In recent years, discussions on decolonizing and localizing international cooperation have often been reduced to a narrow focus on financial flows: localization is considered achieved when more funds are directly allocated to local partners. While this is important, it overlooks central questions of power within partnerships. Direct funding for local organizations is frequently accompanied by increased accountability demands from donors, meaning that financial transfers alone are insufficient to ensure local ownership of programs.
Practical experience shows that building equitable partnerships (aiming at a decolonized international cooperation) rests on multiple pillars and requires time. Trust-based partnerships cannot be decreed; they are established through years of dialogue on equal footing and concrete actions. Ideally, this strengthens local organizations, enabling them to define their own priorities and choose their partners independently. This naturally calls into question the role of Swiss NGOs. Swiss development organizations are convinced that an active and engaged civil society will remain indispensable in the future. However, the roles of all actors will change, and this is both right and necessary.
To foster a broader understanding of the steps required, over 40 Swiss NGOs have jointly drafted a Manifesto for Locally Led Action. It serves as a guide for their own work while also calling on donors to reshape their frameworks to enable these necessary transformations.
The manifesto is also a response to the rise of authoritarian forces that deliberately undermine human rights, restrict civil society’s room for maneuver, and weaken the foundations of multilateralism. Against this backdrop, an international cooperation that centers on people living in the world’s most vulnerable situations becomes even more crucial. This can only be achieved if local actors, Swiss NGOs, governments, donors, the private sector, and academia perceive themselves as allies, collectively working toward the realization of human rights.