NEAR members signing on to our first Townhall of 2026 were welcomed with the powerful reggae beats of Bob Marley’s Zimbabwe, that set the rhythms of solidarity amongst our members from the very beginning of the 2-hour gathering. The Jamaica-born Marley’s song from 1979 about Zimbabwe’s liberation is one about self-determination and demonstrates South-to-South Solidarity. It was a fitting introduction for our network’s first all-member meeting built on the same foundation – that the people closest to a crisis should be the ones leading the response to it. 

 

That spirit carried straight into the opening words from Hibak Kalfan, NEAR’s Executive Director, who first named the challenging moment we’re in. This year has brought a string of emergencies that our members are living through directly: the recent earthquakes in Colombia and Venezuela, and the continuing conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon, Sudan and more, on top of shrinking resources. And through all of these complex crises, solidarity among our members and partners continues: members in Asia coordinating earthquake response lessons between Nepal, Indonesia and Myanmar; Latin American members stepping up for each other; a growing community united and compassionate. 

 

Our next strategy shaped by our members 

 

The first presentation of the Townhall was an update on NEAR’s three-year strategy from 2027-2029. Member engagements have been critical for the development of this next strategy: with webinars, questionnaires, interviews, dialogues and a survey. The direction that’s emerging keeps NEAR’s founding vision intact: local and national organisations holding the resources and power to shape decisions in their own communities, while also reframing this around a plurality of locally-led ” systems of solidarity,” drawing on traditions members themselves named during the process: Takaful, Ubuntu, Bayanihan, Gotong Royong, and others. NEAR’s next strategy will be released later this year. 

Living Solidarity 

The next presentation was about what South-South Solidarity actually looks like among our members: an Afghan member picking up the phone to call Indonesian and Myanmar colleagues for earthquake-response advice and ways to rebuild community trust. A member from Burkina Faso, in Kenya for NEAR’s Africa Summit, travelled to a fellow member’s project site and supported them with her own funds. These collaborations are what members do for each other, on their own initiative, across languages and borders. 

It’s the same current running through a song shared for the call by a member from Bangladesh — Mora Jhonjhar Moto Uddam, by the Bengali poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, sung in a collective “we”: 

We are as intense as a storm. We are as restless as a flowing spring. We are fearless, like the Creator, and as free and abundant as nature. 

That “we” is the point. Not solidarity as only a sentiment, but as something felt across distance, the same refusal to wait, showing up in Kabul and Nairobi and Dhaka alike. It’s this thread that’s now being woven into a solidarity statement within the membership. 

Building the financial architecture of the new aid ecosystem 

 

The second half of the call turned to resourcing. We are at a pivotal moment to invest in architecture that eliminates the gap between decision-makers and crisis realities. Financial infrastructure that places decision-making authority in the hands of leaders in organisations with the contextual knowledge, expertise, community relationships, accountability and capacity to resource at scale. 

 

At NEAR, what that looks like are three bodies of financing work: the scaling up of the Change Fund; updating the database on locally-led pooled funds with more pooled funds; and building infrastructure of connectivity among the locally-led pooled funds in the database, which is the Networked Financing Mechanism. 

What we heard from our members and what we are doing about it 

 

NEAR’s advocacy, influencing and policy work always starts with a request from our members. Our work takes on two tracks: putting pressure on the current system to change and reform, while we build and grow new spaces where we don’t have to ask permission to lead.  

 

We have had a prolific year with NEAR’s advocacy and influencing work. Eighteen months of collaborative research with our members culminated in NEAR’s first of its kind flagship research report, Building More Locally-led Ecosystems . From over half a year of desk research and data collection, along with the database on Locally-led Pooled Funds, we published a Policy Brief on the Locally-led Pooled Funds.  The work with the Advisory Panel on the Future of Humanitarian Action just wrapped up in July, while findings from a joint survey with A4EP will be coming out before the Grand Bargain Annual Meeting.  Within the Delegates Programme, we have a new cohort starting (more to come on that). 

 

Closing: what is coming next 

 

The next few months will be a busy time for NEAR members as we gather for country and regional convenings. Starting in Nepal this week and running through December, these convenings are an important part of NEAR’s evolution: for our next strategy, for keeping us connected in action, for strengthening our solidarity and for connecting with more change-makers along the way.  

 

The Townhall ended with a message of love and peace to Palestine and to all people currently living through crisis and displacement. We continue to extend that message now. 

 

NEAR’s next Virtual Townhall takes place in December. It will be led by NEAR members.