Crespo Mubbalya – African Women and Youth Action for Development, Uganda

I work on partnership, advocacy, influencing and resource mobilisation.

AWYAD works in a number of areas such as emergency response, education, nutrition and WASH, but we are best known for our work in protection.

We specialise in interventions on peaceful co-existence between host communities and refugee communities.  This is a very big role that local actors play, because when issues of resource sharing arise between the host communities and refugees, we are always there to foster dialogue.

We respond to cases of violence against women and children to make sure they receive the assistance they need. We also do direct emergency response implementation such as cash transfers and food distribution because we need to ensure people can access food and and cash in a dignified way.

Also, we run projects in a more cost-effective way. Local organisations should have a much bigger role to play in implementation of projects. The role INGOs should take is that of supporting local organisations to meet humanitarian standards and to build capacity.

During the Covid-19 outbreak, the value of local humanitarians really become obvious: all the INGOs told their staff to stay home, but we kept working because the needs of the people had to be met.

Local humanitarian workers are necessary if you want a project to be sustainable, because they remain as reference points in the community.