Should INGOs take money for being the middleman?

Too many global north organizations are still willing to play the middleman between donors and local organizations. That was the message delivered by Sara Pantuliano, chief executive of the ODI think tank, during an event for Devex Pro members. Localization is certainly a major challenge for donors, she said. But it’s not just a donor problem. “It’s also a challenge for us [partners and implementers] in helping them work differently,” she said. “We’ve been pushing back, saying ‘this money can go directly to our partners, we can still work together but we don’t need to be the pass-through … There are other ways to … discharge your fiduciary responsibilities without having to come through a global north organization’,” she said. “It’s a long journey and not everyone is there and there are still too many organizations that are very happy to be the pass-through or determine what colleagues in local and national organizations should be doing,” she went on. “But the more we speak together in terms of the change we want to see, the more this is going to happen. The more we push donors to think differently, the more they’ll have to accept that actually the modus operandi is really no longer fit for purpose.” Pantuliano was speaking during a Devex Pro Leader Roundtable reflecting on lessons learned during 2023. The session focused heavily on the drive toward localization. She also said that too much of the conversation about localization has focused on money, when more attention needed to be given to a shift in power. “What worries me the most is … [that] we don’t talk about decision making,” she said. “Because even if we had more money going to local and national organizations, if they’re not really empowered to decide what this money should be used for … we’re not really changing the power structures.” Abby Maxman, CEO of Oxfam America, said that for global north organizations, the work of localization needs to be both internal and external. Within the Oxfam confederation, a lot of work has been done to shift the balance of power, she said. “It’s money, it’s governance, it’s decision-making, it’s power, and it’s messy,” she said. “It’s been hard and complicated and it’s a process that continues.” At the same time as reckoning with those internal changes, organizations must simultaneously engage in external systems-level change across the aid system, she said. Listen to the full discussion below: