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Paper short abstract:

This study shares the experiences of the author’s collaborative research on disaster resilience in Cambodia with the local partners. It discusses the validity and limitations of ‘participatory methodologies’ without local funding in aid-dependent contexts.

Paper long abstract:

Now that localisation has become a fancy buzzword in the development field, the inclusion and participation of local actors have become central themes of development in the name of global justice. While the importance of local intermediary actors and their agency has been well documented, they tend to be unspecified, especially in aid activities, which often occur at crossroads with different levels of stakeholders. In addition, localisation practices have often focused more on how local people relate to and derive meaning from foreign (notably originating from the North) ideas, resulting in the term being identical to localising norms – or complying with global standards–rather than addressing the power imbalances between international and local actors.

Against this background, this study delivers reflections on the role and limitations of the local intermediary agents, from the perspectives of ‘localisation’ and ‘locally-led’ development. It is primarily based on key informants’ focused interviews with the local and managerial staff of an intermediary and implementing organization in a three-year global research collaboration in Cambodia. The main objective of the collaboration was to measure climate-driven disaster resilience across selected villages where the local office of an international NGO implemented a Korean aid-supported climate change adaptation project. While researchers from the North, with their research framework and tools, attempted to generate a meaningfully equal environment for research collaboration, we found realistic barriers and limitations for a non-hierarchical partnership in a unidirectional funding context. We conclude that good intentions cannot materialize without donors’ funding flexibility.