Locally-led Humanitarian Response: Reflections on the Haiyan Response Experience of Local Development Organizations

This paper builds on the experience of selected local NGO partners of Christian Aid in the context of their Haiyan response partnership. The research was envisioned to be a learning process rather than an evaluation of the local partners’ participation in Haiyan response. It analyzed data and narratives to identify elements that could be built into a framework of “Good Locally-Led Humanitarian Response”. It also builds on existing studies about partnership dynamics of local and international humanitarian agencies, but focused more on identifying positive contributions and good practices of the local NGO partners in the Haiyan response, and analyzed factors that are considered as gaps and challenges to effectively lead a response.

The research is highly exploratory and descriptive. It conducted interviews with a total of 54 officers and members of people’s organizations, staff of local partner NGOs, LGU and Christian Aid in the Philippines. Field interviews were conducted in Leyte, Samar, Cebu City, Palawan and Metro Manila.

This report is organized into four (4) parts:

Part I presents major discussions on humanitarian partnerships, local humanitarian capacity and key arguments that support the localization of humanitarian response. It also presents a history of humanitarianism in the Philippines.

Part II discusses the main findings of the learning research using the five (5) elements of locally-led humanitarian response identified by Christian Aid partners as framework for categorizing and analyzing data and narratives of local humanitarian experience.

Part III provides a discussion of major gaps and challenges facing local leadership of humanitarian response.

Part IV presents the conclusion and recommendations towards strengthening locally-led humanitarian responses addressed to local NGOs, the national and local government units and international humanitarian agencies.