Local and National NGOs: Operating in the Spaces Between

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In 2025 humanitarian donor funding contracted by between 34% and 45% and international organizations and systems reacted. They have responded not only to financial reductions, but to perceptions of duplication and inefficiency. Immediate solutions have been rolled out to mitigate the financial crisis and improve public perception (e.g., staff reductions, mandate rationalization), and longer-term proposals are being debated to address a new future with less funding and higher expectations of targeted impact.

Image by Angelo Giordano from Pixabay

Among these proposals, and demands, is a genuine pursuit . While there is no single agreed-upon definition of localization, it is generally considered to be a shifting of power and leadership from international actors to local and national actors, through equal partnerships, direct funding and representation in decision making bodies. The Grand Bargain in 2016 foregrounded localization in humanitarian action by establishing commitments with targets agreed upon by major donors and humanitarian organizations.

The proposed path that localization takes in the future depends on the intentions of those currently in leadership positions in the sector. One status-quo path has the primary goal of improving efficiency for international organizations and their architecture, with national actors being an instrument to achieving that. Another path has a goal of fundamentally centering local and national actors, their systems and ways of working to lead humanitarian action, with international organizations being an instrument to that transfer.

For this latter transformative path, international actors will need to de-center themselves and look outside their international architecture. They will also need to set aside the stereotypes of local and national actors and see them as successors. This means understanding and appreciating they occupy and the diverse roles they hold in those spaces, both of which haven’t been well understood, acknowledged or legitimized. Liminal spaces have been described by Alasdair Gordon-Gibson as places where humanitarian action meets and engages with the reality of politics and power, and by Larissa Fast as roles that shift between formal and informal systems and operate at the margins of traditional humanitarian order.

This blog draws from a literature review on one segment of local and national actors, the local and national non-governmental organization (LNNGO), with a focus on South Sudan, a country with over 230 LNNGOs working to address humanitarian needs, pursue development and foster peace. This case provides a glimpse into the liminal spaces LNNGOs occupy in the international humanitarian architecture and their own countries, operating within and between the boundaries of different systems.

Working across the boundaries of the Nexus, and the Public-Private divide

The triple nexus is an approach to strengthen the coherence and linkages amongst actors and actions across these three pillars of work. In South Sudan the three pillars are still largely theorized, funded and implemented within one or another. An integrated approach is mostly conceptual for international actors’ work as noted by Tschunkert et al. This gap between theory and practice can be attributed to a number of factors, humanitarian adherence to neutrality, and how an integrated approach is even defined.

The space between the pillars, where the nexus occurs in practice, is occupied by LNNGOs. Though seemingly new, the integrated approach is a familiar way of working for many LNNGOs, reminiscent of . Conceived in the 1980-1990s, LRRD was based on a linear continuum model where one phase of assistance prepared the ground for the next. In the space between the silos, distinctions become less stark. Development, humanitarian and peace labels are less relevant, and LNNGOs labeled as one or another don’t necessarily see themselves or their work in those rigid terms. In many cases the necessities of everyday humanitarian action do not allow an organization to work solely on one of the pillars.

Intersectional Translator

LNNGOs have sustained operations, physical presence and integration in communities making them community anchors that hold an understanding of interconnected needs, from both a nexus and sectoral perspective (e.g., livelihoods, health, etc.). They see communities in a holistic manner, not simply their immediate need but the evolution from the short to long term. Though donor financing is generally for short-term projects, LNNGOs’

For instance, faith-based organisations interviewed by De Wolf and Wilkinson described how their projects might include peacebuilding work, with education, livelihoods, and food security all at once. As one staff member put it, “it’s difficult to distinguish between the triple nexus” because their work “is mingled and the boundaries between them are blurred.”

Systems Weaver

Across volatile contexts with peaks and troughs of need, LNNGOs adjust their course of work from long-term development and peace activities to emergency activities addressing sudden need, and vice versa. They weave systems and single pillar-funded projects together implementing the nexus outside formal mechanisms. With competitive funding environments this may even mean they take on projects that do not closely align with their technical strengths.

In De Wolf and Wilkinson’s research local actors said their proximity to communities enables them to work through the nexus pillars in a cohesive manner that addresses both long and short-term need. One local actor explained with an example of how examining and addressing the inter-relationship between cattle-raiding and food insecurity was both a peace and humanitarian activity. Local organisations often use different pools of money to achieve these ends, making unflexible funding become flexible.

Social Cohesion Actor

LNNGOs overcome tensions between humanitarian and peace activity as on-the-ground social cohesion actors. The literature often distinguishes between ‘small p’ peace (community-level cohesion and conflict prevention) and ‘Big P’ peace (disarmament, demobilization, stabilization and peacekeeping activities), Tschunkert et al note how ambiguity around the concept of the peace pillar altogether leads donors to focus on tangible small p activities. Typically carried out in volatile settings, off limits to international staff, LNNGOs are tapped as sub-contractors of small p work, as pointed out by Kemmerling, and through this are the de facto nexus implementers.

Political Broker

Navigating power, relationships and resources LNNGOs leverage their comparative advantage, bridging the worlds of local populations, government authorities, donors and aid agencies. With a fluency in the language and rules of the aid system, LNNGOs serve as liaisons between communities and other actors. Moro et al note how LNNGOs serve as interlocutors between communities and aid agencies, including the government. Where communities often lack resources and ability to engage with aid actors on an equal footing, per Kemmerling, LNNGOs have a ‘feel for the game’ of how aid works, e.g., the rules, language, negotiating relationships in different spaces

Basic Service Provider

LNNGOs hold an amalgamated role of both public and social. While operating as NGOs, they often have considerably more resources than local government. Because of that they also have public authority and deliver basic services typically performed by government. Moro et al described LNNGOs as having visible, material signs of authority over that of the government, e.g., vehicles, phones, access to flights, and importantly the funding to deliver services of public benefit. This gives them a public authority, that can be seen as a challenge to government. Tchunkert et al note how this usurping of authority is architected at the national level, with donors circumventing governments to deliver services through the UN and INGOs.

Advocate & Employer

Oftentimes delivering in the communities they are from, LNNGOs bring benefit to their home. They often serve as representatives that advocate for their community, raising awareness of needs at the national level. In Robinson’s research one local actor described national NGOs as ‘mouthpieces’, saying, “if you have a certain community that have no local organisations, the issues, you know, conditions, the pains, the stresses, of certain communities, will not be advocated for”.

They also importantly serve as employers, capacity builders and a rung on the career ladder for local talent’s professional mobility, to the extent that employment is often seen as one of the major impacts of NGO work. In both Moro et al. and Robinson’s research, local NGO employment and leadership was a way to ‘become known’, helping many LLNGO founders and staff move into work with the government and international organizations.

Moving Forward

As the aid system is reshaped toward a leaner and more decentralized future, with localization seen as crucial, a transformational approach is needed. One that recognizes and legitimizes the liminal spaces where national and local actors thrive, and one that moves them from the margins to the center of humanitarian action. Their diverse roles in these liminal spaces must be acknowledged and seen not as deficiencies, but as vital capacities for a new aid paradigm.

About the author

Lisa M. Peterson is a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies, focusing on humanitarian governance, localization, and NGO coordination.

Politics of Food and Technology Series | The digital paradox: Digital food assistance in Sudan as a tool for efficiency or exploitation?

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This blog is part of a series on ‘the Politics of Food and Technology’, in collaboration with the SOAS Food Studies Centre. All of the blogs in this series are contributions made at the International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA) Conference in Istanbul-Bergen, October 2025, to the panel with a similar title. To read the rest of the blogs in this series, please click here.

In this blog, Tamer Abd Elkreem (University of Khartoum) and Susanne Jaspars (SOAS) argue that digitalised food assistance in  Sudan presents an extreme case of digitalisation as lifesaving but at the same time its weaponisation through internet shutdowns. It feeds into power relations and a violent, extractive political economy by excluding some of the most marginalised and functioning as a tool for economic and political control.

Food assistance has a long history in Sudan, as has its manipulation for political purposes. Efforts to digitalise finance, food, and social assistance started in the mid-2010s for reasons of access, accountability and efficiency, including through the use of biometric ID cards, pre-paid bank cards, electronic vouchers, online self-registration, and mobile money. These initiatives  involve a range of organisations, authorities, and companies (e.g. telecoms, internet providers, banks, merchants). The current war and its humanitarian repercussions offer a critical lens through which to examine the dual nature of digitalisation: it is a life-saving intervention as it is one of the only ways that aid can be provided to crisis-affected people since the start of the 2023 war. At the same time, though, digitalisation leads to new exclusions and feeds into inequalities. We argue that the digitalisation of food assistance must be understood within the context of asymmetrical power relations, competing interests, and political economy. 

The weaponisation of communications 

The manipulation of communication systems has become a weapon of war . The banking system collapsed in April 2023 with the start of the war between Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) from April 2023.  The Bank of Khartoum had the only banking app (Bankak) that continued to function, because it had developed online solutions separate from the Central Bank infrastructure and was not dependent on its electronic switch. It soon became the main way of assisting people in Sudan, as international humanitarian organisations left, and – already limited – government social protection programmes stopped. Moving physical goods across the frontline  (that divides the east from the west of the country)  became almost impossible.  

In February 2024, the RSF sabotaged government internet service providers (in large parts of Sudan, including Darfur, Khartoum, and Al-Gezira), stopping communication and digital cash transfers for at least 2 months until it was gradually restored in some areas.  At the same time, RSF and affiliated traders brought in Starlink satellite dishes from Chad and United Arab Emirates to provide internet services. They could benefit economically from charging fees for internet access but more importantly, could control communications and conduct surveillance of the population. In war-affected areas, Bankak and Starlink devices have become the only means of access for besieged communities, for examples in cities like Al-Fashir during much of 2024 and 2025. In our research, we see that access to Starlink internet access is clearly linked to war dynamics and stability of RSF control: the more securely held, the more Starlink services and the lower the cost of access. In areas of active war Starlinks services are subject to heavy security surveillance or are confiscated to prevent its used for intelligence communications to SAF.  In October 2025, the RSF at first live-streamed their massacres in Al-Fashir to show their capture of the city, but following widespread international condemnation completely blocked communications to cover up the atrocities.   

Digital exclusions 

Though digital cash transfers provide aid to some, many are excluded. Clearly, the internet shutdowns discussed above are the most extreme form of exclusion. Otherwise, humanitarian operations have been underfunded, and digital innovations by international organisations (self-registration, digital vouchers, wallets and platforms) remain small scale and experimental. Charitable people in Sudan and diaspora outside the country provide cash to relatives and friends, often connected via WhatsApp, or send it to community initiatives such as soup kitchens (Takaya) and Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs). Money is most often transferred via Bankak. In the aftermath of the Al-Fashir invasion, these same WhatsApp groups became a tool for extortion. Sudanese abroad deleted the groups when it became apparent that the RSF used them to identify foreign contacts to demand ransom payments as well as to identify SAF collaborators.   

So what happens to people who do not have relatives in the diaspora? In parts of Al-Gezira, we see deepening inequalities. The labourers previously working on the agricultural scheme are historically marginalised in terms of land ownership, and access to land, and social services.  Few have relatives abroad. They now have no work, no diaspora aid, and are less represented on aid committees. Even if they did have friends to send money, since the SAF recapture the internet is weak and few banks are operating, and most are undocumented citizens.   

For mobile money transfers, you need a bank account, an ID document, as well as a smartphone, which many in rural areas do not have. In many parts of Sudan, particularly in Darfur, people did not have these because they mistrusted government (and banks) and did not want to be visible to the state. This necessarily limited self-registration for international aid programmes using online applications, as well as who could receive transfers from diaspora.  Those who did have Bankak accounts could make large profits by charging for the transfer. In RSF areas, where banks remain closed, merchants or businesses act as mini-banks. Our researchers documented the range of fees that businesses charged for money transfer transactions, and that the charge is directly related to level of insecurity and market functionality, ranging from 5% in relatively secure areas, up to 70% in the extreme case of tightened siege of Al-Fashir.  

Those who did not receive sufficient assistance from organisations or through social networks, went into debt, carried out precarious work (like e.g. cleaning, cooking, petty trade – if markets were functioning), or migrated to work in gold mines. Some joined the army or militia: and so, fed directly into the war.    

Feeding into unequal power relations and political economy 

Digital banking and digital aid feeds into power relations and political economy through the practices used and businesses and authorities involved. Over the past year, Sudan has seen a rapid expansion of digital banking. The government enforced financial digitalisation by issuing new banknotes, a move that created a vast digital trap. Sudanese citizens were required to deposit old, unbanked cash into financial institutions but faced severe withdrawal limits, precipitating a cash crisis. This scarcity, in turn, pushed more people toward digital payments.  Humanitarian organisations initiated and helped promote digital cash transfers where they had not done so before. This change also provided the government with funds for the war and undermined the economic system in areas controlled by the RSF. The RSF, in response, maintains the use of the old currency and is establishing its own currency system illegalising the new banknotes in its controlled areas.   

In Sudan, the most strategic telecommunication and financial sectors had long been privatized, and mostly owned by foreign countries who are also heavily investing the war. For instance, more than 80% Bank of Khartoum, which has lions share in the digital financialization, is owned by UAE. We are also witnessing a phenomenon in which the state is being bypassed by digitalisation – including by privately-owned Starlink satellite dishes and solar panels (in places like Darfur), digital technologies using blockchain and platforms that bypass banks, and many organisations use US-based multi-national corporations to store their data. Digitalised food assistance programmes are not  only eroding national sovereignty from this aspect only but also by weakening the social contract; no one, these days, is talking about the responsibilities of the state.   

Conclusion 

The unprecedented crisis in Sudan reveals the digitalisation of food assistance as both a lifeline and a threat, a tool that connects vulnerable communities, that both mitigates and perpetuates emergencies, and saves lives while feeding the very forces that endanger them. Through data extractivism, it simultaneously erodes national capacities, agencies, and legitimacy. Digitalisation needs to be considered from the perspective of these wider parameters rather than from a purely technical one.  

More Reading: 

This blog post uses findings from an ERSC-funded project entitled: Digitalising food assistance: Political economy, governance and food security effects across the Global North-South divide.  See: https://digitalisingfood.org/. 

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

 

About the authors:
Tamer Elkreem
Tamer Abd Elkreem is a Co-Investigator/Sudan lead researcher of the project. He is a lecturer at the department of Sociology and Social Anthropology and the Deputy Director of Peace Research, University of Khartoum. His research interest focuses on power relations of development, Anthropology of post-colonial state, anthropology of mega developmental projects and critical analysis of its discourses and practices in Sudan.
Susanne Jaspars
Susanne Jaspars is the Principal Investigator of the project.  She is a Senior Research Fellow at the SOAS Food Studies Centre.  Susanne researches the political dynamics of food in situations of conflict, famine, and humanitarian crisis.  Ongoing interests include: regimes of food practices and power relations, social approaches to nutrition and accountability for mass starvation, European migration and asylum policies and their effects.  She has worked mostly in the Horn of Africa, often Sudan.

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IHSA Conference Series: A shrinking humanitarian space requires a New Way of Thinking

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This blog is part of a series contributed by presenters at the International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA) Conference, held in Istanbul and Bergen in October 2025. Here, Alasdair Gordon-Gibson looks into the changing context for humanitarian action, and argues for a new and broader approach that embraces diversities of actors, approaches, and contextuality. 

Photo Credit: Chris F via Pexels

Many of the issues raised in the panels at the IHSA Conference, have focused on civilian protection. Most discussions centre around perceptions of a diminished humanitarian space and a lack of respect for humanitarian principles, as well as a loss of trust in its participants. My research argues that the space for principled humanitarian action has not diminished, but that changes in the geo-political landscape, with a growing diversity of stakeholders and increasing agency of affected populations, has meant that the nature of space for shared discussion has altered. To regain trust and access in this changed environment, humanitarians must learn a new way of thinking and talking that is more inclusive, respectful, and confident in the universal value of its discourse. 

This requires a solution that looks beyond resetting the current patterns of policy and practice and turns towards a radical change in the way we think around the humanitarian engagement with politics and power. It will mean uncomfortable participation in spaces of engagement that challenge the traditional humanitarian approaches around neutrality and impartiality.  

Most working in the humanitarian sector consider the principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence as being an essential and pre-existing part of the expression of ‘humanity’, and that are universally applicable regardless of context or culture. However, to many analysts they were established – like the organisations themselves – at a particular historical juncture and so may represent an ethos that is questioned or rejected by stakeholders outside of their foundational traditions. To regain relevance in a revised space requires confident engagement with the prevailing context of humanitarian action. This means acknowledgement of the political identity of the humanitarian sector, and recognition of its social agency: its interface with established and non-established power. 

Auxiliary or Anarchist? The freedom to choose 

Scholars of Social Identity Theory have observed that people’s orientation towards authorities change once they have established a social bond, meaning that incorporation into the social fabric of public life increases the likelihood of a more considered interpretation of the intent of authority and its auxiliary structures. The construction of social capital, and its associated features of trust, norms of behaviour and mutual obligation, have been linked to an emergence of community participation, where voluntary engagement with state or non-state authority is seen to be a product of shared values and a culture of responsibility to one’s community and society.  

Interpretations of the auxiliary role has often been a contested concept in humanitarian engagement. As humanitarians, we are always an auxiliary in some form, most importantly to the community in crisis, but also often to the established or unestablished authorities and other stakeholders in the emergency response. The question posed here is how to navigate this relationship? How to challenge authority when red lines are crossed? 

There is history of a legitimated identity to question and challenge authority that shares a common genealogy stretching from Europe to the Middle East and beyond. The traditions and politics are different, but there is a universal expression of dignity and respect, and the voluntary impulse to protect these values, that is common to all. Participating in the discourse of power and playing an influential part as a trusted challenge to authority is not absent from the contemporary humanitarian environment. Examples are evident when local actors and national politicians choose to resist authority – or are auxiliaries to authority but have access to opposition discourse. 

Context Matters 

There are no blueprints for a humanitarian response, since in every case the social and the political dynamics are different: context matters. The rise in authoritarianism, inequality and social injustices exacerbated by political authoritarianism, and environmental catastrophes through climate change, means that new social movements will emerge and so the formal humanitarian system must adapt in order to respond. This means acknowledging the hierarchies of politics and power and working more transparently with them. Access and engagement in this changing context require a new humanitarian approach. Humanitarian principles must be the lodestar guiding the ethical and operational compass but with recognition of their limits.  Prescriptions of rules and principles do not mean their universal acceptance or applicability in all contexts: a dogmatic prescription of rules and procedures neglects the reality of people striving to survive in a crisis. 

Mistrust and disappointment with the global political responses to conflicts and complex emergencies, where a sense of humanity is seen as a diminishing concept in humanitarian responses, has led for increasing calls for solidarity with affected populations that identifies a shared humanity. Disenchantment with political authority makes it more important than ever to engage with the political discussion, rather than distancing from it in the quest for absolute neutrality, impartiality, and independence. It means influencing political decisions in a bolder way that promotes the social agency of the humanitarian identity: one that engages in a discussion that is less dogmatic and directs towards a space for discourse around an ordinary humanitarian society rather than an ordered humanitarian system. I suggest that reconsideration of the two ‘orphaned’ Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement Fundamental Principles of Voluntary Service and Universality,  interpreted and understood in the contexts of contemporary conflicts, will help drive a principled discourse with power and politics that is able to be in solidarity with the most vulnerable: an auxiliary when it works and an anarchist when it does not. 

 

ENDNOTES

IHSA 2025 – Panel: Politics of humanitarianism: power, influence, and governance. Session Friday 17th October: ‘The politics of humanitarian negotiations.’ 

This blog presents arguments and ideas published in a short article entitled ‘Resetting the Moral compass’ Global Policy, 26 August 2025 https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/26/08/2025/resetting-moral-compass and an earlier piece ‘An Ordinary Humanitarian Society’ in Public Anthropologist, 20th August 2025 https://publicanthropologist.cmi.no/2025/08/20/an-ordinary-humanitarian-society-trust-and-solidarity-in-contexts-of-confrontation/ 

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

 

Alasdair Gordon-Gibson

Alasdair Gordon-Gibson worked for 25 years within the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. Awarded a PhD in International Relations from the University of St Andrews he is currently an Honorary Lecturer with the Graduate School for Interdisciplinary Studies, University of St Andrews. Email agg2@st-andrews.ac.uk

 

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