Reimagining humanitarianism: relational accountability in locally-led responses

In debates on humanitarianism in the last decade or so, ‘localisation’ has been a central concern, broadly referring to the transfer of decision-making power, resources, and responsibility to local and national actors. While the inclusion of certain actors such as local and national non-governmental organisations (NGOs) is relatively straightforward, incorporating others — like affected communities themselves or local less formal civil society — is often more complex. The special issue on reimagining humanitarianism examines the transformative potential of centering communitarian practices, including mutual assistance networks, relational support systems, and local accountability frameworks, in order to rethink humanitarian action from the ground up. In this editorial, we focus on core themes in the individual articles in connection with research on local understandings and practices of accountability. ‘Local’ refers not only to actors in geographic proximity to the affected populations, but also to the embeddedness in social, cultural and accountability systems of the crisis-affected contexts. We argue that formal accountability mechanisms — systems that hold donors, NGOs, and implementing agencies responsible for their actions, decisions, and resource use — are valuable but can create an illusion of control in crisis settings. Humanitarian response is enacted by human beings, and it is ultimately human beings who hold each other to account. If accountability is truly understood as an opportunity to learn, grow, improve, in ways that include different stakeholders’ perspectives, it should be possible to achieve more reciprocal and genuine forms of accountability. This requires a perspective that centres and redefines understandings of power from a relational perspective.