Refugees should not only be seen as people receiving aid. They are also leaders, entrepreneurs, organizers, innovators, peacebuilders, service providers, and problem-solvers. If localization is truly the future of humanitarian action, then refugee-led organizations must move from the margins of the aid system to the centre of decision-making and financing.

Introduction: It Is Time to Change the Question

For decades, humanitarian assistance has often followed a familiar model: resources move from institutional donors to international organizations, from international organizations to national partners, and eventually into communities.

Within that system, refugees have frequently been positioned primarily as beneficiaries, people for whom solutions are designed, rather than people who can design, lead, implement, and sustain those solutions themselves.

The language may appear harmless. After all, humanitarian organizations exist to support people affected by crisis.

But language shapes systems.

When people are consistently described as beneficiaries, the system can begin to see them primarily through the lens of need: households to be assisted, populations to be counted, vulnerabilities to be assessed, and services to be delivered.

What becomes less visible are the other dimensions of refugee life.

Refugees build families.

They establish businesses.

They organize savings groups.

They create schools, cultural institutions, community networks, media platforms, peacebuilding structures, and systems of mutual support.

They identify problems, mobilize resources, negotiate solutions, support vulnerable households, create employment, and advocate for their communities.

In other words, refugees do not simply live within humanitarian systems.

They also create systems of their own.

In Uganda, where displacement has become increasingly protracted, this reality is impossible to ignore. People who arrived as refugees years ago are now raising children, building enterprises, acquiring skills, forming organizations, and contributing to the social and economic life of their communities and the country.

Displacement may have been the circumstance that brought people to Uganda. It does not have to define the limits of their agency.

The humanitarian sector therefore needs to change the question.

The question should no longer be only:

“How can we deliver assistance to refugees?”

It should increasingly be:

“How can we invest directly in refugees and the organizations they have built to lead solutions?”

This is where Refugee-Led Organizations (RLOs) must become central to the future of humanitarian action.

From Beneficiaries to Partners

Changing the word “beneficiary” is not enough.

The deeper issue is the architecture behind the word.

If refugees are treated primarily as beneficiaries, resources are generally designed around them.

If refugees are recognized as partners and leaders, resources can instead be designed with them and through institutions they control.

This is the difference between participation and power.

An RLO may be invited to a consultation.

Its director may be invited to a panel.

Its representatives may attend a validation workshop.

Its members may be recruited as community mobilizers.

Its leaders may be asked what communities need.

All of these forms of participation can be valuable.

But participation does not automatically mean influence.

There is a fundamental difference between being consulted about a decision and having the authority and resources to shape that decision.

True localization therefore cannot stop at representation.

It must reach the level of:

  • financing;

  • decision-making;

  • program design;

  • implementation;

  • monitoring;

  • evaluation;

  • policy development;

  • institutional ownership; and

  • accountability.

The real measure of localization is not simply how many local actors are present in the room.

It is how much power they have once they are in the room.

The Distance Between Decision-Making and the Community

The traditional humanitarian architecture has developed sophisticated systems for financing, coordination, compliance, risk management, reporting, and implementation.

These systems serve important purposes.

But they can also create significant distance between where decisions are made and where their consequences are experienced.

Resources may move through several layers of institutions before reaching a community.

A funding decision may be made far away from the settlement or urban neighbourhood where a problem exists.

A project may be designed around national or global priorities and later adapted to local realities.

A community may then be asked to participate in an intervention that was already largely designed before local actors were brought into the conversation.

The result can be a gap between program design and lived reality.

This matters because communities are not static.

A settlement is not simply a geographical location where a fixed list of needs exists.

Priorities change.

Markets change.

Climate conditions change.

Population movements change.

Youth aspirations change.

Social tensions emerge and disappear.

Protection concerns evolve.

Relationships between refugee and host communities develop.

New opportunities emerge.

New risks appear.

A program designed six months earlier may not perfectly respond to the reality a community is experiencing today.

This is where proximity matters.

RLOs often operate from a fundamentally different vantage point.

They are already present in the communities they serve.

Their leaders may speak the languages of the community.

They understand cultural norms.

They know community histories.

They understand relationships between groups.

They know which local institutions people trust.

They know where tensions are emerging.

They know which approaches have worked before and which have failed.

They can often identify problems not because an assessment team has arrived to document them, but because they are already experiencing those realities themselves.

Proximity is not a substitute for technical expertise. But proximity is itself an important form of expertise.

The humanitarian system should recognize it as such.

The RLO Advantage: Proximity, Agility, Trust, and Local Knowledge

Refugee-led organizations are not automatically better at everything simply because they are refugee-led.

Like every category of organization, RLOs have different levels of capacity, governance, experience, resources, and technical expertise.

But RLOs can bring several distinctive assets to humanitarian and development work.

1. Proximity and Community Trust

When communities face social tensions, protection concerns, livelihood challenges, or emergencies, people often turn first to individuals and institutions they already know.

Community leaders, elders, youth representatives, women-led groups, faith leaders, local organizations, and trusted volunteers can be important entry points for identifying problems and developing responses.

RLOs can build on this social capital.

Because they are locally rooted, they may be able to engage communities through relationships that external actors would otherwise need considerable time and resources to establish.

This can be particularly important in peacebuilding, social cohesion, community protection, accountability, and communication.

Trust cannot simply be purchased through a project budget.

It is built over time.

And institutions that already possess that trust should be recognized as assets rather than treated merely as channels for mobilization.

2. Agility and the Ability to Adapt

Large humanitarian systems have legitimate accountability requirements.

However, the scale and complexity of institutional procedures can sometimes make rapid adaptation difficult.

RLOs can operate differently.

A local organization may be able to identify a problem, convene the relevant community actors, test an approach, learn from the result, and adjust its intervention without passing every decision through multiple layers of institutional approval.

This does not mean that RLOs should operate without accountability.

It means that accountability and agility do not have to be opposites.

Funding mechanisms can be designed to provide appropriate oversight while still allowing organizations close to communities to make reasonable operational decisions.

Localization should therefore not mean simply moving implementation closer to the community while keeping decision-making far away.

It should mean bringing appropriate decision-making authority closer to the people affected by those decisions.

3. Frugal, Locally Anchored Innovation

Innovation does not always begin in a laboratory, university, technology company, or international development headquarters.

Sometimes it begins with a community asking a very simple question:

“What can we build with what we already have?”

Across refugee and host communities, local innovators are developing practical responses to everyday challenges.

These can include agricultural technologies, solar solutions, digital services, livelihood initiatives, community media, cultural documentation, repair businesses, youth enterprises, and locally developed protection and communication mechanisms.

Some solutions may be technically simple.

Others may use emerging technologies.

But their value often comes from the fact that they emerge from real problems experienced by real people.

For example, a young person trying to protect a motorcycle used for livelihood may think differently about security technology than someone designing a generic product from outside the community.

A farmer dealing directly with unpredictable weather may identify a different use for agricultural technology than someone working only from a research report.

Young people documenting songs and oral histories in refugee communities may recognize cultural preservation as a form of identity, intergenerational connection, and community resilience—not simply as an academic exercise.

The role of the humanitarian system should therefore not only be to bring solutions into communities.

It should also be to identify promising solutions that communities have already created and provide the financing, technical support, networks, and market access required to take them further.

4. Permanent Presence Beyond Project Cycles

There is another advantage that is often insufficiently recognized:

RLOs remain.

International projects usually have defined start and end dates.

Project offices can close.

Vehicles can leave.

Consultants can move on.

Staff can be reassigned.

Grant cycles can end.

But an RLO established by people rooted in a community does not necessarily disappear when a grant ends.

Its founders may still live there.

Its staff may remain connected to the community.

Its volunteers may continue their work.

Its institutional memory remains.

Its relationships remain.

Community assets developed through years of engagement can remain.

This creates an important distinction between funding a project and investing in an institution.

When donors invest in an RLO's institutional capacity, they are not simply financing twelve or twenty-four months of activities.

They can be contributing to an institution that may continue serving its community for years.

That is a different investment horizon.

The Missing Question: Are We Funding Projects or Building Institutions?

This may be one of the most important questions in the localization debate.

Humanitarian funding frequently focuses on what an organization will deliver:

  • How many people will be trained?

  • How many households will be reached?

  • How many workshops will be conducted?

  • How many businesses will be supported?

  • How many people will receive assistance?

  • How many activities will be completed?

These outcomes matter.

But there is another question that deserves equal attention:

What kind of institution will exist five or ten years from now because of today's investment?

A local organization cannot sustainably deliver protection, livelihoods, peacebuilding, research, advocacy, or community services if it has no resources to maintain its basic institutional infrastructure.

Rent matters.

Internet connectivity matters.

Reliable electricity matters.

Financial management systems matter.

Qualified staff matter.

Governance matters.

Digital tools matter.

Monitoring and learning matter.

Safeguarding matters.

Research and documentation matter.

Strategic planning matters.

Staff development matters.

Community accountability matters.

These are often categorized as “overheads.”

But for an RLO, these are not simply administrative extras.

They are the infrastructure that makes community leadership possible.

If donors want strong local partners, they must be prepared to invest in strong local institutions.

The Hidden Cost of Underfunding RLOs

There is an uncomfortable contradiction within localization.

Small RLOs may be expected to demonstrate strong standards of:

  • financial management;

  • safeguarding;

  • monitoring;

  • reporting;

  • governance;

  • procurement;

  • risk management;

  • compliance; and

  • accountability.

At the same time, many small organizations struggle to access the resources needed to build and maintain those systems.

An organization may be expected to produce professional financial reports while lacking a full-time finance officer.

It may be expected to maintain sophisticated digital systems while struggling to pay for reliable connectivity.

It may be expected to retain qualified staff while receiving short-term project funding that does not provide employment security.

It may be expected to develop strong governance systems while receiving funding that covers activities but not institutional development.

This creates a structural contradiction.

Organizations are asked to become stronger without necessarily being given the resources required to become stronger.

In some cases, the humanitarian system effectively transfers substantial operational responsibility and risk to small local organizations without transferring the corresponding institutional power and resources.

That is not a sustainable localization model.

Responsible localization requires both responsibility and investment.

Beyond Consultative Lip-Service: What Real Localization Demands

Localization has become an increasingly important concept in humanitarian policy.

It appears in strategies, conferences, commitments, partnership frameworks, and organizational policies.

That progress is important.

But localization cannot be reduced to the presence of local organizations in meetings.

It cannot be measured simply by the number of RLO representatives invited to conferences.

It cannot be reduced to whether a refugee leader was given a speaking slot.

It cannot be reduced to whether an international organization signed an MoU with a local organization.

These can all be positive steps.

But they are not the destination.

True localization is about power.

Who decides?

Who controls resources?

Who defines priorities?

Who designs the intervention?

Who determines what success looks like?

Who owns the knowledge?

Who carries the risk?

Who is accountable to the community?

Who remains after the project ends?

And who has the resources to build an institution capable of continuing the work?

If decision-making and resources remain concentrated outside the community, localization remains incomplete.

Direct Funding: From Principle to Practice

If localization is to become meaningful, direct funding must become part of the solution.

But direct funding should not simply mean creating a small grant window while leaving the broader financing architecture unchanged.

It should mean creating credible, accessible, proportional, and sustainable financing pathways for RLOs.

This can include:

  • direct grants;

  • multi-year funding;

  • unrestricted or flexible funding where appropriate;

  • organizational development grants;

  • core institutional support;

  • pooled refugee-led financing mechanisms;

  • tiered risk-management systems;

  • simplified application processes;

  • proportional due diligence;

  • technical assistance;

  • institutional mentorship; and

  • opportunities for RLOs to participate in funding decisions themselves.

The objective is not to remove accountability.

The objective is to make accountability proportionate, accessible, and achievable.

Three Structural Changes Are Needed

1. Open Direct, Flexible Funding Channels

Donors and financing institutions should create practical pathways through which qualified RLOs can access funding directly.

Many small organizations are effectively excluded from larger funding opportunities because application requirements, reporting systems, financial thresholds, compliance procedures, and pre-financing requirements are designed around organizations with significantly greater institutional infrastructure.

This creates a circular problem.

An organization needs capacity to access funding.

But it often needs funding to build that capacity.

The solution is not to abandon due diligence.

It is to introduce proportionality.

Risk should be assessed according to the size, nature, and complexity of the funding.

Smaller grants should not necessarily carry the same administrative architecture as large multi-million-dollar awards.

Donors can establish graduated systems in which organizations demonstrate capacity progressively and gain access to larger funding as their systems strengthen.

That approach creates a pathway for institutional growth rather than permanently excluding emerging organizations.

2. Fund Core Infrastructure, Not Only Activities

A project can be funded for twelve months while the organization implementing it remains institutionally fragile.

This model can generate short-term outputs without creating durable local capacity.

RLOs need access to funding that strengthens:

  • governance and leadership;

  • financial management and accounting;

  • safeguarding;

  • staff recruitment and retention;

  • professional development;

  • digital infrastructure;

  • office and communication systems;

  • monitoring, evaluation, and learning;

  • research and documentation;

  • community accountability;

  • strategic planning; and

  • organizational sustainability.

Core funding is not a luxury.

For organizations expected to provide long-term community leadership:

Institutional capacity is program capacity.

A strong organization can adapt.

A strong organization can retain knowledge.

A strong organization can build partnerships.

A strong organization can respond when funding priorities change.

A strong organization can maintain systems between projects.

And a strong organization can continue serving communities when individual grants end.

3. Recognize RLOs as Co-Architects of Policy

RLOs must have meaningful opportunities to shape the policies and strategies affecting their communities.

This means moving beyond asking RLOs to validate decisions already made elsewhere.

RLOs should be involved in:

  • identifying priorities;

  • designing programs;

  • shaping funding mechanisms;

  • developing settlement strategies;

  • contributing to country response planning;

  • monitoring implementation;

  • evaluating outcomes;

  • documenting community knowledge; and

  • shaping policy discussions.

The people closest to the challenges should have a meaningful role in determining how those challenges are addressed.

This is particularly important because refugees often possess forms of knowledge that cannot be easily captured by conventional assessments.

They understand the informal systems that sustain communities.

They understand how information travels.

They understand social relationships.

They understand cultural sensitivities.

They know what people are likely to trust.

They know why some interventions fail despite having adequate funding.

That knowledge is not anecdotal noise.

It is part of the evidence base.

Direct Funding Is Also an Economic Investment

Funding RLOs is not only a humanitarian financing question.

It can also be an investment in local economies.

When resources reach locally rooted institutions, a greater share of those resources can circulate through local systems.

Local organizations employ local people.

They purchase from local suppliers.

They use local transport.

They engage local consultants and service providers.

They rent local spaces.

They support community enterprises.

They create opportunities for young people.

They build networks between refugee and host communities.

This means the question should not only be:

“How much money reaches the community?”

We should also ask:

“How much institutional capacity, economic opportunity, knowledge, and local ownership does that money leave behind?”

That is an important measure of sustainability.

A humanitarian dollar can finance an activity.

But it can also contribute to building an institution.

The latter may have value far beyond the immediate grant cycle.

Dignity Is Also a Funding Question

Dignity is often discussed in humanitarian programming as a question of how people are treated.

But dignity is also about agency.

There is dignity in being listened to.

There is dignity in being respected.

There is dignity in having one's knowledge recognized.

There is greater agency in being trusted.

And there is institutional dignity in being given the opportunity and resources to lead.

When refugees build organizations to address challenges in their own communities, treating those organizations merely as channels for unpaid mobilization or consultation misses something fundamental.

They are not only representatives of need.

They are institutions of:

  • knowledge;

  • leadership;

  • creativity;

  • accountability;

  • innovation;

  • cultural preservation;

  • economic participation; and

  • community action.

Direct and flexible funding therefore has a dimension beyond finance.

It is also about recognizing agency.

RLOs Are More Than Implementing Partners

Refugee-led organizations should not be understood only as cheaper implementing partners.

They can be:

  • community knowledge institutions;

  • peacebuilding actors;

  • livelihoods platforms;

  • cultural institutions;

  • youth leadership hubs;

  • social enterprise incubators;

  • policy voices;

  • community accountability mechanisms;

  • research and documentation institutions;

  • communication and storytelling platforms; and

  • bridges between refugee and host communities.

This broader understanding matters because it changes the funding question.

Instead of asking:

“What project can this RLO implement?”

we should also ask:

“What community institution can we help strengthen for the next ten years?”

That is a different investment horizon.

It moves the conversation from project delivery to institution building.

From Sub-Grants to Partnerships

The language we use matters.

A sub-grant relationship can place one organization in the position of principal actor and another in the position of recipient.

A partnership implies shared responsibility, mutual accountability, and recognition of complementary strengths.

The humanitarian sector should therefore move toward partnerships where:

  • funding decisions are transparent;

  • institutional costs are recognized;

  • risks are shared fairly;

  • RLOs participate meaningfully in program design;

  • communities can hold all partners accountable;

  • learning flows in both directions;

  • local innovations can influence wider systems; and

  • RLOs have genuine opportunities to grow.

This is not about replacing international organizations.

International organizations bring important technical expertise, financing relationships, global networks, specialized capabilities, and institutional experience.

National organizations bring important knowledge of the national context, relationships with government, technical capacity, and established operational systems.

RLOs bring proximity, lived experience, community relationships, contextual knowledge, local legitimacy, and an understanding of the realities of displacement from within.

The future should combine these strengths rather than permanently placing one above the other.

The Role of Donors: From Risk Avoidance to Risk Sharing

Donors understandably have fiduciary responsibilities.

They must ensure that public and institutional resources are used responsibly.

But risk cannot be eliminated.

It can only be identified, managed, shared, and mitigated.

The question should therefore not be:

“How can we structure funding so that donors carry no risk?”

A more constructive question is:

“How can we manage risk while ensuring that local organizations have meaningful access to resources and decision-making power?”

This requires a shift from risk avoidance to risk sharing.

Donors can provide:

  • appropriate due diligence;

  • staged financing;

  • organizational strengthening;

  • technical assistance;

  • financial management support;

  • peer learning;

  • mentoring;

  • realistic reporting requirements; and

  • longer funding horizons.

RLOs, in turn, must strengthen their own governance and accountability systems.

Localization is therefore not about lowering standards.

It is about creating equitable pathways for local organizations to meet those standards.

What Institutional Donors Can Do Now

Institutional donors can accelerate meaningful localization by:

1. Create direct funding windows for RLOs

Establish funding mechanisms that allow qualified RLOs to apply directly rather than requiring an international intermediary in every case.

2. Provide multi-year funding

Short funding cycles make institutional development difficult. Multi-year commitments provide greater predictability and allow organizations to plan beyond individual activities.

3. Finance core institutional costs

Recognize that salaries, governance, rent, technology, finance systems, safeguarding, monitoring, and organizational development are part of sustainable programming.

4. Simplify application and reporting requirements

Requirements should be proportionate to the size and complexity of the grant.

5. Introduce tiered risk-management systems

Organizations can be supported to demonstrate capacity progressively rather than being excluded because they do not already possess the systems that funding would help them build.

6. Co-design financing mechanisms with RLOs

Funding mechanisms intended for refugee-led organizations should be designed with refugee-led organizations.

7. Support organizational growth

Provide resources for institutional strengthening, leadership development, financial management, safeguarding, research, digital transformation, and monitoring and learning.

8. Measure localization by power

Do not measure localization only by the number of local partners or participants.

Measure who controls resources, who makes decisions, who designs programs, and who owns the resulting institutions.

9. Make funding flows more transparent

Communities and local organizations should be able to understand how resources move through the humanitarian system and what proportion ultimately reaches local actors.

What UN Agencies and INGOs Can Do

UN agencies and INGOs also have a critical role.

They can:

  • share decision-making power with RLOs;

  • create more equitable partnership structures;

  • open procurement and funding opportunities;

  • recognize lived experience as a legitimate form of expertise;

  • invest in RLO institutional development;

  • reduce unnecessary intermediary layers;

  • advocate with donors for direct financing;

  • include RLOs meaningfully in strategic coordination;

  • support RLO participation in policy development;

  • create pathways for local innovations to influence larger systems;

  • recognize the value of community-owned data and knowledge; and

  • develop partnership models that allow RLOs to grow rather than remain permanently dependent.

The objective should not be to make RLOs copies of international organizations.

The objective should be to help RLOs become stronger versions of themselves—rooted in their communities while capable of meeting appropriate standards of accountability and performance.

What Governments Can Do

Governments are also central to the localization agenda.

Refugee-led organizations operate within national legal and policy environments.

Government institutions can support localization by creating enabling environments for refugee-led civil society, social enterprises, community initiatives, and local service providers.

This can include:

  • accessible registration pathways;

  • constructive engagement with refugee-led institutions;

  • inclusion of RLOs in relevant coordination structures;

  • recognition of refugee-led expertise;

  • opportunities for local organizations to contribute to policy development; and

  • support for social and economic participation.

Refugees are not only humanitarian subjects.

They are also members of communities, economic actors, entrepreneurs, professionals, parents, students, leaders, and contributors to the societies in which they live.

A localization agenda should recognize this wider reality.

What RLOs Must Also Do

The localization agenda comes with responsibilities for refugee-led organizations themselves.

RLOs must continue strengthening:

  • governance;

  • financial management;

  • transparency;

  • safeguarding;

  • community accountability;

  • monitoring and learning;

  • evidence generation;

  • ethical leadership;

  • professional management;

  • strategic partnerships;

  • responsible resource mobilization; and

  • institutional sustainability.

RLOs cannot demand trust while ignoring accountability.

They cannot call for direct funding while failing to strengthen financial systems.

They cannot demand participation while failing to maintain community accountability.

The case for greater trust must be matched by stronger institutions.

Localization is a shared responsibility.

Donors must change how they finance.

International organizations must change how they partner.

Governments must create enabling environments.

And RLOs must continue building institutions worthy of the trust and resources they seek.

From Dependence to Institutional Resilience

One of the dangers of poorly designed localization is creating another form of dependency.

An RLO should not simply become dependent on a single international organization for survival.

That is not genuine localization.

The goal should be institutional resilience.

A resilient RLO can build diverse partnerships.

It can mobilize different forms of funding.

It can develop social enterprises.

It can generate and use knowledge.

It can build professional teams.

It can retain institutional memory.

It can maintain community accountability.

It can survive the end of an individual project.

It can adapt to changing circumstances.

This requires investment over time.

It also requires a broader understanding of what sustainability means.

Sustainability is not only about whether a project continues after the grant ends.

It is about whether the institution, knowledge, relationships, and community ownership created through the intervention can continue beyond the grant.

A New Social Contract for Humanitarian Action

The humanitarian system is changing.

Protracted displacement, climate pressures, shrinking resources, youth unemployment, urbanization, economic pressures, and increasingly complex social realities are challenging traditional models of humanitarian response.

These challenges require more than larger programs.

They require different relationships.

The future cannot simply be a system where international institutions design, national organizations implement, and refugee communities participate.

It can become a system where:

  • communities;

  • RLOs;

  • national organizations;

  • international organizations;

  • governments;

  • donors; and

  • other stakeholders

share responsibility according to their respective strengths.

This is what meaningful localization can look like.

Not localization as a slogan.

Not localization as a panel discussion.

Not localization as a checkbox.

But localization as:

power, financing, responsibility, accountability, and ownership.

What Would a Truly Local Humanitarian System Look Like?

Imagine a different model.

A refugee community identifies a problem.

A local organization documents it.

The RLO works with community members to design a response.

A donor provides direct, flexible financing.

Technical partners contribute specialized expertise where needed.

The community participates in implementation and oversight.

The RLO manages the resources transparently.

Government and humanitarian actors provide coordination and support.

The intervention is monitored not only through donor indicators but also through community-defined outcomes.

Lessons are documented.

Successful approaches are scaled.

The institution remains after the project ends.

That is not a fantasy.

It is a different way of organizing relationships.

And it begins with a simple principle:

The people closest to a problem should have a meaningful role in shaping the solution—and the institutions they build should have access to the resources required to lead.

The Question of Scale

Some may argue that RLOs are often too small to manage significant resources.

That concern should not simply be dismissed.

Institutional capacity varies.

Some RLOs are newly established.

Others have years of operational experience.

Some have strong governance structures.

Others are still developing them.

Some have sophisticated financial systems.

Others require substantial organizational strengthening.

The appropriate response is therefore not to exclude RLOs altogether.

It is to create pathways for growth.

A small organization can begin with an organizational development grant.

It can receive technical support.

It can strengthen its governance.

It can improve financial systems.

It can build safeguarding mechanisms.

It can demonstrate performance.

It can progress toward larger grants.

This creates an ecosystem in which organizations can grow according to demonstrated capacity.

The choice should not be between large organizations or local organizations.

The better approach is to build partnerships in which organizations of different sizes contribute different strengths.

The Evidence Question: Let Communities Demonstrate What Works

The case for RLOs should not depend on romanticizing local organizations.

Refugee-led does not automatically mean effective.

Local organizations can make mistakes.

They can have capacity gaps.

They can experience governance challenges.

They can fail.

So can international organizations.

The answer is not to assume that one category of organization is inherently superior.

The answer is to create systems in which organizations can demonstrate performance.

That means investing in:

  • evidence;

  • monitoring;

  • learning;

  • independent evaluation;

  • community feedback;

  • transparent financial systems;

  • safeguarding;

  • documentation; and

  • adaptive management.

The humanitarian sector should give RLOs the opportunity to build this evidence base.

Do not ask local organizations to prove that they are capable while denying them the resources required to develop the systems through which capability can be demonstrated.

Give them the opportunity to build, demonstrate, learn, and grow.

Direct Funding Is About More Than Money

It is tempting to frame this entire debate as a question of funding percentages.

How much money goes to RLOs?

How much reaches national organizations?

How much remains with international organizations?

These questions matter.

But the deeper issue is not only the amount of money.

It is who controls the money and what decisions accompany it.

Funding creates choices.

Funding determines which ideas can be tested.

Funding determines which institutions can hire people.

Funding determines who can collect evidence.

Funding determines which innovations can grow.

Funding determines whether an organization can remain operational between projects.

And funding influences whose priorities ultimately shape the humanitarian response.

Therefore:

Direct funding is also direct influence.

If RLOs are expected to have greater influence over humanitarian action, then they must have meaningful access to the resources that make influence possible.

The Call: Move From Consultation to Investment

Uganda does not need refugee communities to wait for someone else to build their future.

They are already building it.

They are building businesses.

They are organizing communities.

They are educating children.

They are preserving cultures.

They are creating youth initiatives.

They are mediating conflicts.

They are developing innovations.

They are supporting vulnerable people.

They are creating organizations.

They are contributing to local economies.

They are building relationships with host communities.

The humanitarian sector now faces a choice about whether its financing systems will recognize and invest in that reality.

Will RLOs continue receiving small, short-term grants to implement predetermined activities?

Or will the system begin investing in the institutions refugees themselves are building?

The answer does not have to be one or the other.

International organizations, national NGOs, governments, donors, communities, and RLOs all have important roles to play.

But the relationship must change.

The sector must move:

from beneficiaries to partners;

from consultation to co-creation;

from sub-grants to equitable partnerships;

from short-term projects to institutional investment;

from risk transfer to risk sharing;

from participation to decision-making power;

from funding activities alone to building institutions;

from dependency to institutional resilience.

And above all:

Stop measuring localization only by how often refugees are invited to the table. Start measuring it by how much power, funding, and decision-making authority reaches the table with them.

Direct funding is not simply a financial mechanism.

It is an investment in local institutions.

It is an investment in community knowledge.

It is an investment in economic participation.

It is an investment in leadership.

It is an investment in dignity and agency.

It is an investment in the capacity of communities to shape their own futures.

And it is an opportunity to build a humanitarian system that does not simply respond to refugees, but recognizes refugees as part of the leadership of that response.

If the future of humanitarian action is truly local, then refugee-led organizations must be at the centre of that future—not at the end of the funding chain.

A Final Question for the Humanitarian Sector

Perhaps the most important question is not:

“Can refugee-led organizations manage greater resources?”

The better question is:

“What would refugee-led organizations be capable of achieving if the humanitarian system invested in them with the same seriousness with which it invests in other institutions?”

That question deserves to be tested—not answered through assumptions.

Give RLOs access to appropriate resources.

Give them institutional support.

Give them opportunities to build systems.

Give them meaningful seats in decision-making.

Hold them accountable.

Measure their results.

Learn from what works.

Support them when they fail and learn.

Scale what communities demonstrate to be effective.

And then let the evidence speak.

Because the future of humanitarian action should not be determined only by the institutions that have historically controlled resources.

It should increasingly be shaped by the people and organizations closest to the realities that humanitarian action is meant to address.

Local means local.

And if local truly means local, then refugee-led organizations must not remain at the end of the funding chain.

They must be part of the centre of the system.

About Refugee House Foundation

Refugee House Foundation is a refugee-led non-profit organization, think tank, and innovation hub in Uganda working to create a platform where refugees can access space, knowledge, voice, and opportunities to influence policies, build enterprises, access justice, and showcase their potential.

We believe refugees should not only be included in conversations about their future. They should have the opportunity, resources, and institutional platforms to help shape that future.

Our work is rooted in the belief that refugee communities possess significant knowledge, leadership, creativity, entrepreneurial potential, culture, and problem-solving capacity.

Refugee House Foundation seeks to create the conditions in which that potential can be organized, strengthened, connected, and transformed into sustainable community-led solutions.