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Over the past decade, Vanuatu has faced repeated natural disasters, including powerful cyclones like Cyclone Harold and Cyclone Pam 10 years ago, along with earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and flooding, highlighting the country’s vulnerability to climate and humanitarian crises.
In Vanuatu, local and national leadership in humanitarian response is growing and we’re seeing a shift in how partnerships are formed. International and local organisations are working together in ways that feel more equitable than ever before. However, without long-term investment, sustaining the progress that communities and local actors have made, is challenging.
Join co-hosts Beth and Pam to explore how to sustain localisation with new research and guests Siale, the Executive Director of the Pacific Islands Association of NGOs (PIANGO), Johnson from the NGO desk office at the Ministry of Home Affairs in Vanuatu and Sarah, the Global Solidarity Coordinator from Act for Peace.
Podcast Host and Guests
Co-Host: Beth Eggleston
Beth is the Director of the Humanitarian Advisory Group (HAG) and co-founded the organisation in 2012. She has worked in the humanitarian sector specialising in civil-military coordination and humanitarian reform for the last two decades and has field experience in Afghanistan, Liberia, Tonga, Costa Rica, Laos PDR, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam.
Co-Host: Pamela Combinido-Elfa
Pam is a much-loved leader at HAG and brings more than 10 years of combined research and evaluation experience. Her work spans a range of thematic areas including localisation, disaster risk reduction, diversity and inclusion, child protection, and gender equality. She is passionate about bridging evidence and practice and working alongside other researchers, practitioners, and humanitarian and development organisations. Pam is based in Manila and occasionally brings banana chips – a HAG team favourite – to Melbourne from the Philippines.
Guest: Emeline Siale Ilolahia
Siale is the Executive Director of Pacific Islands Association of Non-governmental Organisations (PIANGO) which coordinates and supports civil society organisations across 24 countries and territories across the Pacific. Through PIANGO, Siale brings together diverse stakeholders to address pressing challenges facing the Pacific communities, from climate change, locally-led humanitarian response, human rights violations, protection of Indigenous lands and oceans, gender inequality and food security.
Guest: Johnson Simon Mahitmaur
Johnson is the Non-Government Organisation (NGO) Desk Officer within the Vanuatu Ministry of Internal Affairs, acting as a key government liaison for civil society. He works on strengthening partnerships between the government and NGOs, coordinating project proposals, and reviewing the NGO Act to guide operations.
Guest: Sarah Doyle
Sarah works in collaboration with communities affected by displacement across the Pacific, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, supporting locally led humanitarian and civil society initiatives. She brings lived experience to her work, having lived through numerous disasters in Vanuatu over a decade and gaining a deep understanding of the profound impact crises have on people and places. She currently serves as Global Solidarity Coordinator at Act for Peace, focusing on partnership stewardship, program quality, and evaluation and learning, with a commitment to inclusive, ethical and local leadership to shift power and amplify grassroots voices.
Research links:
Localisation in Vanuatu: Demonstrating Change Progress Report 2025
- Humanitarian Advisory Group | Localisation in Vanuatu: Demonstrating Change Progress Report 2025
- Humanitarian Advisory Group | Review of FALE Vanuatu Earthquake Response
- Humanitarian Advisory Group | Localisation in Vanuatu: Demonstrating change
Podcast transcript
Beth: Before we begin, I’d like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians and their ancestors of the unceded lands and waters on which we live, work and depend. We recognise all First Nations peoples around the world and celebrate their enduring connections to country, and pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging.
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of to I Think You’re On Mute, I’m Beth Eggleston and thank you for joining us today. In our last episode, we explored the findings from our recent study on localisation progress in Vanuatu. We explored what’s changed in Vanuatu’s localisation journey since 2019? How did last year’s earthquake challenge local leadership and coordination? And where is progress strongest across the seven domains of localisation? From our conversations, one thing was clear: local and national leadership in humanitarian response is growing and that progress is being widely recognised. We’re seeing a real shift in how partnerships are formed. International and local organisations are working together in ways that feel more meaningful and more equitable. And here’s the reality check. Despite this momentum, limited and inconsistent resources remain the biggest hurdle. Without long-term investment, sustaining the progress that communities and local actors have worked so hard to achieve becomes incredibly difficult. That’s why today, we’re digging deeper into the recommendations from the research and we’re going to ask what practical steps can we take to keep this momentum going. I’m very pleased that I’ve managed to convince Pam to stay on as my co-host for another episode of the podcast. I’m promising that I didn’t bribe her. How are you today, Pam?
Pam: Hi Beth, I’m good. I’ve actually been thinking about that conversation we had with Shirley and Linda last time, and it’s fascinating to see just how much progress has really been made in Vanuatu.
Beth: Yes, so progress has definitely been made from what I learned from the research. Now I guess what I’m wondering is, what should be done to keep the progress moving forward. How can different actors contribute and play their part to really bring meaningful support to this process?
Pam: Yes, and I do remember during that study we had so many conversations with different organisations from local NGOs, government representatives and international organisations. And this is exactly the question that they’re pondering on as well and their insights are so fascinating. And from those conversations, we pulled together concrete, actionable recommendations to help each actor group think about that question of what should be done to keep this progress moving forward.
Beth: I’m so glad we’ve got some practical recommendations. So from your point of view, Pam, and you were present in a lot of those conversations, what stood out most for, you know, for you?
Pam: Yes. I think there was a lot like, there were so many fascinating stories we’ve heard. But one of the things that really stood out to me and maybe a lesson for, conversations around localisation in other contexts as well, is that how local actors themselves are actually driving the localisation agenda? It’s not just them waiting for international commitments to trickle down. It’s them organising, advocating, and holding those spaces where community priorities stay at the centre.
Beth: Wow, that really makes us remember that, you know, our role really is to listen. And we often focus our conversation when we talk about localisation around the why. And we need to do that. But sometimes we forget to talk about the how, and you know supporting localisation is essential. It’s about finding the way in which we can move, you know, at a systems level. And one that’s, you know, it’s implemented locally, but that it’s truly led from that local place with priorities and decisions and accountability starting from the ground up.
Pam: Exactly. And this review, beside creating that shared evidence based around localisation in Vanuatu, but we’re also hoping to achieve is to help influence some of those conversations around practical steps and what change could look like.
Beth: Fantastic. Well, I’m really excited and really looking forward to chatting through, you know what some of those next steps might be and hearing from some of our guests that we have on the podcast today. So let’s jump right in. Today we’ll hear from some fantastic guests. We’re kicking off with Johnson Simon Mahitmaur, from the NGO desk office at the Ministry of Home Affairs in Vanuatu. We have Sarah Doyle, the Global Solidarity Coordinator from Act for Peace. And Emeline Siale Ilolahia, the Executive Director of the Pacific Islands Association of NGOs, a long-time partner and research collaborator. Each of our fabulous guests has been working on the ground in Vanuatu, and they all bring diverse perspectives on how localisation is evolving there. Together, we’ll unpack the key recommendations from the research and explore what’s needed to sustain and to strengthen the progress that’s being made there. So make yourself comfortable and settle in, or take us along on your walk to join the conversation. This is a special episode At the heart of the response: Sustaining locally led humanitarian action in Vanuatu. Now over to Pam, who’s ready to jump into the conversations.
Pam: Hi Siale, it’s great to have you with us. Before we begin, can I ask you to share a little bit about your role and what’s PIANGO been working on in the past few months?
Siale: Thank you. Thank you, Pam, Emeline Siale Ilolahia. I’m the Executive Director of the Pacific Islands Association of Non-Governmental Organisations. A regional platform that is based in Suva. Our members is national umbrella NGOs across the Pacific. Our main focus is on public policy and where civil society where their voices need to be heard in those spaces.
Pam: Thank you so much for that introduction Siale. Now I’m very curious to hear about your thoughts to this question of I’m going to ask you today, given this collaborative work that we did with PIANGO and VANGO to understand the progress on localisation in Vanuatu. And I know PIANGO also has an extensive experience with partnerships, partnerships with local NGOs, partnerships with international organisations. So I’m really curious to hear Siale from your perspective, what does genuinely supported partnership look like, one that doesn’t just take ideas, but actually invests in community leadership?
Siale: Thank you. Thank you Pam. The word partnership has been floating around. It is a nice word to say, but oftentimes the, the process of developing a genuine partnership does require time and does require investment in terms of resources, investment in terms of providing spaces for those partnership to emerge. Because partnership has to be grounded on relationship, you know, how do you how do you relate to each other, but also how you are relating to issues and how you’re relating to the, the the purpose of of you coming together to, to work on, on a particular, on a particular issue. And then, of course, we have, different interest, that drive the partnership. And then we also have partners that bring what your contribution to the partnership. And, and this is where the interesting thing because the, the power, the power balance in terms of the partners, is just as important and, and how you work together. And so we have seen the, the influence of funding issues of the, you know, the influence of, of that power often shape how the how the partnership is formulated or is being developed. So a lot of the work that we do that when we say we partner with, an organisation or we partner with a certain group of agency. So that conversations about what did we agree to work together, what the partnership is based on is, has to be value driven. You know, it’s a principle of partnership that we have to agree on. And we often fail to put that down into a common understanding because we, we just said, okay, let’s partner. And then we, we tend to find ourselves navigating through those partnerships until we come to a point when we disagree on something. Then if we don’t have an agreed principles to that partnership, we then to be shift away. And in the Pacific we don’t like confrontations. And so we, we struggle to openly discuss some of those tension or dynamics. And we slowly just like move away without saying much and disappear. And so a lot of the partnership we struggle by providing that opportunity to have a dialog with this. And this is why it’s important that we have a lot of learning from our ongoing partnership because we kind of help each other in as much as we can to be part of the co-designing. And so when we were developing the localisation framework, that has been one of my of our critical learning is that when we do something together we have to co-design right from the very beginning. Yeah, we talk about the different roles. We talk about who’s leading here. We talk about, you know, who has the money, how does the money is being distributed? And where do we see our, our local partner coming in to be part of that process?
Pam: There’s a lot to unpack there. You talked about power. You talked about that being value driven and principles driven in partnerships. And also that experience with HAG, which is very much a mutual, feeling for us, we are learning so much about from PAINGO as well, and the way we do partnerships with other local NGOs. But there was something there that you mentioned there, you know, and the resourcing. And I’d like to just quickly follow up on that. Yeah. Because in the, localisation report, that’s one of the key areas that had the weakest progress. There were some good examples here and there, but resourcing, quality resourcing for a local NGO remains to be one of the areas that so hard to achieve. So from PIANGO’s perspective, can you share what needs to change in the way funding flows across the local partners? Can you maybe you have any good practices that, that you can share that, based on the experience of PIANGO and the local partners you have in the broader Pacific context.
Siale: One of the challenges that we face, the current existing system, the way that they define transparency, is based on open call, like a contested, process of open call invited, anyone to, you know, put forward a proposal. We had tried to change that a little bit, where we can say that there is other way of making the funding mechanisms transparent enough by taking ownership of how we take the selection process and that done by people outside of the organisations or the community based organisations that are putting their application forward, right. And so we have identified the competitions in terms of the funding process, accessing the funding, totally undermined the solidarity of our small groups because they start competing, and they start competing to access the funding. And then there’s, there’s a whole lot of ambitions Pam, to share data, share information. But for our small organisations, that basic data and information becomes the bread and butter because that information is used to develop their proposal, develop their concept note, and the moment you open it up to other, you know, to other organisation they can they can I would like to say, they can borrow your ideas and develop that into something, so we often undermine the competitions around accessing to funding. We have tried to change that. And so we look at, at community based organisations and said, what are your big ideas? You know, if you are to see some change what exactly that is. And because, they need support to develop that big ideas into some, you know, some proposal and, and all of that. And, and so we think we need to take the funding, access to funding from, from a capacity developed approach, because it ended up that we will support these groups to access the funding by either to, to support them in terms of facilitating the process of putting the proposal together or bringing, you know, and then you can then ask difficult questions by saying is, are you are you able to do this work on your own or do you need some support from. And culturally, some organisations and some groups are not often open immediately to seek help. Yeah, sometimes you need to introduce that kind of thinking and say, maybe you cannot do because everyone is so eager to say, no, we can do it. Yeah, we have the capacity to do it because it is often times it’s like, yes, it’s like that if you if you say you can’t do things, you are already rating yourself low from receiving the funds. So there’s a lot of conversation that is required that we need to challenge each other. And this is where the partnership approach is important, because partnership is already that you trust the other group or the other person to do whatever that we want to do or work together on regardless of whatever the level of their capacity. It’s already it’s already built from a base of trust. Yeah, the home of any partnership or any funding access has to be based on trust. And then from there you embrace whatever level of capacity they are, and then you invest in the process of the fund or the project, help them to be better in what they do. Some of the some of the current funding or most of the current funding, they are coming in with a high expectation that we are working with people, that they are perfect, like they are 100%, and if they if they show any gaps or in any capacity lacking of that, they don’t seem to be investing in them. So they bring that kind of investment thinking from a business oriented thinking. Yeah. Like like they already say, okay, this, group might have a good, opportunity for investment in terms of profit making, and they bring that kind of model to use that same kind of lens to assess our community. No, it has to change. And this is where the whole conversations around shifting to power, shifting the way you see things from profit oriented kind of lens to social justice, you know. That you are supporting this investment so that community that are lead usually by local themselves have to be trusted that they know what they’re doing and they can move the change that they know based on their realities.
Pam: So can you give us an example? If local organisations had that more predictable, and flexible funding, what would that unlock in terms of leadership, preparedness or innovation? What have you seen happened? Through that process.
Siale: We have funding that is available to support civil society in terms of coming up with, projects around community led project. So what we do is direct support, like we, support organisation that has that has been like and because we are because we are membership based. And so we have already work with the in terms of their experiences and their, you know, their part of us they are members of our organisations. So we know exactly where the where the gaps are. We know exactly where the, that these, that they need to have. And so what we often find is that, okay, if you have, capacity gaps within your, within your organisations, we can give you the funding to do, you know, certain things. And then we then see where the support that we can provide to help the projects. And this, small grant projects, Pam is directed to community that they are, informal settlements. And oftentimes when we do funding, you are required to provide deeds on land because some projected they felt like the sustainability of their projects is because you have the ownership of the land. So if there’s a water thing coming and being established in your land, you have that ownership. And so they start using some of those things and automatically you see that the access to those funding is starting to get more complicated. So when we work with this community and giving this more funding, we rule out those things. And we said, we don’t need any of those things because it does not justify how you need to access clean water. And then we also have the interesting thing Pam that we learn every day. When we give those funds to small community and most of the time, it’s initiated by women. We had given them the opportunity to lead in terms of the leadership of their community initiatives. And then when you when you said, okay, you need, water tanks and immediately they start thinking, okay, we need someone that has the capacity to set up the water tank, do the fittings, you know, do the cuttery of the water catchment and all of that. So through their little women’s committee, and because we still have gender roles associated with some of these key activities like, they started identifying themselves, we need the men, we need the men to come to help us. So we started to see them mobilising themselves to bring key people within their community to have that work. One of my one of my interesting experience Pam, is a community that is an informal settlement that we give them 5,000 USD, so would be around 10,000 in our local currency. And the way that they do that, they can just like when they fill the form, we can do that online or we can do over the phone, we just interviewed them through that form, we write up the form and then we submit, and then the fund comes through. And because it is to require that the funding has to you have to have a bank account, PIANGO provide that because they don’t have any bank account, so the money comes through us and then we give it to them, we support them in terms of how we how we finalise the implementation. And then in the initial project, they wanted to have like, a water tank basin, they set about a tank. So every time they come in us to buy the cement to have the base, I’m starting to think, are they building a house or are they building a base for the water tank. Because there’s nothing to be higher, higher, higher. And then when we initially go and see how they set up the water, they put it very high. And then I was just like it does not make sense if you don’t know the context. And then when we were we were kind of looking around and then we see two young boys, they were bringing the wheelbarrow with a big container for water to fill up the water. And so they just, bam, they just bring the wheelbarrow and put it down, and then they turn on the tap. And then you started to make sense why they build the base high, because it’s actually the young people that fetch the water and they do that by bringing their wheelbarrow. You know, just imagine if I was to be the project officer to develop that I would just like, do it in a way that I thought in my head, if someone did come with a small bottle or a small bucket. So the context of your community can only be understood if you give that authority to the local, to design their intervention.
Pam: I think that’s such a powerful statement, like the context of the community so important in giving that leadership and ownership to them right, like and understand in facilitating that as well. Now, Siale I just have one more question for you because I’m really interested, like looking at the progress of localisation in Vanuatu. We’ve been discussing like some areas are a little bit mixed in in terms of progress. And we’re seeing so many promising practices being implemented around leadership, partnership and coordination. But looking ahead, what gives you the most confidence that localisation in Vanuatu and even the Pacific more broadly is moving in the right direction?
Siale: I wish that I can confirm that, Pam, that I would know where it would go because the interesting thing about our learning about localisation and humanitarian, if I could use that as an example, is that a lot of our sustainable initiatives or the work that is done is government led and not like, you know, humanitarian response and all of that is come in led. Civil society is only in this space to help support because we see the gaps of some of those things. And we and over the years we have seen in the humanitarian space and then in government, the lack of engagement of local civil society, you know, but then later side of whatever the government is doing and whatever the INGOs are doing, whatever the donors, whoever they are giving them money to do this work. We still see the local civil society and the local community-based people present in when it comes to responding to any crisis. And so whether we engage whoever they are going to be there because it’s actually their life that is in impact. And we have seen this tested during Covid time, where we have seen the local system come to be activated, when the when the humanitarian ecosystem is being disrupted in a way that we had never seen it before. And so what do we need to continue articulating is that localisation is a self-determination, kind of push, you know, is challenged the power, challenge the funding, challenge the right of the local community to have a say and, and shape what should development and what your response should look like for them. And it’s not going to go away. The more we work with community and empower them to do this work, the more they will be challenging the government, the more they will be challenging the donors and the more. And so we would see the cycle of localisation in terms of local, locally led development evolving. And we have seen we have seen that in the work that we had done with HAG and the Vanuatu association of NGOs and FALE Vanuatu. When we first introduced the seven dimensions of localisation in 2019, the when we revisited again, there were three key areas that has not shown any progress at all. Funding, capacity building and, leadership. And now, Pam, you had been involved in another round of going back to Vanuatu based on the earthquake, last year and test again the seven dimensions of localisation. The interesting thing that I find is that another dimension is highlighted to be not moving or flip back – and that is coordination. And so I would be assuming that every year that we would be testing this in a different scenario how we respond to it, that the dimension will be different because you are dealing with some of the different drivers of change. For Vanuatu, what I have observed is that, the government of the day is supporting the locally led initiative in Vanuatu in a big way. And so that has trigger the support that they had put forward to the FALE Vanuatu to VANGO for localised civil society to be at the frontline, they have opened up the space. This has challenged the whole power dynamics. And so because we put localisation and local agencies in the front, now the expectations has changed. They are now expecting them to be better coordinated. They’re now expecting them to be, you know, doing it different. So every time you shift the dynamics, there is a different expectation that is based on the local organisation and the local people. So what we need to be able to do continuously Pam, is to make sure that we don’t leave local organisation and local people on their own to be responsible for the response of what the localisation means. We need to invest in that process. Because as soon as you shift the whole dynamics of the whole ecosystem of sustainability and all that lot, there is another level of expectations on our local people. And if you are not investing in process, you’re exposing them in terms of their lack of capacity, in terms of how they organise things. Because the space is a negotiated space. It’s political, you know, and don’t think like this is okay, no now they are leading. When you open up the space like in Vanuatu, the government is opening up the space, they are giving spaces within different leadership tables to make decisions. It’s demanded kind of expectations from our local people. And if you don’t invest in building their leadership and giving them project to lead because through doing project, they are learning of the kind of leadership style that they need to respond to their context and their reality, then we will not be getting them to where they need to be, to be better, leading the change that they want to see. Invest in that process.
Pam: Wow, thank you so much Siale. I think it was such a such an interesting conversation, and I think we can go on and on talking about how things should look forward in the role of civil society, but it’s been such a pleasure listening to your perspectives here. So thank you again for taking the time to chat today and have a wonderful rest of your day.
Siale: Thank you very much, Pam.3
Pam: Welcome Johnson, it’s a real honour to have you with us today. Before we get into our conversation, could you share a little about your role and the work you’re leading with the NGO desk office at the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Vanuatu?
Johnson: Okay. Thank you very much Pamela. My job is in the internal office, I work as a non-governmental organisation desk at the ministry under the Corporate Services Division. And, I’ve, I’ve been in this job for maybe nine years. And my job is to coordinate and work closely with VANGO, strengthen VANGO so that we can have strengthening of all the non-government organisations. And even provide the information to the government what to provide to all the non-government organisations. Another thing is we work closely with, Department of Strategic and Planning and Economic Division in Vanuatu government. And even we work closely also with the climate change in Vanuatu. So yes, that’s what I’m, I’m doing here for the last, nine years.
Pam: Thank you, Johnson, that’s such a helpful introduction about yourself. For our audience, VANGO is the Vanuatu Association of Non-Government organisations. And Shirley Abraham is the CEO of VANGO. If you remember, we interviewed Shirley during the last episode of the podcast. So thanks again, Johnson. Now if you remember Johnson in the research, we really presented a lot of the encouraging findings around progress on greater, local leadership in Vanuatu. So I’d love to hear from your perspective, how can the government help keep this momentum going? You know, supporting greater local leadership in response, whether that’s through better partnerships, funding support, and really just coordination and ensuring representation of local NGO actors in in the sector.
Johnson: Okay. Thank you very much, Pamela. In Vanuatu, the government has strengthened over time and strengthened non-government organisations, especially through the VANGO, we work closely to coordinate all the non-governmental organisation. So yes, the government has provided funds recently in strengthening the NGO. Like just a few weeks ago, maybe two weeks ago we work closely with VANGO, and we run a meeting just to bring all the NGOs, especially all the new NGO, civil society, that they can come to know what’s how to register the NGO. So what places, what offices they need to get the information from and that’s what we do last week. And yes, the government has provided a few funds and, support to the NGOs. And yes, we see the transition has happen within our local NGOs and the international NGOs and we are very happy about it. The NGOs and the governments are working very closely and that’s why we see the humanitarian response in the country currently starting to change.
Pam: Thank you Johnson. Yeah, there’s a lot to unpack there. I’m just curious to hear as well, a lot of that requires that close working relationship. A lot of that also requires trust between the government and the civil society, right. So can you also tell me more about what the government is doing to strengthen the trust and working relationship between civil society and the government, especially during non-emergency periods?
Johnson: Okay, yeah. The government have already put a trust with all the non-government organisations, they build the trust. And yes, we work closely as I’ve already mentioned. We have a climate change, ministry of climate change, we have a national advisory board that for climate change. And then we also have the CEO of VANGO, or the chairman of VANGO is also a part of the National advisory board for the ministry of climate change, especially for the humanitarian response. And that shows how the government have trust, have a trust in all the non-government organisations. Another thing as well in these, we have also VANGO for non-governmental is also a board member, and even I mean the previous years, they also put a chairman for the national provision fund for the government, which shows that the government is able to trust with all the non-government organisations to work together, collaborate together, so that we can see the service delivery reach all the people, the people of discovery. Another thing is, we government we work closely, we collaborate with NGOs because they are the arms of the government. Some places with the government reach that the non-government organisations also go to reach the people because we are targeting the same population. And that’s why we also involve all the NGOs, they’re also part of the national framework for the government. And, we see many transition happening and we see the people reaching the services that the government wants to reach to the people. Thank you.
Pam: Thanks so much, Johnson. It’s about those opportunities to really cultivate that relationship with the civil society, whether that’s as you’ve mentioned, representation in the in the advisory board of the Ministry of Climate Change and other ways that you collaborate with them, so that’s really helpful. Now, I want to talk to you about international partners listening to be as well. So what’s one thing you’d encourage them to do differently to better support government led localisation in Vanuatu?
Johnson: Thank you very much for this important question. I think the thing is, all our international partners as they come into Vanuatu, we also have our civil societies. And, for your information, we also have a mapping. Mapping for the community based organisations for full Vanuatu that was sponsored by the Department of Strategic Planning under the Prime Ministers office I mean, maybe three years ago, four years ago. And we also have a mapping here. So any NGOs, international partners that come go the areas councils, we have the civil societies there, you can partner with them, they can carry out your plans, what do you want to respond to the people in the community. And, yeah, we have, plenty things in place in the government, so there’s very big support with the non-government and even the civil societies. So the community people, the civil societies, the community leaders, the civil societies that are located in the communities, they know the local context and that’s what’s one reason why we the government also support to have a mapping in place. And maybe later on in another two years we can upgrade this map again. We have seen plenty transition happening as the developments and the funds and also reach some people that are very remote and isolated in places.
Pam: Thanks Johnson. Is there anything that you’ve seen recently that was really such a good practice in terms of supporting local leadership in Vanuatu that other international partners have done? I’m just thinking about like, what are some of the good practices that you’ve seen here from international partners that you would also encourage others to, to keep doing as well?
Johnson: Yeah, there’s been plenty, plenty things that I understand partners are doing are helping people here in Vanuatu, especially in their area councils in the communities. They’re responding in a lot of communities providing water tanks, providing other services that they can help. Yes, you say they’ve been responding a lot in our communities and we encourage them to continue to what they’re doing. And now, just recently, I mean, before last week, I came back from Santo, I was involved with one of the international NGOs. They took us all to Santo, the place they’re responding, like, they respond in, Malekula, Santo and Efate here in Port Vila. They bring us with all area administrators that are located in the area councils and we all went to Santo and that’s one example I want to show. The project has ended and the phase two of another project will come and that’s why we went and see all the councils to discuss it with us, they’re going run another project again. And the way I see it, it’s a very good team and I want to thank all the international NGOs and even to involve us in the project that happened and it’s a very good thing that they also involved all the government offices.
Pam: It’s so striking when you said, it’s so important to involve the government here, Johnson. So I’d love to just hear from you, why, why, why is that so? Can you expand a little bit, just, just telling us why it’s so important to involve the government in in the, in the programs, in the projects that local and international actors also do to support communities affected by the crisis.
Johnson: Okay. thank you very much. The reason to involve the government is because we all we all know that these are the projects just for a certain years or certain months, sometimes six months, three or two years or one year. So the reason why to involve all the government, government officials, because one day, if the project have ended, we want to see the sustainability of the project. And that’s where when you involve the government, the government will be there to sustain the project after the project has ended.
Pam: Thanks Johnson. I’m pretty sure that’s something that a lot of our NGO partners take to heart, but something that we have to keep reminding them as well. So looking ahead, what does government leadership look like on the horizon, and how can other actors play that complementary role that really aligned with this agenda?
Johnson: Yeah. Looking at the future, these are just almost a framework in place that the government has put in so that every NGOs coming into the country to work closely with them, work closely with your government, so that we are partners together. And it’s very, very important, especially during disasters or blong that we involve the NGOs because we all targeting the same community and all targeting the same people. And that’s why we don’t want to lead on all the projects, we want to involve everyone together. So if the government is doing this project and maybe the NGOs can do another project so we don’t duplicate anything and we want the projects are run smoothly so that people can be happy at the end of the day, so that at the end of the day, we see that no one is left behind.
Pam: Wonderful, thank you so much Johnson, that’s super helpful to think about what the role of the government and all the new mechanisms and guidelines increase the during these recommendations into actual action. So thank you so much again for your time today.
Johnson: Thank you.
Pam: Hi, Sarah. Thank you so much for joining us in the podcast today. How are you going?
Sarah: Hi, Pam. Thanks. So much to you and the HAG team for having me on the podcast. I’m doing great. How are you?
Pam: Good, good. I’m really excited to have this conversation with you. So just to start off, could you tell us a bit about your role at Act for Peace and what drew you to this work?
Sarah: Yeah, sure. So Act for Peace is an Australian NGO, so I work on the humanitarian side of our work. I’m fortunate to work with a number of international partners or local and national actors in several countries around the Pacific, North Africa and Middle East, including our long time partner in Vanuatu, the Vanuatu Christian Council. And so I guess I was drawn to this work after, quite a few volunteer engagements over the years in different countries and then almost 10 years working in Vanuatu in the arts, culture, media space and community development and creative disaster recovery projects. So that’s how I ended up here.
Pam: Wow, that’s so impressive, 10 years of work just in Vanuatu. So I’d love to hear from your experience, looking back at the emergency response you’ve been involved in in Vanuatu, can you share, what you’ve learned in terms of, assumption that just didn’t work as intended when trying to support locally led action?
Sarah: Yeah sure so for just for a bit of context, I’ve been working Vanuatu humanitarian sector for five years now, and mostly, as I said, we now partner the Vanuatu Christian Council, but also other church agencies working as humanitarian actors in that space. And this comes under the banner of CAN DO, which is the church agency’s network for disaster operations based in Australia, but working in several countries around the Pacific, Asia and Africa around disaster response and recovery. So the main program that we have, we’re working on in Vanuatu is Disaster Ready, which is under the Australian Humanitarian Partnership or AHP. And we’ve worked on quite a few different disaster responses over the past five years, including four Tropical Cyclone Harold, Tropical Cyclone Kevin and Judy, Lola, and then the earthquake response last year that I was only peripherally involved in. But what I’ve found in working with, CAN DO or the local church partners on disaster response is that there’s an incredible network throughout the church agencies that are able to reach deep into communities throughout the country that other actors and the bigger INGOs don’t necessarily have access to the extent of networks that CAN DO partners do. So that’s something that we always, keep in mind when we’re working on, particularly the AHP funded responses, because it can be, an obvious, I guess, point of entry to go with a larger INGO that potentially has a greater reach in terms of participant numbers, or is able to absorb a larger amount of funding, but they might not necessarily have the reach to the most underserved, or remote and vulnerable communities. So, in working within the AHP under CAN DO that has been a key challenge for us is advocating for the role of church agencies and the church networks, to be able to, you know, effectively act as humanitarian actors in that space. And something perhaps, I would say is an international actor that perhaps we overlook or undervalue is the pace at which local actors are best placed to enact change, which doesn’t always happen overnight. It’s not always immediate, it can take time and some of the funding systems and parameters that are set up, very quick, and need to happen in a very condensed timeline according to external deadlines, which is sort of counterproductive to what’s happening on the ground.
Pam: That’s super interesting how you frame it. Sarah, that, there’s so much assumptions happening, of what local actors are capable of, but there is also many, experiences that they have that are sometimes overlooked. So you mentioned that that reach is so important and the speed of the change that they’re able to do. So can you tell me more about that and can you give some examples here as well from the recent response?
Sarah: Yeah, I think what I was saying before about how the pace at which, some of the local actors that I’m working with, typically, for example, the church agencies in Vanuatu, how they’re responding to disasters compared with the pace at which the funder and international actors are releasing, parameters around funding opportunities, so for example, under the AHP, that would be called an activation when there’s an emergency response and, DFAT post and DFAT Canberra would be agreeing to the parameters of the funding call for partners to respond to. And so what in my role is coordinating for on behalf of CAN DO for Vanuatu and in working with the Christian Council and other church partners is to firstly to make contact, to make sure that everyone is okay. And what we find is that, you know, obviously staff themselves are going through this emergency, they’re affected, and some of these staff are most at need of psychosocial support and pastoral care at that time. So that’s something to for us to be aware of and sensitive to. And then, of course, you know, the pace at which churches, that aren’t set up as humanitarian agencies, but are effectively playing a dual function, being a council of churches or representative council for their church network as well as a first responder, for them to be able to communicate with communities in often very remote and isolated areas of Vanuatu without telecommunications network or an inconsistent signal, and for them to relay that information, to consolidate, to coordinate with other partners and then get back to us like it’s a very like saying, you know, versus, before we can confidently respond to a funding call. And that’s the challenge that we’re finding in in disaster response locally, not being sensitive enough to those local nuances. And so I can give an example from 2023, we had the dual, twin cyclones, TC Judy and Kevin. I was living in Vanuatu at the time, my home and family were affected as well. But right away, we launched into, okay, we need to respond. And so I was, you know, communicating with staff on the ground for us to start establishing assessment processes with local communities, reach out to the church and church networks together information on, you know, the extent and impact of the cyclones. And it was incredible, especially in Port Vila and the urban area, you know, whole communities devastated, homes completely destroyed, and people’s lives turned up. So, there was a lot to process at that time, not just from a professional aspect, but, you know, the relational aspect of working with local partners and being part of the community. And I’d say that the rush for AHP partners to pull together a proposal to be part of to be part of cluster coordination meetings, it was a big ask, particularly for your small local church partners. So I think that we could be, strengthening our coordination mechanisms in country particularly, we’re talking about the AHP going forward, looking at how that mechanism could better bring in local partners and listen and understand how they can help and how we can collaborate better, to be more effective in response, instead of just sending out the major agencies, all the time that potentially are missing, as I was saying before, underserved communities – the most vulnerable people that aren’t being served through disaster response.
Pam: You mentioned, Sarah that you work with a number of local partners in Vanuatu, and you’ve been alluding to this around like setting expectations, understanding nuances and being sensitive to the context. Can you tell me more about how you and your partners talk about and manage power in partnerships?
Sarah: Yeah, I would say that power in partnerships is not something we typically in the past have been overt about and addressed head on. It’s something that you might need to understand through observation or reflection on practice and thinking about different ways that people are responding in a certain environment to help you pick up clues on, what they’re actually meaning and is this going to work. Whereas now there is more emphasis on localisation and shifting power in partnerships. So we’ve been having more conversations around this over the past few years. I can give a couple of examples here. One specific, again to the work that I’m doing with partners in Vanuatu working with these church partners under AHP. Localisation has been a key element of the project design there. And so as part of ongoing monitoring, evaluation and reporting, we’re expected to be reflecting on our localisation practice and I guess striving to continually improve and adapt as we’ve learned, okay, this is working or it’s not working. And that obviously would involve both, you know, the international partner and local and national partners voices the conversation that’s had, you know. The other example is more specific to, my work at, Act for Peace separate to some of the disaster response work is we’ve been working on a project for many years called Walking the Talk. It’s an intentional approach to direct the program funding that we have available to meet adaptive and flexible needs of partners. So what that means is creating funds that partners can use to support overheads and operational costs that some programs, some donor funding, won’t allow for, they’re more activity focused. So this flexible funding actually enables them to say, okay, great, we’ve got our overheads sorted, now we can focus on the creative and innovative aspects of our program and search for funding for that. But not only the flexible funding aspect, we’re also supporting some partners to do innovative piloting. So anticipatory action was one that we’ve been working on with a few partners for the past few years, and there are a few other areas of work that we’re looking at doing around accountability mechanisms, the use of technology and AI to encourage humanitarian response and coordination. And we also through this project, we’ve heard from partners the interest for greater capacity sharing, not just between ourselves and partners, but among partners across borders. So for some of our partners working in one country to another, how they can best support one another through peer learning and peer sharing to build capacity, whether it’s introducing a new programming model, training peers in something that’s worked in one context, or even just the learning to share like this has worked in our context, could it be something that you try or, you know, adding to that, the evidence base for the humanitarian sector, I guess, from local and national leaders.
Pam: Yeah, I think those three core areas that you mentioned Sarah is something that’s discussed in the findings of the report. The importance of being adaptive and flexible as well to meet the needs of local NGOs, that innovated piloting these as well is super interesting, and that requires a lot of that thinking back and forth and ideas from partners. And I think that requires a lot of trust, right, to be able to come up with ideas together. And that capacity sharing piece that it has, it has to be, a two way process of, of strengthening capacities, not just from international to local, but it’s actually peer to peer, learning as well. Now I’m interested to hear Sarah, especially for our listeners who work in international NGOs or donor agencies, what’s one practical step they could take tomorrow to be a better partner to local organisations in Vanuatu?
Sarah: Thanks, Pam. I think a word that you just mentioned there, trust. That’s a really key one. And how can we build trust it through relationships. And I think to the majority of the local partners I’m working with, particularly in Vanuatu, without that relationship that’s been built and deepened over time, we really wouldn’t be able to be effective and even have this role. Me sitting in an office in Australia, working with a partner in Vanuatu, you know, that doesn’t happen without, a level of trust and understanding that we’ve developed over many years. So I would say that, you know, it’s so easy to say, let’s listen to local and national actors, you know, let’s let them lead. But international actors do need to invest time and resources to understand the context. Both the country context, but also the partner context. So yes, that means in in-person meeting, visiting, you know, being a presence, not just a face in the screen, and looking at not just how you can better work with your local partner, but who are the other actors in that space? Perhaps you could play a facilitative role, or there’s someone else that a place in country, such as a local or national intermediary. That’s kind of a model that could be looked at in future, instead of having funding flow through an international actor as an intermediary, but what about a national intermediary? That could be someone that’s, a national, that country that understands the context, that speaks the language, like, these are all critical elements that international actors may never have a full grasp of – and that’s okay. But it’s really allowing and understanding the space in-country and critiquing our role. What is the best role that we can play in partnering with local organisations, do we even have a role?
Pam: That’s such a powerful way to frame the role of international NGOs and donor agencies. Sarah. And that question of do we even have a role? It requires a lot of reflexivity, and openness for humanitarian organisations working in partnership with local actors in Vanuatu, so thank you.
Sarah: Thanks so much, Pam, it’s been a pleasure speaking with you.
Pam: Likewise. Thanks again, Sarah.
Beth: What useful reflections from Johnson, Sarah and Siale. Wow, you really ask some hard questions, Pam.
Pam: Thanks Beth, it’s such a great opportunity to have them here in our podcast. And they offered so much richness in the stories and perspectives they shared, and drew so much to learn from things that they’ve tried this board that they did to strengthen localisation in Vanuatu.
Beth: That is so true. And it really feels like that localisation in Vanuatu is seen as a collective effort. So one that also needs the right care, the right tools, and the right people all working together to help it remain strong. So Pam, I now wanted to hear from you. If localisation were a big Lego build, something that were all contributing to what three pieces would you say we need to put in place to strengthen it for the future?
Pam: That is such an interesting way of framing it Beth. But I think definitely we can see this whole conversation as different pieces of Lego build. So looking back at all those conversations and the findings from the review, the first important critical piece here is the importance of strong foundation of national leadership. And in Vanuatu we’re already seeing the shift. So we’ve heard from our speakers how the government is taking clear ownership of disaster management and policy direction. And that foundation matters, because it sets the frame within which everyone can contribute meaningfully without parallel systems undermining local structures. If you think of the second piece, I think it’s that strong theme that we’ve been hearing from the speakers as well, which is genuinely collaborative partnerships. So it’s not just consultation after decisions are made. And civil society groups have been pushing for more co-design and shared decision making. And that’s where the build becomes sturdier. If you think about it, it’s the difference between placing Lego pieces side by side versus actually interlocking them so they hold together. And that requires trust. That requires transparency and making sure resources, including flexible and quality funding, actually reach local organisations. And the last piece is the right tools and space for local actors to lead. So think about predictable financing, fair overheads and access to evidence and learning that some organisation might be taking for granted. So those pieces might feel small on their own, but actually when they click together, they give communities and organisations the ability to plan ahead, innovate, and stay engaged long after their national actors rotate out. So those are my three. So it’s about that strong national local leadership piece through the collaborative partnerships and tools that allow local actors to lead with confidence.
Beth: I love that Pam, and your three pieces fit together so clearly and really demonstrates how localisation is a structure, it a system, and we have all these different actors within that, and we need a foundation and we need a space to ensure that it can flourish going into the future. So we hope this conversation gives you all some fresh energy, some new ideas, and perhaps inspires you to take your own next steps. Whether that’s shaping a new program, reconnecting with local partners, or starting the conversations that keep local leadership moving forward. You can read the full report of this research on our website. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you’re interested in partnering with HAG on a future podcast episode, please visit our website and drop us a line.
This episode was made possible through a partnership with the Pacific Islands Association of NGOs, PIANGO, with support from Global Support and Development, GSD. The views shared in this episode are those of the speakers alone and they do not necessarily reflect the positions of the organisations they represent.
The views shared in this episode are those of the speakers alone and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the organisations they represent.
This podcast was produced and recorded by Room3, a production company that works with not-for-profits and social enterprises, and supported by Green Letter Communications.
