ach year, World Humanitarian Day honors those who risk their lives to help others. In 2025, needs are multiplying, budgets are plummeting, and aid workers are scrambling to reach the most vulnerable populations in places like Gaza, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The global humanitarian enterprise urgently needs restructuring. And in our experience, doing more with less requires governments and philanthropists to channel more funding and, as important, transfer more decision–making authority on how to use those funds to local humanitarian leaders.
In crisis after crisis, the most effective humanitarians do not parachute in. They are embedded in their communities, local aid providers who are the first to act when disaster strikes and the last to leave when headlines fade. They have the trust of their communities and an understanding of local politics and conflict dynamics that enables them to respond with precision and compassion.
In Ituri province in the DRC, one small clinic shows what this can look like. Survivors of conflict–related sexual violence come for urgent medical care, but they leave with so much more: legal advocates to pursue justice, counselors to help them heal, and support to rebuild their livelihoods. This ‘one–stop center model,’ run entirely by local women, is the work of SOFEPADI, a Congolese organization now partnered with the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative. SOFIPADE’s results illustrate powerfully how local leadership is not an accessory to effective humanitarian response, but perhaps the key feature.
And yet, despite their proven track record, organizations like SOFEPADI remain on the margins of the global aid system. Large UN agencies and international NGOs still receive the vast majority of humanitarian funding. In 2016, donors pledged that 25% of humanitarian funding would go directly to local actors. Nearly a decade later, the global figure is just 1.2%. The DRC does better, about 22%, but that is still far below what is needed—as is the 25% agreed upon in 2016—to match the scale of the crisis in 2025.
This is not a fairness issue. It is a question of effectiveness. Local organizations respond faster, adapt more nimbly to shifting realities, and reach communities outsiders cannot—particularly when governments deny access to international aid workers. But without direct, flexible, and predictable funding, they are forced to depend on short–term sub–grants that make long–term planning nearly impossible.
There are glimpses of what is possible when the system changes. The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, for example, directs resources straight to local leaders in crisis zones, enabling them to design and execute solutions grounded in their own communities’ priorities. The results are more sustainable programs, greater trust, and stronger local institutions. Unfortunately, such examples remain exceptions rather than the rule.
If the humanitarian system is to meet today’s demands, it must go beyond symbolic recognition of local actors. That means:
- Commit meaningful, predictable funding directly to community–based organizations.
- Streamline bureaucratic hurdles that slow life–saving work.
- Ensure local voices shape global decisions, not just implement them.
- Tell their stories, not to romanticize their struggles, but to show the expertise and ingenuity already at work in affected communities.
This shift is not just morally right, it is strategically essential. Crises are becoming more frequent, complex, and protracted. Climate change, political instability, and conflict will keep driving humanitarian needs upward. The old, top–down model has not kept pace.
The future of humanitarian aid will not be dictated from distant capitals or shaped in air– conditioned conference rooms. It will be forged in the places where crises hit hardest, by people who know every street, every family, every history. Local leaders are already doing the work. The question is whether the international system will finally trust, and fund, them to lead.
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The future of humanitarian aid is local
Image courtesy of EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid via Flickr. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
August 19, 2025
To make humanitarian aid more effective in this time of heightened crisis and shrinking budgets, the global humanitarian enterprise needs restructuring. Doing so requires we make good on long–standing commitments to put local actors at the center of aid, write Julienne Lusenge and Armine Afeyan.
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ach year, World Humanitarian Day honors those who risk their lives to help others. In 2025, needs are multiplying, budgets are plummeting, and aid workers are scrambling to reach the most vulnerable populations in places like Gaza, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The global humanitarian enterprise urgently needs restructuring. And in our experience, doing more with less requires governments and philanthropists to channel more funding and, as important, transfer more decision–making authority on how to use those funds to local humanitarian leaders.
In crisis after crisis, the most effective humanitarians do not parachute in. They are embedded in their communities, local aid providers who are the first to act when disaster strikes and the last to leave when headlines fade. They have the trust of their communities and an understanding of local politics and conflict dynamics that enables them to respond with precision and compassion.
In Ituri province in the DRC, one small clinic shows what this can look like. Survivors of conflict–related sexual violence come for urgent medical care, but they leave with so much more: legal advocates to pursue justice, counselors to help them heal, and support to rebuild their livelihoods. This ‘one–stop center model,’ run entirely by local women, is the work of SOFEPADI, a Congolese organization now partnered with the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative. SOFIPADE’s results illustrate powerfully how local leadership is not an accessory to effective humanitarian response, but perhaps the key feature.
And yet, despite their proven track record, organizations like SOFEPADI remain on the margins of the global aid system. Large UN agencies and international NGOs still receive the vast majority of humanitarian funding. In 2016, donors pledged that 25% of humanitarian funding would go directly to local actors. Nearly a decade later, the global figure is just 1.2%. The DRC does better, about 22%, but that is still far below what is needed—as is the 25% agreed upon in 2016—to match the scale of the crisis in 2025.
This is not a fairness issue. It is a question of effectiveness. Local organizations respond faster, adapt more nimbly to shifting realities, and reach communities outsiders cannot—particularly when governments deny access to international aid workers. But without direct, flexible, and predictable funding, they are forced to depend on short–term sub–grants that make long–term planning nearly impossible.
There are glimpses of what is possible when the system changes. The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, for example, directs resources straight to local leaders in crisis zones, enabling them to design and execute solutions grounded in their own communities’ priorities. The results are more sustainable programs, greater trust, and stronger local institutions. Unfortunately, such examples remain exceptions rather than the rule.
If the humanitarian system is to meet today’s demands, it must go beyond symbolic recognition of local actors. That means:
- Commit meaningful, predictable funding directly to community–based organizations.
- Streamline bureaucratic hurdles that slow life–saving work.
- Ensure local voices shape global decisions, not just implement them.
- Tell their stories, not to romanticize their struggles, but to show the expertise and ingenuity already at work in affected communities.
This shift is not just morally right, it is strategically essential. Crises are becoming more frequent, complex, and protracted. Climate change, political instability, and conflict will keep driving humanitarian needs upward. The old, top–down model has not kept pace.
The future of humanitarian aid will not be dictated from distant capitals or shaped in air– conditioned conference rooms. It will be forged in the places where crises hit hardest, by people who know every street, every family, every history. Local leaders are already doing the work. The question is whether the international system will finally trust, and fund, them to lead.
