Unboxing Localisation VI – Innovative Funding

During this VIth session of Unboxing Localisation trajectory, held on 14 November 2023 and co-organised by GPPAC, CSPPS, the Dutch MFA, and KPSRL, discussions focused on innovative financing tools and approaches that foster local leadership and local ownership in peacebuilding by promoting fair, equitable and non-extractive partnerships in the current aid system. The event gathered various stakeholders, such as donors, aid agencies, and local peacebuilders with the aim of learning from each other and highlighting good practices and remaining challenges when it comes to strengthening the quality of humanitarian and peacebuilding funding in an effort to progress on implementing the localisation agenda. Some key takeaways:

● The need to shift power dynamics is recognised both, in the donors-implementers and intermediary-implementers relationships. Delegating grant decision-making to local actors could be one way to address the power imbalance and promote contextually relevant grantmaking.

● Pilot projects offer an opportunity to test innovative funding tools and can be expanded to a broader/larger scale if successful.

● Innovation doesn't inherently guarantee equity or effectiveness for local organisations.

● Ensuring resources for language justice (i.e. accepting proposals in local languages) is crucial to guarantee access to funding opportunities to marginalised local organisations.

● The complexity and bureaucracy of the current donor system, coupled with restrictive legal and fiduciary frameworks, have been criticised by several actors. However, some added that it is often customs and existing assumptions about what is and what is not allowed - both within donor entities and within aid organisations - that restrict flexibility more than laws.