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FMR 64
74 COVID-19: early reflections
www.fmreview.org/issue64 June 2020

Kampala, Hope for Children and Women UN and international NGOs. Meanwhile,
Victims of Violence, which ordinarily national governments and national NGOs,
supports refugees through vocational especially those that hold privileged status
training, psychosocial support and English as UN implementing partners, are often
lessons, has distributed food and soap to suspicious of refugee-led organisations.
refugees and Ugandans in the Ndejje area In a pandemic, localisation absolutely
of the city. Meanwhile, Young African cannot be a substitute for international donor
Refugees for Integral Development (YARID) funding and assistance, or for health-related
has distributed baskets of food to the most expert knowledge and technical interventions.
vulnerable in the community, identifying However, localisation and the more systematic
recipients through community networks. engagement of crisis-affected communities
The response by refugee-led organisations and refugees themselves may have a crucial
is of course not unique to Uganda. Refugee- complementary role to play. In the context of
led assistance and protection can be found COVID-19, refugee-led (and other community)
in every contemporary displacement crisis, organisations might play a number of roles
from Myanmar to Venezuela, encompassing in supporting humanitarian response:
activities as diverse as education, health,
livelihoods, finance and housing. While Providing public information: One of
many organisations lack capacity, they the biggest issues in refugee camps is
often have a comparative advantage in countering misinformation about the
terms of community-level trust, social virus. Since the effectiveness of mass
networks, and adaptability – all of which communication campaigns is likely to be
are crucial in the context of a pandemic. affected by how socio-culturally embedded
they are, working through community-
Localisation: needed more than ever level intermediaries will be crucial. There
The World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 are already established networks within
resulted in a Grand Bargain agreement many refugee camps and communities.
which placed a strong emphasis on the Where gaps exist, refugee-led organisations,
concept of ‘localisation’, which recognises especially those whose work intersects with
and supports people affected by crisis as health, might play a crucial ‘bridging’ role.
important first responders. However, a
significant gap remains between the rhetoric Deploying community health workers:
and reality surrounding this agenda, In recent years, community health workers
especially when it comes to working with have been recognised as key actors in
organisations run by refugees. For the most health delivery in developing countries,
part, the few organisations that thrive have and they have increasingly been used
done so by bypassing the humanitarian in refugee settings. They can be rapidly
system altogether and by raising funding trained and affordably equipped, and can
through international networks instead. play a range of roles from information
UNHCR is willing to work with these sharing to tracking infections, as well as
refugee-led organisations, particularly in providing support in basic prevention,
the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, but rehabilitation and health promotion.
funding for working this way is virtually non-
existent. Most donor governments impose Tracking and monitoring: In contexts
significant accountability and compliance in which social distancing measures are
standards on grant recipients, which the inhibited by dense and open housing,
majority of small-scale refugee-led groups tracking the spread of infection is even more
are unable to meet. UN staff complain that important. Many humanitarian organisations
refugee-led organisations can be challenging have already equipped displaced populations
to work with, generally lack capacity, with mobile technology and apps capable
and are sometimes highly critical of the of community-level reporting, on issues