WHY STREET CHILD ADVOCATE FOR LOCAL LEVEL ACTION

Local and national organisations have always been and will continue to be the frontline responders in low-resource environments and emergencies. They are integral to the recovery and resilience of communities in crisis. Local organisations offer better access, than their international counterparts, to affected children and ensure that interventions are appropriate and relevant to their needs. However, a lack of investment in local level organisations leads to their underuse, leaves them fragile, and can lessen their impact. 

Although global promises to increase the funding flow and support to local organisations have been made across the aid sector, in reality, only a fraction of these commitments have materialised.  

Street Child sees supporting local organisations and leveraging local expertise as essential to effective, efficient interventions, and to enabling sustainable longer-term impact. This approach is central to Street Child’s strategy and by investing in local level action.

It will support the organisation to reach its goal of reaching a million and millions more children. 

The COVID-19 crisis has changed the way the world works. Despite significant constraints, these challenging circumstances are creating important opportunities for the aid sector to shift towards local level action.

 As part of this approach Street Child, and other like-minded agencies such as Save the Children, Christian Aid, Action Aid, CAFOD, Care, Trocaire and Tearfund have been advocating for sustainable local level action as a principal approach in all scenarios. 

Since 2008, Street Child has supported local organisations who share our commitment to children. We work in partnership with a growing network of 95+ local organisations by selecting organisations that share our commitment to children, with inspiring leadership and potential. These partnerships are open and collaborative with a mutual aim to strengthen and scale the impact of our joint programmes. We aim to leverage our reach and resources to activate and amplify their influence, through low-cost and community-centred projects. Where required, Street Child offers tailored support to local organisations including assistance to secure further funding, and systems strengthening to improve local leadership. 

Street Child understand to make a change to the humanitarian and development aid sectors we need to empower local organisations to influence and advocate against the current situation. Street Child have several initiatives which focus on accelerating the impact of local organisations, including as a principal partner of the Global Education Cluster and Global Protection Cluster [CPAoR]. In 2021, Street Child is leading a local action initiative for the fund Education Cannot Wait [ecw] global secretariat, which provides an opportunity to roll out our partnership approach on a global scale.

These initiatives have increased the involvement of local actors in the in the humanitarian sector and identified innovative approaches to increasing funding flows to local organisations, which helps to build the evidence to guide the sector. 

We work in close collaboration with leading agencies, leveraging our experience and expertise to issue global guidance on working with local level organisations. We are one of the signatories to the Charter 4 Change which commits us to a set of principles to guide the way we partner with local organisations. We are also an active partner of are an active partner of the Global Education Cluster Localisation Task Force, Global Partnership for Education and International Network for Education in Emergencies. We know that we cannot make sustainable change happen on our own so Street Child aim to multiply our impact. We are leading by example and leverage key strategic relationships with those who have local reach and can impact long term change.