Membership Engagement Advisor Amber Clarke (AC) sat down with the founder & CEO of Humanitarian Aid International, a Start Network India Humanitarian Hub Member, Sudhanshu S. Singh (SS) for a conversation about his article ‘Localisation – an unfinished Agenda Beyond 2026’ and the need for a transition to a decolonial localisation agenda.
With thanks to Vasundhara Pandey for facilitating this conversation.
The conversation below has been edited for succinctness.
AC: What inspired you to write this report?
SS: I’ve been involved with the Grand Bargain since the beginning, but limited progress has been made. Localisation should continue, but it must continue differently. As a local organisation, what we are desperate for is real change, and I want to see that change, before it is too late for me.
AC: Do you think there is a problem with the localisation frameworks and agendas themselves, or with their practical application?
SS: They can work, but something drastically different has to happen. We have so many good policies which reflect good intentions, but they are not changing anything in reality. This is due to strong elements of both colonialism and coloniality. These frameworks are largely Northern; they don't reflect us.
This is still white saviourism; someone has to save, and someone had to be saved, someone has to teach, and someone has to be taught.
As long as that mindset doesn’t go, we will just be producing frameworks without meaning them. And coloniality works both ways; we lack self-confidence, we have lost identity, we have lost self-esteem. That’s my struggle - I can’t change the Eurocentric capitalist world view, but can we try changing ourselves?
AC: You say it’s critical for localisation to have a de-colonial definition, why is that?
SS: Where did localisation emerge? Not in a Southern context, but at the World Humanitarian Summit, which was dominated by the UN and OECD-DAC countries. They decided that localisation is – ‘we will give you 25% of funding this way or that way’. But we were cashless economy once. If you are giving us money you are further enslaving us, you are further controlling us, you are not freeing our space. That’s why we call it ‘localisation/coloniality/modernity’.
[And] ...we are so desperate to get included in all these Western processes and Western funding because we have forgotten who we are, what systems we had before.
AC: I hadn’t heard the term capitalistic humanitarianism before. Can you tell me more about that?
SS: We have made our system so expensive. You need constant fuel to run your machinery. Where does it come from? It comes from crisis. Capitalistic humanitarianism loves public money, not institutional funding because its restricted, and for public contribution, the focus has to be on crisis. Ukraine for example, or Afghanistan. But not Palestine, Palestine is very political, so it’s risky. If you're really a humanitarian, then you won't worry about whether its Palestine or Ukraine. Wherever he is, you will go. But you want to remain politically correct to ensure your funding. So, Palestine? No, don't burn our fingers. Ukraine? Yes. You’ll raise a lot of money from the public. And you utilise it on your own sustenance. So instead of seeking solutions, if you are seeking problems to sustain yourself, this is capitalist humanitarianism.
…you don't need to localize, you need to re-localize.
AC: In your article you point out that humanitarianism was not started from the West, it was always present in the pre-colonial South. Does this provide some direction for the future of humanitarianism too?
SS: You should not move forward unless you have looked backwards. Think of the Indus Valley civilisation, several millennia ago. They had beautiful systems of flood management. Modern humanitarianism is not very old. Europe was not providing any aid before 1945. So, what were we doing, if there was a flood in India or Peru or Colombia or Kenya? Did they just die because no one was coming from Europe and America to save them? No. There was a response mechanism. But then you start considering yourself as a saviour, and you come and damage that local management. So, you don't need to localise, you need to re-localise.
AC: You say that Southern organisations require epistemic autonomy. What might this look like in practice?
SS: Decolonisation is easy, but decoloniality is very difficult because it’s a mental slavery. Sometimes when I listen to my Southern colleagues, it seems they think that those from the North are more knowledgeable and that they should come and build their capacity, train them and whatnot. When I hear this, I feel so miserable. We need to stop thinking that the Eurocentric world is better. What we need is a platform of decolonial thinkers who are also practitioners. Additionally, we have all these global events, but how many people leave truly knowledgeable? Can't we use these events to bring in people who speak so provocatively that they inspire others to start thinking? So that when we leave the space, we go as thinkers.
…availability of funding should be merged with brilliant ideas. If we do this, we will be transformative.
AC: How can Start Network ensure it is not falling into the traps you describe in your article?
SS: This type of work has tremendous potential, but we have to be careful when money is the driving force. The fundamental problem with being money oriented is you will not be idea oriented and so risk not capitalising on the potential. We need money, but it’s not the primary thing we need. Start Network is well placed to mobilise money, but availability of funding should be merged with brilliant ideas. If we do this, we will be transformative.
AC: Finally, you begun your own organisation in India several years ago. Have you been able to embed your perspectives and aims in your organisations practice?
SS: What I have been able to offer my colleagues is a purpose, that is our first achievement. The second is our local platform. We didn’t set up offices everywhere, instead we work through a platform of local organisations. We care for our frontline workers, we provide cover and insurance as widely as possible, to maybe 120 frontline individuals so far. The issue we face is that people want to know about the donor pipeline, and I don’t want to fall into that trap. I hate to talk only of money; I want to talk about ideas.