At the May 2016 World Humanitarian Summit (WHS), one message made itself heard more loudly than others: national and local actors should be at the forefront of humanitarian responses and lead them in their home countries. Instead of taking over, international humanitarian actors should support the efforts and capacities of crisis-affected people, and the local institutions and organisations assisting them. On the face of it, this call for localised humanitarian response seems entirely valid. Why should national and local actors be bystanders when humanitarian crises cause devastation and prompt the need for urgent relief among their fellow citizens?

As part of the Emergency Gap series, this paper analyses the role of national and local actors in humanitarian response with a view to highlighting the challenges that have been ignored in the current thinking on the localisation agenda.