Bond Humanitarian WG Position on Global Partnership Conference May 2026

Bond developed this paper through consultations with members and local partners in contexts such as Sudan, Syria and Kenya.
It informs the Global Partnership Conference (GPC) and focuses on three priority areas: Disaster Risk
Finance (DRF); Artificial Intelligence (AI) in humanitarian action; and Local Leadership and Equitable
Partnerships, while also highlighting broader political challenges shaping humanitarian action.

The GPC is an important moment for the UK government to take stock of its current partnership models. We need to remind everyone working in this space of the central role civil society must play in the future of ODA, and of our collective commitments to localisation. Local leadership is essential to effective humanitarian action — local actors are always the first to respond, the last to leave, and the ones who understand their communities most deeply. If the UK government genuinely wants to be a donor that champions localisation, it has to change how it funds humanitarian aid and how it brokers partnerships. That means funding allocation that enhances localisation, a redefinition of risk frameworks that aligns with it, and robust accountability for equitable partnership.

— Becky Murphy-Cole, Humanitarian Policy & Advocacy Lead, Christian Aid

 

This paper reflects extensive consultations across Bond’s membership and with local partners in Sudan, Syria, Kenya and other crisis-affected contexts. It sets out where UK humanitarian NGOs, working alongside those partners, believe the Global Partnerships Conference can make a real difference — on equitable partnerships, on financing for fragile and conflict-affected states, and on the responsible governance of AI in humanitarian action. With ODA under significant pressure, the Conference cannot afford to settle for new language alone. The real test is whether the commitments made next week translate into how the UK funds, manages risk with, and shares decision-making with the actors closest to crises — and whether that shift holds in the months and years that follow.

— Gideon Rabinowitz, Director of Policy and Advocacy, Bond

 

It is genuinely encouraging that Ministers and senior FCDO officials have put partnership at the centre of this Conference. In some contexts we’ve seen British embassy staff coming to us and to local partners and asking what more could be done to promote equitable partnership and locally-led approaches to humanitarian action — that is exactly the kind of shift we need to see if change is going to happen. Beyond the Conference, we have one main ask for follow-up. Even with the reduced UK aid budget, more funds have to reach the mechanisms and consortia in which local actors play the lead role, with international agencies reinforcing that lead. If the majority of UK funds remain stuck in UN agencies and INGOs working in a top-down, short-term way with local partners, nothing is going to change. There are some FCDO teams, faith-based organisations, diaspora groups, feminist funds and others supporting genuine partnership and solidarity. That kind of support for local leadership should be scaled up, not left as the exception to the rule.

— Howard Mollett, Head of Humanitarian Policy, CAFOD

 

In Sudan, the organisations closest to crisis-affected communities are still routinely the furthest from the funding they need to sustain that work. What came through clearly throughout the consultations is that local actors in Sudan and other conflict-affected settings are not asking to be brought into the system on its existing terms — we are asking for a system that recognises how locally led response actually works, with direct funding, fair cost recovery, proportionate due diligence, and shared rather than transferred risk. Modern partnerships will only mean something if they shift resources and decision-making to the actors already doing the work.

— Majdi Osman, Sudanese doctor