Acciones tomadas:
The Australian Government and Australian Red Cross (ARC) have sustained focus on strengthening locally led humanitarian action through a longstanding partnership. In 2019, ARC, supported by the Australian Government, worked with local partners and transformed its international program to prioritise localisation, including prioritising local hiring. In line with this refocussing, ARC closed their in-country offices and ceased employment of overseas-based staff. They instead extended funding to support National Societies’ own staffing decisions, and offered remote support with periodic country visits as needed. Staff roles in Australia have been streamlined from 93 in 2015 to 33 in 2024, and now provide more targeted international surge to support, not replace, local expertise.
The ongoing program focuses on providing core flexible funding to, and building the financial sustainability of, nine National Societies in Asia and the Pacific. It also emphasises improving the effectiveness of locally led disaster risk management and influencing humanitarian system reform.
Key actions during the reporting period:
- The ARC-DFAT partnership has strengthened National Society institutional and financial sustainability through multi-year flexible funding and provision of technical support.
- Alongside IFRC, ICRC, American Red Cross and New Zealand Red Cross, ARC and DFAT have supported Pacific partners’ financial stability by funding core costs, facilitating peer-to-peer networks, and enabling local resource mobilisation and business development.
- ARC assisted 9 National Societies to develop robust integrity frameworks for governance, fraud prevention, strong financial management, and adherence to Protection, Gender, and Inclusion standards.
- ARC offered technical and financial support to National Societies across the disaster management spectrum. In 2021, using the IFRC Preparedness for Effective Response framework and flexible methodologies such as real time evaluations and desk top simulations, ARC helped Fiji, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu Red Cross Societies review and enhance their organisational preparedness. Tonga Red Cross reported this helped them to prepare staff and volunteers to respond to the subsequent Tonga Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcanic eruption and tsunami response.
- ARC and the Australian Government established two flexible funding mechanisms to support National Society response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent El Niño event. Despite significant challenges faced by national societies during the COVD-19 pandemic, a flexible funding totalling AUD1.41 million ensured Pacific National Societies could play a critical role in the COVID-19 response, often supporting their national ministries of health. During 2020-22, this funding allowed 10 Pacific societies to continue to operate and respond rapidly to needs, upskill staff and volunteers, and scale operations. In 2023-24, the El Niño Flexible Fund (totalling AUD2 million) is supported National Societies’ preparedness and early response activities in Vanuatu, Fiji (twice) and Marshall Islands.
- ARC Investments in disaster policy and legal frameworks have bolstered the National Societies’ auxiliary role. Advocacy training, peer exchanges, and funding for participation in policy forums have enhanced their capabilities to engage and influence national and regional humanitarian policies.
- ARC has conducted various studies to generate evidence on locally led action in the Pacific to inform its own work and wider learnings in the sector:
- Protecting people in locally led disaster response (2019)
- Local response in a global pandemic: A case study of the Red Cross response to Tropical Cyclone Harold during COVID-19 in Vanuatu and Fiji (2020)
- Double Disaster: a case study of the CVTL response to the 2021 floods during COVID-19 (2022)
- The long tail of COVID-19: The financial impacts of the pandemic on the sustainability and resource mobilisation of local actors in the Asia Pacific region (2022)
- Localisation in protracted crises and fragile settings (2023)
In addition to its partnership with ARC, and in line with the International Development Policy, the Australian Government released guidance in 2024 on locally led development, including humanitarian action, and performance indicators to track funding to local and national partners. DFAT’s three-year research partnership with the Humanitarian Advisory Group (HAG) has generated evidence on locally led action, including a framework to measure localisation at the community level focused on the Asia-Pacific region, now adopted by the Australian NGO Humanitarian Partnership (AHP). In AHP’s Disaster READY program (funded by the Australian Government), the Disaster READY Country Committees (DRCCs), have developed Country Level Localisation Plans that outline how all partners are contributing towards greater locally led humanitarian action through Disaster READY projects.
