Across all our work, we are hearing increased calls for greater local leadership and enhanced “localization” of aid. CDA and our partners and colleagues have endeavored to highlight the fundamental relevance of shifting how we think about and undertake our work.

In the spirit of infusing this conversation with a fresh set of perspectives, opportunities, and challenges, CDA launched “From where I stand: Unpacking ‘local’ in aid”.

Each week, we will create a space to help bring these critical and fresh, though often neglected, voices – from local practitioners to those working alongside them (including those who work on the policy and programming agenda) – to the forefront. We are asking partners working on these issues in their own context, as well as those seeking system-wide shifts in power, to contribute their perspectives about what works, what doesn’t, what questions should we be asking, and what changes do we, as a community, need to make?

Our hope is to expand our collective thinking and understanding about what “localization” actually looks like practice, no matter how messy it may be. In doing so perhaps we can begin to answer the question: What if the evidence-base for local leadership, aid policy, and INGO practice was instead based on the diverse experiences and ideas of those leading humanitarian, aid, and peacebuilding efforts in their contexts?

For analysis on the themes we are seeing from the first 8 blogs, see our interim reflection piece “Meeting complexity with creativity: 5 themes in unpacking “local” with aid“.