Paper details

Paper authors	Diane Moore
In panel on	Local humanitarian leadership and faith: humanitarian INGOs, local faith actors, and religious literacy
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

With funding from the Henry Luce Foundation, the Harvard Divinity School and Oxfam conducted scoping research examining the varying approaches and effectiveness in local humanitarian leadership by secular and faith-inspired international humanitarian NGOs, their varying approaches to partnering and engaging with local faith actors, and their religious literacy. With research support from JLIF&LC and Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh of University College London, we conducted a literature review and interviews of more than 45 stakeholders, primarily INGO staff and researchers, but also representatives of the UN, Red Cross, and government.

Local humanitarian leadership is built upon the premise that humanitarian action should be led by local humanitarian actors whenever possible, yet our research found that secular humanitarian INGOs do not engage systematically with local faith actors in their local leadership work. We also found that neither secular nor faith-inspired international humanitarian organizations have a sufficient level of religious literacy to enable them to understand the religious dimensions of the contexts in which they work and to effectively navigate their engagement with LFAs.

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