Patronage or Partnership: Local Capacity Building in Humanitarian Crises

As conflicts rage, is it realistic for the international community to hope to build local capacity? Or should it focus solely on delivering assistance? Are current patterns of north-south interaction helpful in the resolving of humanitarian crises? Can we move away from the compartmentalisation of humanitarian relief into small boxes and short time-frames?

A book by the Humanitarianism and War Project uses case studies from international aid practitioners to locate the trade-offs between outsiders doing what they can to meet people’s needs during a humanitarian emergency and those working to build longer-term capacities among local organisations to deal with their own problems. Detailing considerable confusion and a token commitment to local capacity building by externally-driven relief programmes, it nevertheless finds grounds for optimism.

A review of the literature on capacity building in complex emergencies shows that at times the concept of strengthening local organisations is barely visible. Even when intentions are good, outsiders have difficulty working effectively with local organisations during humanitarian emergencies. The relationship is more often one of patronage than partnership. Training and service delivery is mistakenly equated with capacity building. Understanding and analysis of the local situation is usually limited.

Autor(es)	Contributor: Ian Smillie
Fecha de Publicación	2003-06-26 9:00
Lugar de Publicación	Kumarian Press, USA
Sitio Web para este libro	Sitio Web para este libro
Idioma de Contenido	Inglés
Palabras clave	emergnencies capacity building