Introduction

What does it mean to ‘localize aid’? And what, following Khan, is the ‘local aid’ that already exists? The previous chapter highlighted how the voluntarization of aid has opened up space for those who are not ‘professionals’. Beyond this lies the more fundamental question – whether the concept of ‘localizing aid’ overlooks basic patterns of care which are woven into the fabric of societies, independent of a formal aid sector. This chapter takes a closer look at these patterns. While questions of how local knowledge and local actors matter in development have been discussed before, debates specifically on ‘localizing aid’ have become more prominent, prompting talk of a ‘local turn’ in humanitarianism and peacebuilding (McGinty and Richmond, 2013).

The importance of the ‘local’ has been part of development efforts from the start. As Kothari (2006) reminds us, colonial administrative officers and missionaries often possessed more in-depth knowledge and understanding of ‘local’ matters than contemporary international aid staff, who may frequently rotate between posts and move locations. In keeping with this, Pottier et al's book, Negotiating Local Knowledge, first published in 2003, was re-issued in 2019 as part of a ‘revival’ publication series. They remind readers that local knowledge has always been ‘far more sophisticated than development professionals previously assumed and, as such, represents an immensely valuable resource’ (Pottier et al, 2019), which nevertheless remains underacknowledged and underused in formal aid and development.