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Background

Many of the challenges the world is facing today can only be addressed through multi-stakeholder collaboration and through transformative locally-led solutions. Business as usual is no longer an option.

According to the August update of Global Humanitarian Overview 363 million people worldwide are in need of humanitarian assistance, and $55.2 billion is required to reach 248 million people out of that. So far, donors have provided $15.8 billion (29%) of funding and that means a large number of people will remain deprived of humanitarian assistance to recover from shocks. According to the 2023 Global Humanitarian Assistance report, more than half of all people in need over the past five years live in just 10 countries facing protracted crises. Approximately 83% requiring humanitarian support now live in countries facing protracted crises.

On the one hand, there is a growing commitment to channel more funds to local and national actors, and on the other, donors are increasingly spending more ODA on hosting refugees within their own countries. This is happening at a time when people requiring assistance, mainly in the Global South are facing conflict, impact of climate and/or socioeconomic vulnerability. That underlines the necessity of a nexus approach to strengthening the resilience and self-reliance of communities who face frequent shocks either by natural or human-induced disasters and thereby are unable to break the structural barriers of poverty and vulnerability.

It seems a very timely initiative from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Denmark, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to organise a Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus conference on 5-6 October 2023 in Copenhagen.

It’s commendable that the organisers are making sure of having adequate in-person representation of local and national actors. The background paper of the conference rightly acknowledges, ‘there is a greater need for locally led solutions and the leadership of local actors, who are present before, during, and after a crisis, and therefore well situated to take a more holistic and integrated approach to humanitarian, development, and peace programming’. The three stated objectives, presented below, keep local actors at centre stage:

  1. Improving coordination and collaboration across the HDP nexus, including by integrating local actors into planning and processes from the outset to advance locally led solutions.

  2. Strengthening the institutional capacities and collective resilience of local actors to more effectively and sustainably end cycles of crisis.

  3. Maximising the effectiveness of existing funding streams across the nexus (including how to incorporate and leverage climate finance) and identifying opportunities to overcome barriers for local actors in accessing higher quality nexus funding.