note on localization “Promoting equitable partnerships with local responders in humanitarian settings” is the result of extensive work by Groupe URD in support of DG ECHO. It was presented at the European Humanitarian Forum and will now be widely disseminated to be integrated into the practices of DG ECHO and its partners. This document, based on a wide consultation with its international and local partners, seeks to translate the commitments of the Grand Bargain into concrete actions.
