When the rubber hits the road: local leadership in the first 100 days of the Rohingya crisis response

The international community has committed to a humanitarian system that is locally owned and led. This means a shift of power, resources and decision-making to local and national responders in humanitarian action. But how is this manifested during a humanitarian response of the scale and complexity of the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh?

This rapid real-time analysis considers how the global localisation agenda has influenced the current operational response. It explores how localisation has affected key areas of leadership, funding, surge, partnerships, coordination and complementarity. It also considers emerging localisation practices that could be scaled up in future responses. The paper is intended to stimulate discussion and inform practice. It prompts questions about what happens when localisation moves from theory to practice.

On the surface, not much has changed in the way humanitarian action has unfolded in Bangladesh. Funding has still flowed largely to international actors; international surge staff, many with no context experience, arrived in their hundreds; and coordination continued to be dominated by international actors.

This report is part of the Humanitarian Horizons practice paper series published by the Humanitarian Advisory Group. Researched and written in partnership with NIRAPAD.
Report launch date: December 2017

Read the full report.