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The humanitarian aid sector must increasingly turn to indigenous organisations and individuals in an attempt to ensure that its reach, effectiveness and accountability are improved, says Dr Mary Okumu, senior director at ForAfrika, Africa’s largest indigenous aid organisation.
Dr Okumu, who is also head of ForAfrika’s technical unit, will be speaking twice at this year’s AidEx, a leading global humanitarian aid and disaster relief exhibition and conference taking place in Brussels, Belgium, on 16 and 17 November. She will speak on the practical worth of indigenisation – directly involving indigenous actors in humanitarian aid – as opposed to just localisation, which is the practice of international organisations opening local offices in places requiring humanitarian aid.
“ForAfrika knows, based on evidence it has generated from its 38 years of dedicated work, that indigenisation works and has the most impact in Africa,” says Dr Okumu.
“Africa is our home, and our services are by definition indigenised and localised. ForAfrika has approximately 700 African staff members across six countries and you will often find us running into a region when others are running out,” she adds.
On 17 November between 1.40pm and 2.40pm Dr Okumu will co-chair a panel discussion exploring the topic “Dissecting the evidence – can localisation really lead to better impact?”, and, later on the same day, will take part in another panel discussion looking at the role localisation can play in addressing worrying trends of increased attacks on humanitarian workers and denying them access to certain areas.
The second panel discussion, hosted by the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action and the Voluntary Organisations in Cooperation in Emergencies, will take place during a side event and at the release of the 2022 State of the Humanitarian System report in which it is reported that attacks on humanitarian aid workers rose by 54% between 2017 and 2020.
“As the largest indigenous humanitarian organisation in Africa, we can offer a unique perspective on this concerning trend in attacks on aid workers,” says Dr Okumu.
“Further, our nearly 40 years of experience as an African organisation operating in Africa allows us to offer a similarly unique perspective on the great power that lies with localisation, in trusting local people to have the answers to the challenges they face and in working alongside them to realise these answers. This method is more efficient, more effective and more sustainable than importing ideas, methods and people from outside Africa,” she says.
ForAfrika operates in South Sudan, Mozambique, Uganda, South Africa, Rwanda and Angola – and is opening a new office in the Central African Republic. In 2021 the organisation reached 2.9-million people across the continent with humanitarian assistance, from emergency relief to boosting agricultural and other economic skills.
Issued by Flow Communications on behalf of ForAfrika. For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Ayanda Siswana on ayanda@flowsa.com
