Promoting Localised, Women-Led Approaches to Humanitarian Responses

Localising humanitarian action involves shifting financial and other resources, as well as power and agency, to local and national responders. This shift must have women and women’s organisations at its forefront, bringing their invaluable contextual knowledge, skills, resources and experiences to emergency preparedness, response, and resilience building. This will help reduce the male-dominated and gender-biased international humanitarian system we currently have and make responses to humanitarian crises more effective and gender transformative.

This briefing note builds on Action Aid’s and Konbit Peyizan Grandan’s (KPGA) work with women-led community committees in Haiti. It describes an operational approach that devolves power and funding to the most vulnerable women affected by a disaster.