Localisation Across the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus

Whilst the relation between local and global levels has been a long-standing concern of humanitarian,development, and peace efforts, in recent years the term “localisation” has become a major issue in thehumanitarian sector whilst peacebuilding scholarship has taken a “local turn.” This article analyses theconcept of localisation across the three parts of the triple nexus—humanitarian, development, andpeace. It traces the long-standing concern with the local in each of these domains, consideringsimilarities and differences in their engagement with the local and counter-veiling trends towardsuniversalisation, before proceeding to frame four challenges common to localisation across all forms ofconflict response: defining the local, valuing local capacity, maintaining political will, and multi-scalarconflict response.