Africa-Press – Uganda. Local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have raised concern over the reduction in foreign aid to the organisations, which they say has left many on the brink of collapse.
Speaking to journalists at a stakeholders meeting during the launch of the ensuring localisation in Uganda in Kampala recently, the country director of Street Child, Mr Henry Mayanja, said the main aim of the agenda is to streamline funds to help local NGOs that are struggling to access international funds.
“Due to the outbreak of Covid-19, international funding is shrinking and local NGOs are more affected,” he said
He added: “Every sector is going to be affected due to the drop in foreign aid because for the last three years under the Education Cannot Wait (EWC) project headed by Consortium Management Unit and Save the Children, Shs123b was allocated but now it has dropped to Shs91b, which is a big challenge to the education sectors,” he said.
Mr Mayanja said the localisation agenda will allow the local population to come up with solutions to various issues that the NGOs are facing.
The executive director of Young African Refugees for Integral Development (YARID), Mr Robert Hakiza, said they have been struggling to get funds.
“We had planned to extend two activities in refugee camps by 2020 but they were all put on hold because of the shrinking funds from international donors,” he said.
He added that many people do not trust local NGOs because many have been accused of misusing funds.
“This has also contributed to the drop in international funding.”
About localisation
Localisation means the process restricting something to a particular place.
The 2016 humanitarian summit agreement was committed to promote localisation and to ensure that by 2020 at least 25 percent of funding is channelled through local and national responders, including State actors as directly as possible.
Global Humanitarian Assistance Report 2021 states that despite promises made across the aid sector to increase the funding flow and support to local organisations, in reality only a fraction of these commitments have materialised.
Currently only 3.1 percent of humanitarian funding goes directly to national actors and they are often heavily excluded from decision making forums.
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