FINAL End of 19-20 Season - Localisation during Overlapping Responses

The feedback and findings from these suggest that the implementation and substantiation of ‘localisation’ appears to be at best inconsistent, and at worst somewhat guarded and non-committal As such, the theme of the 2019/ 2020 South Pacific Cyclone Season Report is the ‘enforced localisation’ triggered in the response to severe cyclones like TC Harold. [...] The findings of the workshop suggest that at an intellectual and ethical level, the sector understands the essence of localisation and recognises that the vision and process of localisation is an inevitable consequence of the evolution of the sectors. [...] Opportunities to/ Enablers of Localisation in Humanitarian Response Immediately following TC Harold, PIANGO and the HAG completed a further topical review of the response in context of the pandemic, in their report ‘Five Ways to support locally-led disaster response in the Pacific during COVID-19’ (April 2020). [...] In lieu of the lack of agreement or clarity around a definition of localisation, consideration might also be made for the definition developed by Pacific actors and included in PIANGO reports; 9 “Localisation is a process of recognising, respecting and strengthening the independence of leadership and decision-making by national actors in humanitarian action, in order to better address the needs of. [...] To the credit of the quality work and impact that INGOs in New Zealand do continue to provide (and contributed during the TC Harold response), organisations cannot be expected to shift their partnership approach in the middle of a crisis.