This post is part of the Localization (R)evolution blog series, exploring why locally led humanitarian action – rooted in power, rights, and accountability – is essential to transforming the humanitarian system (read the introduction here and other posts in the series here).

Localisation and local leadership emerged as key within this shift, in part thanks to sustained advocacy from civil society networks such as the NEAR Network, the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA), and the   Charter4Change in the lead-up to the WHS itself.

A Decade of Change: Localisation as a Global Norm

Over the past decade, we have seen localisation move from the margins of humanitarian policy discourse to its centre. Once a niche issue, the call for a fundamental rebalancing of power towards local and national actors has become a widely accepted norm. The Grand Bargain (GB) has played a critical role in this shift, embedding localisation as a core pillar of humanitarian reform. The call for humanitarian action to be 'as local as possible, as international as necessary' is a guiding principle – now agreed to by more than 70 GB signatories – which few would dispute today (at least not publicly).

This shift in narrative has been accompanied by some concrete progress. The Grand Bargain’s localisation targets, most notably the commitment to channel 25% of humanitarian funding 'as directly as possible' to local and national actors, have helped create a degree of accountability. While progress towards this target remains slow and uneven, it has prompted some signatories to adapt their funding practices and has maintained pressure across the humanitarian system to demonstrate progress on localisation.

There has also been an important expansion of participation. Local actors are now more consistently present in humanitarian coordination spaces, both at global and country levels, and initiatives such as National Reference Groups (NRGs) have created structured platforms for dialogue between local actors, international organisations, and donors. In principle, these spaces offer an avenue to ground global commitments in country-level realities and to strengthen mutual accountability.

The Limits of Progress

Yet, despite this progress, a persistent gap remains between commitment and practice. Funding flows are perhaps the most obvious illustration of this gap. Despite the 25% target mentioned above, only a small fraction of humanitarian funding – less than 4% – reaches local and national actors directly. Organizations representing and led by those who are most marginalised within the system, including women-led and women’s rights organisations and refugee-led organisations, receive even less. Funding that makes its way to local and national actors usually remains tightly earmarked and inflexible, meaning that localisation risks amounting to little more than the subcontracting of internationally designed responses.

And despite increased participation in coordination spaces, too often, local actors too often remain excluded from decision-making processes: the structures that determine priorities, allocate resources, and define success remain dominated by a small group of UN agencies and INGOs. We have not seen a tangible shift in where power sits within the system; as Hayat Mirshad, Director of FE-MALE, put it during a recent event: “participation without power is just a politer way of excluding us.” As a result, localisation risks becoming performative rather than transformative.

The humanitarian system continues to prioritise scale, speed, and risk aversion, often at the expense of equity, sustainability, and local leadership. And in today’s increasingly constrained funding environment, these tendencies are intensifying. As the humanitarian system faces unprecedented pressures, the risk is not only stagnation, but regression.

A shifting context: risks of regression

The current moment is critical in determining the direction of travel for the localisation agenda. Humanitarian needs are rising, while resources are shrinking. The UN’s Humanitarian Reset – itself triggered in part as a response to last year’s massive cuts in humanitarian funding – has ushered in a logic of ‘hyper-prioritisation’, focusing funding on a narrower set of crises and on ‘life-saving’ interventions, often narrowly defined. At the same time, evolving dynamics between major donors and UN agencies – first and foremost the December 2025 agreement between the US and OCHA – risk reshaping incentives and power dynamics in ways that further undermine locally-led humanitarian response.

In this context, the risk is clear: a return to top-down models that sideline local actors in the name of efficiency and control. But this would be a profound mistake. If anything, the current crisis underscores the importance of local leadership. Local actors are often the first and last responders, with deep contextual knowledge, long-term presence, and an embeddedness within local communities that ensures accountability and trust.

The Role of a Redesigned ‘Grand Bargain’ for Localisation

As the Grand Bargain enters its next phase – or potentially evolves into a redesigned platform, as Oxfam has proposed – it therefore faces two fundamental challenges that will shape its future relevance to and credibility on localisation:

• The first is the widening gap between the rhetoric and reality of localisation, paired with declining appetite to make the systemic changes that are needed for a meaningful shift of power. While commitments to localisation remain prominent in global discourse, many local and national actors still have limited influence over decision-making, restricted access to good-quality funding, and, in some contexts, we are seeing backsliding in practice.
• A second challenge concerns the broader direction of humanitarian reform itself. The Reset has intensified debates around prioritisation, coordination, complementarity, and the respective roles of international and local actors. At the same time, shrinking humanitarian resources risk fuelling greater competition across the system, potentially reinforcing unequal power dynamics rather than creating the conditions for more equitable partnerships and forms of complementarity that genuinely support locally led responses.

Against this backdrop, the future of the Grand Bargain will depend on whether it can move beyond being a platform centred primarily on commitments and dialogue, and evolve into a more effective driver of change.

Oxfam has argued that there remains clear value in maintaining a multi-stakeholder space where donors, UN agencies, international NGOs, and – critically – local actors can come together. The Grand Bargain has provided a platform for advancing shared priorities, fostering peer pressure, and building consensus around key reforms. It also provides an important counterbalance to other, UN-dominated humanitarian spaces.

But for this platform to remain relevant and address the challenges it faces, it must adapt. A redesigned format should:

• Ensure, most importantly, that local actors have real influence within the platform, and the humanitarian system more broadly.
• Prioritise outcomes over commitments, focusing on where and how change is happening in practice.
• Strengthen mechanisms for accountability that enable stakeholders to demonstrate tangible progress.

Ten years ago, the humanitarian community made a promise to put the global system on a path to more effective, equitable assistance, including by getting more resources into the hands of people in need. The challenges we face today demand a renewed commitment to local leadership and to the transformations required to realise this.