Localization efforts may shift risk to refugee-led organizations
Over the past decade, international agencies and donors have sought to adopt ‘localization,’ which aims to shift power and resources toward local organizations to create more sustainable and equitable aid.
With the rising number of forcibly displaced people and protracted refugee crises in recent years, the focus on localizing refugee support through refugee-led organizations (RLOs) has gained renewed interest.
In an article in The Journal of Development Studies, authors Yotam Gidron and Feinstein Research Assistant Professor Evan Easton-Calabria compare the risks international agencies take on with the risks and uncertainties local partners themselves face.
Focusing on South Sudanese RLOs in Uganda and their engagements with international funders and NGOs, the authors argue that the very measures undertaken by INGOs and donors to mitigate their perceived risks of localization in fact require their intended beneficiaries to embrace uncertainty and risks.
The study concludes that localization, rather than transforming power imbalances and hierarchies, often reproduces them.
