February Editorial - 2026
EMERGENCY
Less funding, more needs: Why the humanitarian system needs to change!
This editorial is the result of a reflection on the attitudes that international NGOs and their donors continue to have in response to the support provided in emergency situations, in the case of Mozambique, which suffers from two permanent catastrophic situations: the war in the north of the country and the disasters caused by climate change.
We must pay full attention to disaster response, and we have little time and limited resources to review the country's well-identified and approved Integrated Development Programs.
All attention is focused on responding to the needs of war-torn communities, sovereign communities in Cabo Delgado, Nampula and Niassa, or that have increased the effects of flooding in Sofala, Inhambane, Gaza and Maputo Province. As a result, aid for reconstruction and development programs is at a standstill. There is no talk of housing, permanence, the protection of women, the construction of schools, the basis of medicines and so many other rights to which the country must respond. Cooperation is a whole race!
And in all this, the problem remains of transferring the service into the hands of local organizations, which have long been recognized as direct operators to respond to the country's needs. The following intonation aims to highlight this last aspect!
The concept of COMMUNITY RESTART, what does it consist of?
The international aid system is under pressure: funding is decreasing, needs are increasing, and the capacity to respond seems increasingly insufficient. Hence the proposal for a true "humanitarian reset", a process that aims to radically transform the way aid is conceived, organised and managed.
In recent months, significant budget cuts at USAID — one of the world's largest donors — have had a domino effect on the entire system. But the American case is only the tip of the iceberg: in many donor countries, international aid is now seen as disposable, while governments shift resources to domestic priorities. The result is a paradox: as humanitarian crises intensify, the United Nations is forced to reduce its targets. Approximately two-thirds of people in need are therefore at risk of being left without help.
I will take advantage of a reflection by the President of OCHA to better identify the process of how to move from words to action.
It is the concept of Humanitarian Reset, which I intend to focus on and defend in the face of the attitudes of "Charity" and "distrust" that donors continue to have in humanitarian aid programs, and which has given me a positive vision for the near future.
The Humanitarian Restart Concept , launched by OCHA, aims to propose a renewed and more sustainable vision of international aid.
The operational plan revolves around four strategic directions, the "4Ds":
DEEVOLVE - Decentralize: Transfer power and resources from international actors to local actors, through a new advisory committee composed of national humanitarian organizations.
DEFENDER - Defend: Protecting humanitarian principles and international law in an increasingly hostile political context.
DELIVER - Apply: Improve the efficiency and impact of aid with limited resources, avoiding duplication and waste.
DEFINE - Define: Redefine the core mission of the humanitarian system, focusing efforts where needs are most urgent.
For many, it finally represents the recognition of years of advocating for localization of aid and a greater centrality of organizations rooted in communities.
HOWEVER,
this structure is being received with cautious optimism by NGOs, governments and UN agencies, and in practice it remains a utopia, a good wish, that in practice it is better not to join and to maintain trust in International Organizations and NGOs in the face of the deprivation of National Organizations.
The same OCHA, which last year proclaimed its full adherence to humanitarian service through local NGOs, currently prefers to return funds to international NGOs, which necessarily spend more than half of the amounts on bureaucratic responses, leaving the rest of the funds to be carried out by National NGOs. One lives by contradictions! Between the proclamation and the chosen process!
The central issue remains that of funding. Institutional donors are becoming increasingly risk-averse: they prefer consolidated, controllable channels rather than directly funding local organizations, which are considered less reliable.
However, true localization requires precisely the opposite: trust, flexibility, and risk-sharing. ... Shared responsibility and greater proximity to communities, without sacrificing transparency.
We must continue to fight for this to happen, so that the mountains of Clusters instituted by International Organizations end, duplicating services that belong to the INGD and the same Government, creating a set of separate, highly specialized and efficient sectors, while the amounts are spent on bureaucracies and nothing or little reaches the needy! We must continue to demand these rights to be direct operators in the construction of the country after the state of emergency and consider internationals as collaborators and facilitators of humanitarian processes.
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Yours sincerely,
Dominic Liuzzi,
National Director of KULIMA.
