Shifting Power in the Humanitarian Sector:Why INGOs need to hand over control and how to do it.

Sammanfattning: In the world, power is unequally distributed, and so it is in the humanitariansector. After the inability of the humanitarian community to meet the localisationtargets set in the Grand Bargain, the failure has been attributed, among otherreasons, to international actors’ unwillingness to cede power. This thesis aims toexplore how INGOs can hand over control to local responders and use thelocalisation agenda to re-balance the unequal distribution of power amonghumanitarian actors. This study seeks to uncover how the colonial legacies still present in the sectorhave affected the efficacies of responses and, more specifically, the realisationof the commitments related to localisation. By interviewing a series ofhumanitarian professionals involved in the localisation efforts of theirorganisations, the empirical research has investigated the persistence andimpact of power imbalances in the work of humanitarians and collected theirsuggestions on the actions that INGOs could implement to facilitate the transferof control towards local responders. The thesis suggests that power imbalances might reduce in those cases whereINGOs adopt renewed localisation commitments which address the root causesof unequal power distribution. The recommendations at the end of this workmight be highly relevant for the global debate around redefining the localisationagenda in a way that satisfies both international and local actors while alsobenefiting affected communities.