Humanitarian Reset: NW CSOs Demand Equal Role in Government-Led Coordination

By Uangbaoje Alex, Kaduna

Civil society organisations in North West State have raised concerns over the proposed government-led humanitarian coordination system, calling for genuine power-sharing, direct financing and equal decision-making roles for local actors.

The demand was made at the Zonal Conversation on Nigeria’s Humanitarian Reset: Strengthening Government Leadership, Locally Driven and Accountable Humanitarian Coordination, held in Kaduna on Thursday.

The one-day engagement, organised by Christian Aid Nigeria in partnership with EYN Projects, brought together local and national NGOs and other humanitarian stakeholders to examine Nigeria’s emerging humanitarian architecture and contribute regional perspectives to a national position paper.

Speaking at the event, Femi Johnson, Co-Chair, Health and Education Service Delivery of the Open Government Partnership in Kaduna, said many civil society organisations in the state had only recently become aware of the National Humanitarian and Localisation Framework.

Johnson acknowledged the good intentions of the framework but warned that greater government control of humanitarian coordination could create risks if adequate safeguards were not established.

“While the framework is well-intentioned, there is a strong concern that a government-led process could be politicised and used to advance partisan interests rather than community needs,” he said.

He identified four major areas of concern among Kaduna CSOs: institutional coordination, humanitarian financing, accountability, and eligibility and information management.

According to him, the existing arrangements do not provide for equal partnership and decision-making power between government and civil society organisations.

He also expressed concern over the absence of direct funding pathways for local organisations, saying this could undermine the objective of localisation.

On accountability, Johnson said there were inadequate mechanisms to guarantee transparent use and reporting of humanitarian resources, while unclear funding criteria and poor information-sharing between government and CSOs could further limit local participation.

“For localisation to work in Nigeria, power, resources and information must genuinely shift to local actors,” he said.

Johnson therefore called on government to deliberately embrace co-creation, where CSOs and government would have equal powers to participate in decisions affecting humanitarian response.

The concerns from North West CSOs echoed those raised by other participants and facilitators at the zonal engagement.

Christian Aid Programme Officer, Joseph Damian, said the Local Space Project was aimed at strengthening the capacity of local and national actors to participate in humanitarian response across its implementation regions, including Nigeria.

He said Christian Aid’s review of the National Localisation Framework was intended to understand the direction of the government’s humanitarian reset and ensure that local actors were able to influence the reforms.

Damian said there was a significant disparity in humanitarian knowledge and engagement between regions, with the North-East benefiting from a much stronger presence of international humanitarian organisations because of the scale of the crisis there.

He said the North-West and North-Central therefore needed targeted engagement to ensure their realities were reflected in the emerging national framework.

“We want the leadership, participation and voices of local and national organisations captured in that framework before its release in 2027,” he said.

Damian warned that excluding local organisations could turn the humanitarian reset into a top-down government initiative disconnected from communities.

“Local and national organisations are the first responders in humanitarian crises; they understand these communities and their needs better than anyone else,” he said.

Facilitator Ayodele Martins said the Kaduna conversation was designed to give local NGOs an independent platform to scrutinise the national humanitarian working document and identify operational concerns.

Martins said the initial research had focused heavily on the North-East because of the region’s humanitarian needs and international donor attention, but the subsequent consultations in Plateau and Kaduna were intended to broaden the process.

He said local NGOs were expected to identify how the proposed framework would affect their operations, itemise gaps and propose practical solutions based on realities on the ground.

According to Martins, the decision to hold the session without government representatives was deliberate, allowing participants to provide candid feedback.

He raised concerns about trust, corruption, administrative capacity and potential conflicts of interest in a government-led humanitarian system.

He also pointed to the continued implementation gap surrounding previous localisation commitments, including the 2016 localisation agenda.

“While a centralised funding basket managed by the state sounds ideal in theory, the underlying lack of trust and coordination presents a major red flag for effective execution,” Martins said.

The Kaduna consultation forms part of a wider process following the National Conversation on Nigeria’s Humanitarian Reset held in Abuja.

Christian Aid Nigeria plans to consolidate inputs from North West and the North-Central consultation in Jos with findings from its review of Nigeria’s humanitarian and localisation policies and frameworks.

The recommendations are expected to feed into a National Position Paper on Nigeria’s Humanitarian Reset, which will subsequently be used to engage the Federal Government and other humanitarian stakeholders.

The emerging debate centres not on whether government should play a stronger leadership role, but on how that leadership can be structured to remain locally driven, participatory, transparent and accountable.

For the CSOs, the test of the humanitarian reset will ultimately be whether localisation translates into actual transfer of power, resources and information to organisations and communities closest to humanitarian needs.