The need for local and national actors to be at the forefront of humanitarian response and recovery efforts is evident worldwide. It is perhaps most salient in Africa, where the United States allocated $8.5 billion in official development assistance (ODA) to 47 countries and 8 regional programs in 2020. Despite billions in ODA to Africa, local and national actors receive little of this funding. African voices are often excluded from decision-making circles in donor capitals and localization efforts themselves due to bureaucratic regulations, longstanding institutional barriers, and political agendas. Although Washington has repeatedly signaled a commitment to localization, truly localized humanitarian action has yet to manifest itself at scale. Supporting local African actors for the delivery of an effective humanitarian response is crucial, given their experiences as first responders to crises in their communities and understanding of the realities on the ground.
Please join the CSIS Africa Program and the CSIS Humanitarian Agenda for the launch of the report, Localizing Humanitarian Action in Africa. The event will be introduced by Jacob Kurtzer, Director and Senior Fellow of the CSIS Humanitarian Agenda, and moderated by Mvemba Phezo Dizolele, Director and Senior Fellow of the CSIS Africa Program. The panel discussion will feature Nimo Hassan, Director of the Somalia NGO Consortium, Chilande Kuloba-Warria, Founder and Managing Director of the Warande Advisory Center, Joseph Sany, Vice President of the Africa Center at the U.S. Institute of Peace, and Zemede Zewdie, Country Representative of Catholic Relief Services in Ethiopia.
This event is made possible through the generous support of Humanity United.
