Why does the humanitarian system continue to ignore the indigenous knowledge of women-led organisations?

Indigenous knowledge is increasingly leveraged by development actors to inform programming, but there has been a notable lack of uptake by humanitarian actors. This is despite the significant gains to be made to humanitarian analysis, planning and response from utilising indigenous knowledge, and engaging with local knowledge stakeholders, such as women-led organisations (WLOs). The knowledge – not only of a community’s population size, density and characteristic data, but also the social and power dynamics in a community, the gaps and inequalities in need, and local strategies to develop solutions – are not only immediately available from local knowledge stakeholders, but come with access to and profound connection with the community, which are essential to rapid response in crisis and emergencies. Local knowledge depends on people having gone through different contexts, histories, processes and experiences together, and having learned from them collectively. It is difficult, if not impossible, for international actors to acquire the same level of investment in communities that is quasi-synonymous with local knowledge unless they have lived, worked and built relationships within them long enough to meet this consistent standard.

Women’s local knowledge, social networks and capacity to mobilise the community are an invaluable resource during a humanitarian response. Women’s insights into local ecosystems and resource management can guide the creation of more effective and sustainable emergency response strategies, ensuring that efforts are culturally appropriate and ecologically sound. The level of knowledge of gender dynamics in a community and the gendered impact of disasters or crisis is fairly unique to local WLOs, generated through the systematic process of observing local conditions, experimenting with solutions and readapting to the changing political, socioeconomic and environmental local context.

In considering the contributions of WLOs to humanitarian action, many international actors reference proximity to women and girls in affected communities, our language skills, historical understanding or cultural competencies, though these are often referred to in isolation, as distinct attributes or separate skills, which can be called upon when convenient. What is more constructive is to understand these interrelated attributes as a larger whole, in order to increase the respect and appreciation for the contributions of WLOs by international actors and normalise requirements for indigenous knowledge to be incorporated into context analysis, project design, and evaluation.

Indigenous knowledge is crucial to better humanitarian response

Donors and international agencies need to listen to feedback from WLOs about the uneven benefits of development programming and market-/business-led development interventions for marginalised people, the largest number among them being women and girls. Women in rural areas especially have been invisibilised by development and humanitarian actors, despite their expertise in developing coping strategies for diverse human-made humanitarian crises that they have lived and supported their communities through with too little assistance provided by international humanitarian action. WLOs being born of this essential work – often discounted as caring responsibilities rather than acknowledged as humanitarian response – is a challenge to the status quo, a public refusal of women and their communities to accept only what international actors deem is ‘good enough’.

While we have seen a gradual improvement in international actors’ engagement with WLOs over time, we are not always listened to at the necessary stage of analysis of project development, and we do not see significant improvement in follow-up from international actors after desired information has been extracted. Our contributions to adaptive design and management are not properly heard during project implementation, and in the cases where WLOs are included in project design processes, we find that too often indigenous knowledge gets discarded by proposal development consultants who value ‘internationally approved’ design from other contexts over our knowledge and experiences of local context. The scientifically proven techniques used by indigenous women for climate change mitigation, food preservation, disaster management, medical assistance and farming are immensely valuable. However, their methods are often overshadowed by the rapid, packaged solutions commercialised by the multinational companies.

This article is based on experiences in Nepal, but it is in no way unique to Nepal. The practice of projects being designed by international organisations, then implemented by local actors such as WLOs, is ineffective both in promoting sustainable outcomes and in building local ownership. Project design needs to be at least flexible enough to be determined locally, especially with regard to gender-responsive contextualisation. It should build upon the already existing knowledge while having a clearly defined framework to secure donor funding commitments. Our measure of success is when the gap between western knowledge and indigenous knowledge is bridged, resulting in international actors learning and behaving differently, with better outcomes for the affected community and strengthened networks formed among local and international operational actors to avoid having to learn the same lesson repeatedly through failure.

Long-term, meaningful partnerships cannot exist at only certain moments in the humanitarian programme cycle but depend on continuous two-way communication between equally respected humanitarian actors. The needs of vulnerable communities targeted by humanitarian interventions during the implementation and monitoring phases must be included from the beginning of the cycle, by including holders of indigenous knowledge such as WLOs in the needs assessment and analysis, strategic planning, and resource mobilisation phases. So, too, must our inputs be included during operational review and evaluation, though in the interest of better programming and more effective response to community needs, two-way dialogue must be an ongoing feature of sustained communication that invites and celebrates the incorporation of indigenous knowledge in humanitarian programming.

Furthermore, these partnerships need to bridge the humanitarian–development–peace nexus in order to address the underlying conditions, such as poverty, gender inequality, marginalisation and environmental degradation, that create vulnerability to and during humanitarian crises. Addressing these vulnerabilities not only requires comprehensive humanitarian responses that prioritise the protection, assistance and empowerment of affected populations, but also long-term investments in the work of local actors such as WLOs building resilience, empowering and strengthening communities.

If international actors refuse to listen to and learn from WLOs, to understand coping strategies and community adaptation, how will better interventions be developed? Unfortunately, indigenous knowledge is rarely shared effectively due to a lack of sufficient time, money, or resources invested in knowledge management, particularly for WLOs, which can be overcome by closer partnerships between international actors and local actors sharing knowledge, capacity and resources.

A holistic appreciation of indigenous knowledge

In addition to improved interest in meaningful engagement between humanitarian funders and decision-makers and WLOs, acceptance and respect for the indigenous knowledge of local knowledge stakeholders must be a starting point. Acceptance from outside actors that they are not going into a community to teach, but that knowledge already exists there, is essential if humanitarian actors are to learn sufficiently well to be of assistance to affected communities. Shifting the narrative from ‘donors and receivers’ to ‘co-learning partners’ is equally important to acknowledging and valuing the contribution of the knowledge holders. Appreciation of women and girls as critical local knowledge stakeholders is necessary to reposition them as agents of change, not passive ‘beneficiaries’ of humanitarian assistance. This repositioning also ensures that the humanitarian actors provide support that is genuinely beneficial and contextually appropriate, that the community can take forward, respecting the community’s long-term needs and existing knowledge. It prevents the imposition of temporary, less useful support that offers short-term solutions and fails to be sustainable.

There is an inconsistency in seeing the population as objects of study, and not as subjects of rights that could benefit from the information provided. It is a matter of class and status: the research carried out by the academy is more important than that carried out by a local women’s organisation. Respect for the indigenous knowledge of women requires not only appreciating local understanding and wisdom, but also mindfully balancing power dynamics to actively create comfortable spaces for women to share their knowledge.

This creates another obstacle to outside actors’ usual practice, where workshops to design new projects or to validate analysis for humanitarian planning may be held in capital cities where international staff are based, tender processes with trusted venues are already established for cost efficiency, and senior decision-makers may visit to provide remarks. Local knowledge stakeholders, such as local WLOs or women leaders from affected communities, can be formally included in such processes, but by the process remaining the same, the presence of these participants is achieved but not the participation that is really needed. In this case, established WLOs with a national profile can act as a needed link between facilitated processes at local level and external-facing opportunities with international actors, but not as a replacement for the inclusion of local women leaders. In the best case, processes can be adapted to begin with local consultation and participatory design in appropriate environments accessible to local knowledge stakeholders, which will then continue throughout the lifecycle of the project or process.

Interactions between local and international actors, such as consultations, partnerships, collaborations, and co-creation and co-leadership, should be much more frequent, substantive and meaningful. A variety of spaces in which to engage with international actors, such as smaller workshops where information is shared and conversations are deeper and more meaningful, will contribute to better outcomes for donors, international actors and local communities, particularly in rapid-onset crisis situations, where the lack of two-way communication and trust in local stakeholders to drive decision-making can be detrimental to reach and impact among women and girls. In the case of the 2022 earthquake in Jajarkot, lack of direct access to communicate with donors about urgent needs for the prevention and protection of women and girls during power outages led to significant delays in accessing funding to provide items requested by women and girls for safety, which should have been mainstreamed from the start of rapid emergency response activities. In such cases, WLOs as the conduit between donor agencies and the local community receive immediate feedback from the community about what they need, and about the quality of the items that they receive, and it is essential that donors listen to WLOs when they relay this information so that swift adaptive or corrective action can be taken. Local actors appreciate when international actors take their local knowledge into consideration, address a mistake, invite them to contribute to the evaluation of response activities, consult with them before they publish any of their research, and invite them to the spaces in which they release jointly developed research. They also appreciate opportunities to contribute to shadow reporting processes, such as for the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

Conclusion

There are incremental learning opportunities and changes in how the humanitarian sector does business that can make a difference if seized upon in a meaningful way. Moving from shallow to meaningful commitments, and recognising the potential of indigenous knowledge for bringing about more effective, inclusive and sustainable response to crises are the first steps. Perhaps by recognising the contributions of WLOs and local knowledge stakeholders, donors could prioritise creating networks of solidarity in the communities they fund in. This is particularly important in emergency situations, as competition for funds often increases in these scenarios, so donors should play a role in maintaining cohesion and cooperation among all partners, with local stakeholders at the centre, rather than at the end point of implementation. Most important of all in the journey towards sustained, structural transformation of the humanitarian system centred around community needs, priorities, knowledge and capacity is respect for humanitarian actors of all kinds, and recognition of the work that we do.

Dr Renu Adhikari is a founding chairperson of the Women’s Rehabilitation Centre (WOREC) and a noted feminist activist in country.