For decades, global humanitarian aid has largely followed a familiar path: international donors provide funding to large humanitarian organizations, those organizations work with national partners, and assistance eventually reaches communities affected by conflict, disasters, displacement, hunger, and poverty.
But that model is being questioned more seriously than ever.
As humanitarian needs continue to rise and international funding becomes harder to secure, donors are paying greater attention to organizations that are already working inside affected communities. Local and national NGOs are increasingly being recognized not simply as project implementers, but as organizations with their own knowledge, leadership, networks, and ability to respond quickly.
This shift is known as localization in humanitarian aid.
At its heart, localization is about more than moving money. It is about giving local organizations greater access to funding, greater influence over decisions, and a stronger role in designing and leading humanitarian responses.
And in 2026, that conversation has become particularly important.
What Is Localization in Humanitarian Aid?
Localization is basically moving humanitarian dollars, leadership, and decision-making closer to the people and communities affected by a crisis.
The idea is nothing new. In fact, it has existed for years. The grand bargain of 2016 was to move toward a humanitarian system that disbursed up to 25% of funds to local and national actors “as directly as possible.” Nearly a decade on, we are a long way from our goal.
According to ODI’s 2026 analysis, less than 10% of international humanitarian funding went to local and national partners in 2024. Only 3.8% was delivered to them directly. As before, they were only receiving less, shorter, and more earmarked funding than international partners.
It’s that space that’s now renewing localization to the foreground, once again asking not just how do we support local actors, but how much power and dollars do we want them to hold?
Why Are Donors Paying More Attention to Local NGOs?
Several changes are pushing this shift forward.
Humanitarian crises are becoming more complex and lasting longer. At the same time, funding is under pressure, forcing donors and humanitarian agencies to think more carefully about how resources are used.
In this environment, organizations that are already established within affected communities can offer an important advantage.
A local NGO may already have staff in the area, relationships with community leaders, knowledge of local languages, connections with health facilities and schools, and an understanding of which groups are most vulnerable.
An international organization may bring greater financial resources, technical expertise, and experience from multiple countries. But it may not have the same level of local trust or understanding.
This is why the strongest humanitarian response does not necessarily have to be international versus local.
It can be international expertise working alongside local leadership.
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Local NGOs Are Often First to Respond
Not always is it international organizations who kick things off at the start of a crisis. Often they may already be the local community structures that have either religious, women’s, NGO, local government, or even refugee/locally led groups to coordinate on. They can then start providing assistance or at least knowing what can happen without having to wait on an international delegation.
In any crisis situation, whether it’s a mass migration as you see above or instances like flooding, earthquakes, or sickness, they will generally already know who and what have moved and where; they will know what has and hasn’t been accessible and if or not this service will still be operational. They can have an advantage to act.
As they are present within the community for either sudden mass disasters like natural disasters or epidemic outbreak scenarios, they offer local humanitarian groups the ability to react based on what is locally culturally applicable.
Local Knowledge Can Improve Humanitarian Outcomes
One of the biggest strengths of local NGOs is something that cannot easily be measured in a grant proposal: local knowledge.
A program that works well in one country or community may not work in another.
Local organizations understand cultural expectations, social relationships, languages, community structures, and barriers that may not be immediately visible to outside organizations.
For example, an NGO may discover that women in a particular community are technically eligible for a health service but cannot easily access it because of transportation, safety, childcare, or social barriers.
A local organization may identify that problem through everyday interaction with the community.
This kind of knowledge can help programs become more responsive instead of relying entirely on assumptions made outside the community.
Localization Is About More Than Giving Grants
This is where the discussion becomes more complicated.
Localization is sometimes presented as simply “give more money to local NGOs.”
But funding alone does not automatically create local leadership.
Imagine a local NGO receives a grant from an international organization but has no control over the program design, budget, timeline, or major decisions.
The NGO may be local, but the decision-making process remains largely external.
True localization asks deeper questions:
- Who identifies the problem?
- Who decides what should be funded?
- Who designs the program?
- Who controls the budget?
- Who decides how the program changes when conditions change?
- Who is accountable to the community?
- Who gets to speak directly with the donor?
These questions turn localization from a funding issue into a question of power and decision-making.
The Funding Gap Is Still a Major Problem
Despite years of commitments to localization, local organizations continue to receive a relatively small share of international humanitarian funding.
ODI’s 2026 research found that less than 10% of international humanitarian funding reached local and national actors in 2024, with only 3.8% reaching them directly.
This is particularly concerning because local NGOs are increasingly being expected to take on greater responsibilities.
There is a risk of creating a system where local organizations are asked to do more while receiving less.
That is not sustainable.
If donors want local organizations to manage larger programs, they also need to provide the resources necessary to manage those responsibilities.
Direct Funding to Local NGOs Matters
One of the most important parts of localization is direct funding.
When funding passes through several organizations before reaching a local NGO, each layer can bring additional administrative requirements, reporting processes, restrictions, and delays.
Intermediaries can play an important role, especially when smaller organizations need support accessing international funding. But direct funding can give capable local organizations greater control over their work.
ODI’s 2026 analysis found that direct funding to local and national actors remained only 3.8% of international humanitarian funding in 2024.
This does not mean every local organization should immediately receive large grants.
Accountability still matters.
But funding systems can be designed to help capable local organizations gradually become direct partners rather than keeping them permanently dependent on international intermediaries.
Flexible and Multi-Year Funding Could Change the Picture
The quality of funding matters just as much as the amount.
A one-year project grant may allow an NGO to deliver a specific program, but it may not provide enough stability to retain staff, strengthen systems, prepare for emergencies, or plan for the future.
Multi-year funding gives organizations more time to build.
Flexible funding can also allow NGOs to respond when circumstances change rather than being locked into a budget designed months earlier.
ODI’s 2026 research found that local and national organizations continue to receive shorter, smaller, and more heavily earmarked grants than international counterparts.
This is why donors looking seriously at localization should consider not only how much they give but also how they give it.
Why NGO Overheads Should Not Be Ignored
There is another part of the funding discussion that often gets overlooked: organizational costs.
Expenses such as finance staff, safeguarding, cybersecurity, monitoring systems, administration, training, security, and leadership development may not look like direct humanitarian assistance.
But without them, organizations cannot operate safely or effectively.
A 2026 ODI report argues that overheads support program continuity, staff retention, safety and security, compliance, coordination, and organizational resilience.
For local NGOs, this is especially important.
If a donor provides money for a program but does not adequately support the systems needed to manage it, the organization can become overstretched.
Strong humanitarian programs require strong organizations behind them.
Refugee-Led Organizations Should Be Part of the Shift
Localization should not stop at established national NGOs.
Refugee-led organizations and community-led groups are also increasingly being recognized as important humanitarian actors.
These organizations are often created by people who have experienced displacement themselves. That can give them a particularly strong understanding of the challenges facing refugee communities.
Yet access to international funding remains extremely limited.
ODI found that only $49 million reached refugee-led organizations in 2024, compared with $4.7 billion provided to nine UN Refugee Response Plans. The average grant received by refugee-led organizations was also substantially smaller than grants received by local and national actors and UN agencies.
This demonstrates an important point:
Being close to the community does not automatically mean having access to funding.
Funding systems still need to become more accessible to smaller and community-led organizations.
Country-Based Pooled Funds Offer One Possible Path
Country-based pooled funds, or CBPFs, are another mechanism that can help move resources toward local organizations.
These funds allow humanitarian resources to be allocated within specific crisis-affected countries.
ODI reports that local and national actors received 55% of CBPF funding directly and indirectly in 2025.
That is encouraging, but it does not solve every problem.
Smaller, unregistered, refugee-led, and women-led organizations can still struggle to access pooled funds because of complex application processes, compliance requirements, registration issues, and limited previous experience with UN partnerships.
So pooled funds can support localization, but a funding mechanism is not automatically a localized funding mechanism.
The design matters.
What Donors Can Do to Support Local NGOs
Donors are aware of localization. Policy statements have not transformed practice: So what actions would make it so?
First, they can provide increased, direct funding to effective local and national actors.
Second, they should increase their provision of flexible, multi-year funding arrangements.
Third, they can budget realistic levels for operational costs at the organization level, instead of costs perceived as unproductive at the donor level.
Fourth, they need to streamline application and reporting requirements where feasible.
Fifth, they should engage local partners in the program development process before grant decisions are made.
And sixth, they should endeavor to increase the transparency of humanitarian financial flows.
According to ODI, around just 60% of 2024 humanitarian funds remained traceable in their new dataset, while organizations use varied reporting methods. Knowing more about fund flows could make it more feasible to determine if localization commitment levels are actual.
Local NGOs Also Need to Prepare for Greater Responsibility
Localization creates opportunities for local NGOs, but it also means organizations need strong internal systems.
NGOs seeking direct international funding should be prepared to demonstrate:
- Strong financial management
- Clear governance
- Safeguarding procedures
- Monitoring and evaluation systems
- Transparent reporting
- Responsible data management
- Staff capacity
- Measurable program outcomes
- Effective donor communication
- Emergency preparedness
This does not mean small NGOs need to become copies of large international organizations.
Their local identity is one of their strengths.
The goal is to build enough organizational capacity to demonstrate that donor resources can be managed responsibly while preserving the community relationships that make local organizations valuable in the first place.
What Does Localization Mean for International NGOs?
Localization does not mean international NGOs have no role to play.
In fact, their role could become even more valuable—but potentially in a different way.
International organizations can provide technical expertise, training, global connections, advocacy, financial systems, specialized knowledge, and access to international networks.
Instead of always being the organization leading implementation, an international NGO can increasingly become a partner that supports local leadership.
The relationship could look more balanced:
International organizations bring technical and global expertise.
Local NGOs bring community knowledge and proximity.
Donors bring financial resources.
Communities bring lived experience and priorities.
The challenge is making sure these strengths work together rather than allowing one actor to control the entire process.
Women-Led and Community-Based Organizations Matter Too
Localization also raises a question that is sometimes overlooked:
Which local organizations are actually receiving the funding?
If localization means directing more money only toward a small group of established national NGOs, many community-level organizations could remain excluded.
Women-led organizations, youth organizations, disability groups, refugee-led organizations, and grassroots community groups can have valuable knowledge about specific populations and needs.
ODI’s work on women-led organizations highlights the importance of their proximity, trust, and ability to identify and respond to priorities that other actors may not reach as effectively.
A stronger humanitarian funding system should therefore create space for a wider range of local voices.
Localization Is Ultimately About Trust
At the center of this entire debate is a difficult issue: trust.
For decades, much of the humanitarian system has concentrated resources and decision-making in large international institutions.
Moving more funding directly to local organizations requires donors to trust organizations that may have smaller teams, less experience with international grants, or different administrative systems.
That does not mean removing accountability.
It means making accountability more practical and proportional.
A small community organization should not necessarily have to meet exactly the same administrative requirements as a multibillion-dollar international institution before it can receive funding.
The objective should be to manage risk responsibly—not to create requirements that automatically exclude the organizations closest to affected communities.
Localization Should Not Become an Excuse to Do More With Less
There is one danger that deserves particular attention.
As international funding becomes tighter, localization could be misunderstood as a way to transfer more responsibility to local NGOs simply because they are cheaper or easier to operate with.
That would undermine the entire purpose of localization.
Local NGOs should not be expected to deliver the same programs with fewer resources simply because they are local.
Localization should mean more ownership, better access to resources, stronger decision-making power, and fairer partnerships.
If responsibilities move to local organizations, resources and authority must move with them.
Is Localization the Future of Humanitarian Aid?
How else to think about the future of humanitarian aid beyond the localization debate? The Advisory Panel on the Future of Humanitarian Action (see the ODI summary here) suggests we need to take an “ecosystem” view—building up the capability of local systems—and also start to rebalance a set of inequalities when it comes to risk and investment, risk bearing, accountability, and decision-making. But just saying “localization” won’t be enough to resolve that.
It will be determined by measurable changes.
- Where does the money go?
- Who controls it?
- Who designs the program?
- Who decides what communities need?
- Who receives multi-year support?
- Who has direct access to donors?
- And which organizations are still being left out?
These are the questions that will show whether localization is genuinely changing the humanitarian system.
The Future of Humanitarian Aid May Be Locally Led
Localization isn’t just some buzzword we in international development like to play around with. It’s also part of a larger shift of feeling that we need to let people and communities we’re working with have more say in how to solve their problems. What a lot of organizations at a local level, again like I described above, will do is to turn up and to be around for many weeks/months. Before anything is actually taking place at the community, they will understand the community dynamics, they can work through the existing networks that are already in the community, and they will be there for long after everything else is over and the world has moved on.
But being close is not enough.
For local organizations to be more engaged and in the driving seat of humanitarian aid, donor dollars need to come to them more directly, predictably, flexibly, and sufficiently but not without also placing more trust and agency in their hands for how funds are to be distributed. Localization is not a way for local actors to do more with less but to provide and give local actors greater discretion and discretion for how aid can be used in the best effect. In many ways, localization might prove to be the greatest transformation that is happening in humanitarian aid, from who gets paid to the determination of the purpose of those funds. It’s more about the intent behind the money and the decision-making process for its disbursement.
And that, of course, for a much stronger local and more responsive result, to go back to.
