Editorial Note: This blog post is the fourth in a series delving into iACT’s community-led approach and exploring the how, why, and broader impact of shifting power in humanitarian action. You can read part one here, part two here, part three here, and part four here.
In the four preceding parts of this blog series, we discussed what iACT’s “community-led approach” is and explained why we believe so strongly in it as the most practical and sustainable way to maintain programs. Our long-standing partnering with communities has been organic and was only natural, given the priority we have always placed on relationship-building. Other organizations have since begun to see the importance of community-led program implementation, and our hope is that all groups in the humanitarian field adopt this approach.
With the ever-changing landscape in the humanitarian sector and the increasing number of global emergencies that require humanitarian support, we see community-led initiatives and programs as the most sensible pathway to long-term and real solutions to unique needs that emerge as result of crises, complex or not.
The Global Financials
At the beginning of last year, OCHA, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, determined that the amount of global humanitarian funding need for 2024 was $46.4 billion, to be able to reach 180.5 million people through 43 coordinated response plans either under or in partnership with UN agencies (Global Humanitarian Overview). The year ended with the appeal increased to $49.9 billion to reach 189.9 million people; and $21.07 billion, or 43% of the appeal, covered; there remained a gap of nearly $28 billion. A new funding determination, for the start of 2025, has been made: $47 billion, for 1,500 UN partners to be able to provide “life-saving aid” for 190 million people in 32 countries and nine refugee-hosting regions. To be clear, OCHA has also estimated that 305 million people across 73 countries will need humanitarian assistance this year; the target 190 million is just the group with “the most severe needs” and which will receive “critical assistance” (unocha.org, humanitarianaction.info).
With ongoing funding shortfalls — that are likely to worsen as time goes on (total funding received in October 2024 was $200 million less than during the same time in the previous year) — investing in community-led interventions is the responsible solution. As we talked about previously in this blog series, community-led initiatives are vastly more cost-effective and cost-sustainable than programming that is not run by the communities that are being served.
Decolonization of Aid
There has been an increasing amount of talk about decolonization and about the imbalance between the Global North (usually where large NGOs are based) and the Global South (largely seen as where humanitarian “aid” has traditionally been sent to). If we as humanitarian practitioners want to truly shift the paradigm, we must each take a good, hard look at ourselves and our internal systems. An individual humanitarian actor may not be able to control or change the entire sector, but we can challenge the ways in which we approach working with communities.
For iACT, this means that we must constantly question whether and how we are shifting power in our part of the humanitarian sector. When we put crisis-affected communities — and their lived experiences, resources, and aspirations — at the center of a response to a crisis, we not only foster long-term sustainability of the response, we also begin to shift the paradigm to a more balanced partnership between those with financial resources and those who may not have financial resources but have an abundance of human assets. If we are to truly move toward “decolonization of aid” as the future of humanitarian work, then we must increase investments that go directly into community-led efforts.
Working Toward True Community-led
iACT is still in the process of achieving a fully community-led approach. Our refugee and conflict-affected teammates run the programs we support, and are responsible for all day-to-day decisions, but we can do even better. In looking into expanding our work into other areas of Chad and Mexico in the coming year, we have been strategizing how we can include the community in all stages of ideation and decision-making from the very beginning. We want to include even more voices in the discussions about whether or not a community wants support in early childhood education or soccer, and how its members think that support should look. To be true partners, ideally, there cannot be any kind of power imbalance, and there must be genuine acceptance of an entire gamut of opinions.
Realistically, it is probably impossible to achieve a perfectly “balanced” power dynamic, but what is doable is to strive to have as minimal of an imbalance and as equitable of a distribution of power as possible. When it comes to funding and providing financial resources, we must improve the dynamic so that the resourced partner feels freedom in voicing their own ideas or rejecting suggestions from the resourcing partner. As well, we need to be actively aware of gender dimensions. For example, we often question whether thoughts we hear from female team members differ when we have a male translator from when we have a female translator. We also wonder whether feedback might be more readily given if it were shared through a peer and to a peer, and not through a “superior” team member to our US staff. These are details that all need to be thoughtfully considered and worked through, as we inch iACT's work closer to being fully and totally community-led.
Conclusion
In writing about and explaining our community-led approach and highlighting what we have learned and what we are working toward, our hope for the short-term is that we inspire others to move toward resourcing refugee and community-led humanitarian action.
Beyond the near-term, we recognize that a shift of the entire humanitarian sector will require a leap. No leap can occur without leaving the status quo, which also means leaving the safety of what is comfortable and accustomed to, and leaning into the unknown. And so we end this blog series with a message to all working in this field: it's time to shed our deep-rooted, systematic habits of humanitarianism, and develop new ways of thinking and working that will offer alternative inclusive, empowering, and healing pathways for people in displacement rebuilding their lives.
To learn more about our approach or to chat with an iACT team member about lessons gained, ongoing efforts, and long-term vision, please reach out to us. We’d love to hear and learn from others, and explore opportunities to collaborate.