Locally led action, between vision and responsibility: where do we go from here?

It won’t be difficult today to come across humanitarian for a and conferences where locally led action is on the agenda and the participants’ ambition to make progress on it is reaffirmed and publicly supported.

Yet, despite years of discussion around the Grand Bargain, definitions of “localisation” remain fluid, and progress lags behind. The gap between rhetoric and reality persists.

What does this all mean now, in the context of the Humanitarian Reset?

Locally led action: beyond meeting targets

Locally led action is not about turning local actors into mini-INGOs or simply hitting Grand Bargain targets.

Funding matters—but it’s not the whole story.

Locally led action is about transformation and innovation: creating space for communities and civil society to lead, design, and innovate with their own solutions. It means establishing new, locally driven funding streams and ensuring national governments create the policy and financial frameworks to sustain them.

What does the evidence say?

A 2024 Start Network literature review found that, beyond the clear moral case for localisation, large-scale, robust evidence of its impact is still limited.

Building on this, in 2024 the Start Fund commissioned an external evaluation titled “Measuring the impact of locally led action on the quality of humanitarian actions and on communities affected by crises.” The evaluation analysed a representative sample of projects implemented between 2023 and 2024 across the Global Start Fund, Start Fund Nepal and Start Fund Bangladesh.

The key finding was that projects led by local and national NGOs (LNNGOs) were just as effective, equitable, and efficient as those led by international NGOs (INGOs).

Communities participating in the evaluation underscored LNNGOs’ effectiveness in:

Rapid response times
High-quality, relevant assistance
Fair aid distribution
Better access to feedback mechanisms
Stronger community preparedness

Another important finding: the cost per beneficiary for LNNGO-led projects dropped from £22.37 in 2023 to £10.16 in 2024: clear evidence of smarter, more efficient aid.

A separate evaluation commissioned by Start Network found no evidence that organisations in Start Fund’s lower due diligence tier – often smaller or newer LNNGOs – posed greater risk than higher-tier counterparts. This should help dispel lingering doubts about local actors’ effectiveness and risk profile.

Importantly, in over 95% of Start Fund projects local and traditional knowledge was leveraged during project design and implementation.

Trusted partnerships: the heart of locally led action

One of the strongest takeaways from the evaluation was the value of complementarity and long-term trusted partnerships.

LNNGOs were praised by INGO staff for their deep local expertise, their ability to mobilise communities, and their access to hard-to-reach or insecure areas.

On the other hand, according to LNNGO staff INGOs brought strengths in rapid consortium mobilisation, budget and project management, and international advocacy.

Many Start Fund project consortia demonstrated equitable decision-making, where local actors actively contributed to shape project plans, budgets, and implementation strategies.

Many consortia demonstrated models where INGOs transferred full project budgets to local partners, shared data and learning beyond the project cycle, and stepped back to allow communities to lead responses entirely.

Locally led action does not mean acting alone or excluding INGOs. Instead, it’s about redefining partnerships to be truly equitable, project priorities being shaped by local actors and communities, in coordination with their governments. Compliance requirements should reflect local constraints, while INGOs’ global networks and advocacy reach can support local actors to amplify local priorities.

The Humanitarian Reset offers an opportunity to create a humanitarian system that is locally led and globally supported.

But let’s be real: challenges remain

Despite positive momentum, significant barriers persist for LNNGOs:

Complex compliance and reporting requirements often overwhelm small organisations with limited staff or technical capacity.
Access to funding remains unequal, especially at the proposal and allocation stages.
Pre-financing is difficult to obtain, and risk is not always fairly shared between international and local actors.
Some LNNGOs struggle to design anticipatory action projects – interventions that begin before a crisis hits.
Short project timelines undermine sustainability and early recovery efforts.

Turning evidence into action: what start fund is doing next

Based on the evaluation’s recommendations, Start Fund is taking tangible steps to strengthen locally led action:

Inclusive decision-making: reducing barriers for LNNGOs to join Start Fund committees, including live interpretation in multiple languages.
Simplified processes: reviewing application and reporting requirements to better suit local partners.
Fair risk-sharing: requiring convening agencies to demonstrate equitable risk distribution within project consortia.
Training and support: providing hands-on guidance for members developing anticipatory action projects.
Devolving power: expanding membership to 53 new LNNGOs, while National Hubs gain greater control over funding decisions and begin fundraising locally.
Piloting due diligence passporting: Start Network is working with 5 member INGOs to agree to passport each other’s due diligence. This will facilitate LNNGOs processes if they want to partner with Start Network or any of these organisations, with a view to then passport at scale.
Decolonising research: bringing down barriers for experts coming from the communities we work with to apply for research or evaluation opportunities.

Equally promising are ongoing discussions about how Start Fund can amplify its impact by linking more closely with other Start Network programmes – such as Start Ready and the Community-Led Innovation Programme – and other humanitarian actors to better address the disaster risk reduction continuum and the humanitarian–development–peace nexus and reduce aid dependency.

The newly launched Pooled Funds Community of Practice, co-led by Start Network, will further promote coordination across humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding efforts.

A call for balance: vision and responsibility

Yes, we need a bold vision of what a locally led humanitarian sector can look like.
Yes, the system needs radical change, beyond what aid alone can deliver.

But this doesn’t absolve us, as humanitarian actors, of our responsibility to act now wherever we can.

Over ten years, Start Fund has shown that progress is possible. From the establishment of Hubs and National Funds to a steady increase in local membership – now accounting for 48% of direct funding in countries with LNNGO members – the locally led model is no longer just an aspiration.

We’ve walked the talk.

From women’s committees in Angola managing rehabilitated water points, ensuring safer access for women, to communities in Mongolia and Colombia piloting anticipatory action, and civil society in India leveraging technology to streamline vulnerability assessments—the examples of real, lasting change are many.

As Start Fund celebrates its 1000th alert, funding bodies and policymakers should rethink broad funding cuts and, instead:

invest in flexible, multi-year support to local civil society organisations and invest in their fundraising capacity
and scale up contributions to global and southern led pooled funds that focus on anticipation and address the nexus.
ensure that meaningful participation of indigenous peoples and local communities in early warning systems and decision-making becomes standard practice, not an exception.

While we work toward a future where fewer alerts are needed, we’ll continue doing what we do best—cooperating, shifting power, and responding wherever others can’t.