Associated documentation outlines various details of the BtG project (Wilkinson et al. 2020). The results we bring forward here are from interviewees’ perspectives that speak more generally to the questions of humanitarian localisation and the place of LFAs in it.
LFAs have an invaluable role to play in humanitarian action
As with other research showing the involvement of LFAs in humanitarian and development work (Wilkinson et al. 2019; Greatrick et al. 2018; El Nakib and Ager 2015), the LFAs involved in this project confirmed their ability to work with local communities and their commitment to their communities. An interviewee from an LFA explained how they were the only humanitarian actors reaching a certain population:
When our people are displaced the government could not allow access to the rebel-controlled areas. But people had lived without food and we were the only ones who had the courage to give food. Where no other organisation had the courage and, if we were to sit until the other organisations had to come, our people could not have been rescued.
Another interviewee from an LFA opined,
…even though the political situation makes it very difficult for humanitarian agencies to access the area, the Bishop as a neutral person, is able to provide access for field staff to access the area.
In another area, a different interviewee from an LFA also affirmed that,
(We) need local faith actors and national NGOs to be involved in this localisation because these are the people that are related to the community, people trust them and also these are the people that can go further than the international NGOs cannot go, because of far distance, because of security situation… Again, these international NGOs sometimes, when there is a disaster or anything like instability, like the war, always they used to evacuate but local national NGOs… they’ve always been there…
Local actors in general have a sustained presence in the context, while that is not guaranteed from INGOs. Specifically, with LFAs, trusted religious leaders, such as the bishop mentioned in the quotation, allow for the negotiation of humanitarian access. Many respondents indicated that secular humanitarian response is guided by the international humanitarian standards, while LFAs are guided by both the core humanitarian standards and religious values. While some of those interviewed did not see any major differences in the ways both secular and religious agencies approach their work, there were some respondents who asserted that religions organisations are better because they are also guided by religious values.
One interviewee summed up this motivation in relation to faith:
It is an element of sacrificing for their people because... they are prompted, because of their faith they have in God, that you must go and serve your people in good times or bad times. That is what is unique in the faith based, local faith actors in terms of humanitarian services.
This was also reflected in interviews with those outside the project, such one interviewee from an international FBO in South Sudan who said,
many of the partners are part of the church or fall under part of the church’s structure, so I think it’s the relationship they have with the community., That’s the key one for South Sudan, so because they are part of the church, they have a respected position and maybe they’re respected by people of varying different communities…
The invaluable role that local faith actors play in South Sudan was recognised by everyone we interviewed, including secular international humanitarian actors like UN agencies. However, as the next section outlines, many of the LFAs felt like outsiders to the humanitarian system for a number of reasons.
Insider outsiders: LFAs feeling distant from the humanitarian system
Confirming other research that local actors and local faith actors are often distanced from the humanitarian system (for example, Wall and Hedlund 2016; Wilkinson 2018; Barbelet 2019), the LFAs involved in this project confirmed that, before participation in BtG, they had experienced a distance and reluctance to become partners from international humanitarian actors. Only a few of the LFAs we spoke to had interacted with the mainstream humanitarian system—through invitations to meetings where they were not able to set the tone or lead and also to implement smaller grants alongside other humanitarian actors. It also emerged that some of the individuals in the LFAs had engaged with the mainstream humanitarian sector in their individual capacities while working in other secular humanitarian organisations. Most of the LFAs had only operated within religious circles to provide assistance and pastoral counselling to populations fleeing conflict. They have been the first responders in many situations for over 50 years in Sudan/South Sudan.
This disconnect with the international humanitarian system which has a huge presence in South Sudan led to feelings of resentment from some of the LFA participants involved in BtG. For example, one said,
We have not interacted a lot and this is because the INGOs do not want to give us a chance to work in the same sector as them… The INGOs think that if the national NGOs or the LFA actors are empowered, they will lose their jobs and that is why most of them are not giving us funding. We request funds from INGOs, they don’t tell us off directly, they are just not interested…
Another LFA staff member, recognising that humanitarian needs far outweigh the funds available still felt that there was a lack of openness and trust, but that this was not a consequence of an international-local divide, but a result of a secular-religious divide:
There is a huge competition for resources among the LFAs and the secular organisations. LFAs are transparent and use financial resources to solve the problems of those who are needy, but the secular organisations have resources, but can use the resources for other things. The secular organisations don’t believe in the capacities of the LFAs, they feel that the LFAs are ill equipped and they think that the LFAs are corrupt. The secular organisations also think that when we are given resources, we take for our own use.
This demonstrates the complex interplay of perceptions and reactions among the secular-religious dynamics of the humanitarian system. There is often an underlying sense of suspicion between different actors. The quotes from the two LFA staff members above, reveals the interchangeability of the international-local and secular-religious categories. Already, we see the local and faith grouping together as a group that is suspicious of and held in suspicion by the international and secular grouping.
Gatekeepers: reasons for engaging with and distancing from LFAs
From the perspective of the international humanitarian actors, there was a difference between local/national actors and faith-based or secular/other civil society actors. A full range of the merits of LFA engagement in the humanitarian system were articulated by some of the international secular humanitarian actors. For example, in one of the interviews, a respondent made three critical observations: (1) that local organisations including LFAs have easy access to populations in crisis when compared with the international organisations, because they are from the local area and can easily negotiate access with any political group, in which is critical in the case of South Sudan where access is controlled by multiple political groups; (2) local organisations, including faith based ones, are part of the affected communities, making interactions, communications, and the articulation of needs and challenges, plus the delivery of assistance, much easier; (3) local organisations have a long history of amplifying and being the voices of the communities needing assistance.
There was a paradox with respect to the ways in which international humanitarian actors would recognise the importance of LFAs, but in the same breath, they would question or wonder about the feasibility of partnership with them. An individual from a secular international NGO involved in humanitarian response, but not directly involved in BtG, confirmed some of these existing divides. For example,
What has not been captured very well in the records of humanitarian work [is] how much [LFAs] are supporting humanitarian response, how much the churches are safe havens for people, how much their own initiatives are contributing into the community where the churches contribute their own food, their own clothing… [But] they are set up as church-based, [they] may not easily make them fit into the mainstream of competitiveness in the development work… looking at the number of national NGOs visiting my office each day, I never saw a faith-based organisation coming to us for a partnership, you see?
LFAs are recognised from a distance as first responders in their communities but, unless they are knocking on the doors of INGOs to ask for inclusion, they are not acknowledged as part of the “mainstream” humanitarian response. Another international humanitarian actor expressed that non-alignment with the humanitarian principles was a problem area:
…in terms of selecting our partnerships… they have to indicate their understanding of the humanitarian principles and their willingness to act in accordance with the humanitarian principles… […] maybe that’s one of the issues of capacity building more generally...
These international humanitarian actors recognise the barriers (e.g. understanding of the humanitarian principles) but also wonder why they have not been contacted by LFAs. There was no further reflection on how to reach out to LFAs or whether the impetus should be on international humanitarian actors to proactively contact LFAs, which demonstrates that the barriers to LFA participation, while recognised, are also at least unconsciously maintained. Although the BtG project also provided two training sessions for international humanitarian actors to help overcome these barriers, they were comparatively less well attended than the trainings for LFAs. This speaks to the politics of partnership where acknowledgement and understanding of the work that LFAs regularly undertake are underestimated in comparison to perceptions of LFAs around the principles.
Overall effects of feeling of distance and actual distancing
These barriers had real and immediate effects on LFAs that were regularly reported to the interviewers. LFAs had many reflections on these barriers. For example, they expressed that retaining competent staff was difficult since the salaries paid by local faith actors are less than those paid by INGOs. Often the local NGOs train people up and then they leave for better paid jobs in INGOs. Interviewees all identified recruitment and maintaining staff as a challenge for LFAs. One example in the words of an interviewee from an LFA;
Getting funding is hard because when we write to an international organisation, for 40,000 USD for instance, we will not be given the money because we have few human resources to manage the grant. When we write project proposals, we request the services of a consultant, but consultants are also very expensive.
They are stuck in a vicious cycle of not holding the right “capacity” to receive grants and not being able to fundraise to build this capacity. While this problem is generic to all local actors, one LFA particularly spoke about the need for some of the churches to professionalise in their humanitarian staffing due to donor demands:
…an example I’d give is for educat[ing] the dioceses… they put a theologian who has not known something in finance, a theologian is doing a programme… I used to tell them, “When I come, I want to see you as project officers, I'm not coming to see you as bishops, as reverends”, because at the end of it, I have to account to a donor and therefore, “I have to treat you as a project officer, that is what it is”. So, they really need to be paid and then be told that when it comes, if it’s an accountant, put a professional accountant there.
This entirely different management and professional style required by international humanitarian donors means that LFAs are at times ill-equipped to respond to humanitarian requests in partnership with international humanitarian actors. There are tensions between the requirements to professionalise staff, the balance of working with the advantages of LFAs in their access to volunteers and the disadvantages of losing newly trained staff to INGOs. However, there were some examples given where LFAs had partnered with international humanitarian donors, as elaborated in this next section.
Overcoming the barriers that have distanced LFAs
Registration
While LFAs are based in the communities where they operate and are often the first to help when there is a crisis, some of the LFAs in South Sudan are not legally registered as NGOs. Even if they are registered this might be at the local level and not meeting the legal requirement for all humanitarian actors to be registered with the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC) in Juba. Often LFAs operate informally and do not register because they lack the funds to pay for the registration, view it as a tedious process or fear the loss of independence. We also heard from some interviewees the concern that becoming too similar to secular NGOs could risk eroding the identity of LFAs, through “NGO-isation”. Others could also be lacking understanding of the need for registration and are not aware of the benefits the registration can bring. LFAs might be keener to register if they have a better understanding of what is involved and also if they are assured that they could retain their independence.
Registration was a key area of concern for the LFAs we interviewed. The LFAs all spoke widely about the advantages they saw once registered (each quote from a different LFA):
Registration is a vital first foot in the door to enable participation in the formal humanitarian system for LFAs, as one interviewee explained:
…we have been recognised. We have been registered and that is why we are able to offer services and we are able to receive such kind of training, which we were not able to get when we were not registered.
The effects of registration are then widespread such as the opportunity to receive training, the need for new bank accounts, and the internal professionalisation that promotes the visibility in the eyes of other humanitarian actors and donors, as described by this interviewee:
We registered with Islamic council and the IR [Islamic Relief] got the opportunity to meet us. Formalisation has made us more visible… We are becoming more professional. Before we were registered, we tried to apply for grants, but because we lacked the experience we failed to get the grant. The grant application process also required a bank account and we did not have one and donors did not trust us because they thought that if the money went to personal accounts it would be misused.
Registration also helps with the legitimacy of an organisation and diminish other forms of marginalisation, such as that described by an interviewee from an Islamic organisation:
We have a friendly relationship with [the] government and we are free to engage in the humanitarian sector. The government trusts us because it has seen our documents of registration.
Nevertheless, as described by this same LFA, registration is not a one-time hurdle that once achieved the LFAs can put behind them. Because of their Islamic identity, this LFA must re-register with national security. There are different barriers and forms of registration required of some LFAs over others.
LFA access to the UN cluster system
Although some of the LFAs we interviewed had engaged with the UN cluster system prior to being part of the BtG project, for others, it opened up new linkages. In previous years the LFAs reported some interaction with UN clusters, such as the food security cluster, protection cluster and education cluster, both at national and regional levels. Again, this participation was tied to registration and the formalisation of the organisations in the eyes of the humanitarian system’s structures:
Even with registration, other international humanitarian actors interviewed recognised that local actors are under-represented and not listened to in the clusters:
Another issue is the coordination… Yes, recently we have seen the national actors being co-ordinators, being chairs of these clusters, but if you ask yourself in terms of the authority to [make] decisions, the national ones are perhaps sometimes even bypassed, and people ought to listen...
BtG made a difference to the LFAs in that they could diversify and increase their participation in clusters or start their participation if they had not been involved before:
… we introduce ourselves [to the] food security and livelihoods cluster… so now they know us as members of that cluster… because since this project [has] come and we are selected for this Bridging the Gap project, actually we went and introduced ourselves to the Ministry of Agriculture, that we are going to be part of this cluster so whatever food security and livelihoods cluster [meetings are] going on, our representative or our officer is always attending and then the activity relating to agriculture.
The LFAs also stated the need for more coordination and their recognition that coordination was valuable, and they should play a part in it:
We have attended what we call general NGOs’ coordination meeting and when we are in that, we realise the value of clusters’ meeting which is not in existence in Kajo Keji because most of them are done either in Juba… but of course, Kajo Keji is unprivileged because of the war and so all the things are done from outside but we have strongly recommended that we need this cluster meeting, which I know in the near future is going to be there.
This LFA interviewee points out the inequalities in the coordination system in itself, in that some regions are coordinated from outside of that region, which makes it more difficult for LFAs from that region to participate in coordination. In such a case, it is not feasible for an area-based LFA to travel to Juba for meetings and they are, by default, excluded from humanitarian coordination. Overall, the findings have demonstrated deep divides between LFAs and the international humanitarian system, with LFAs recognising many of their own faults and difficulties that have led to this divide but also outlining the many ways in which the international humanitarian system has operated to exclude them, intentionally and unintentionally, from participation.