At the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit, donors and humanitarian organizations launched the Grand Bargain, a platform to make humanitarian aid more efficient.
One focus of the agreement is to direct more resources to local responders and organizations that are closer to the people in crisis.
In support of its commitment to localization, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is classifying existing humanitarian actors in its databases to ensure the sustainability of these efforts and to track progress toward these targets.
Mary Akugizibwe, from OCHA’s Assessment, Planning and Monitoring Branch (APMB), walks us through this process.?
How did this initiative begin?
As part of the Grand Bargain framework, the localization workstream emphasizes funding local and national actors to better support communities, reduce costs and improve aid effectiveness.
As an active signatory, OCHA committed to promoting this agenda by strategically utilizing its pooled funding mechanisms and tracking services such as the Humanitarian Programmme Cycle Tools and .
The aim is that by 2026, at least 25 per cent of humanitarian funding goes as directly as possible to local and national responders. This approach strengthens organizations that are deeply rooted in crisis-affected communities.?
These organizations are typically the first to respond in times of crisis – and after that, they are the ones who implement resilience and recovery programmes. But we know that funding to local responders has always been a challenge.
To measure and monitor this commitment, a “localization marker” defines who qualifies as a local or national actor, which helps us track funding flows more accurately.
We can distinguish between “direct” funding – where funds go straight from donors to local actors without intermediaries – and “as directly as possible” cases, such as pooled funding that benefits local responders through partnerships.
This standardized framework has enabled us to better understand the key players in humanitarian action and to consistently measure and track funding flows to local and national actors. This promotes inclusion, transparency, and accountability within the humanitarian community.
Where does the Grand Bargain classification implementation stand today?
I am happy to share that OCHA has adopted the Grand Bargain classification across its major funding and tracking platforms!
This means a consistent approach in the way we categorize partner organizations, which facilitates the analysis of financial aid directed to local and national responders.
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