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Paper short abstract

This paper examines how localisation is understood in the CBE transition from international to local NGOs in Afghanistan. It shows a redefined localisation under authoritarian rule – enabling limited local agency, while reproducing hierarchies and exclusions that affect education delivery.

Paper long abstract

Amid political instability in Afghanistan, the localisation of education delivery has become paramount. Following a June 2023 directive from the Taliban’s Ministry of Education (MoE), international NGOs (INGO) supporting Community-Based Education (CBE) were required to transition implementation to local NGOs (LNGOs). While localisation has been central to humanitarian and development debates since the 2016-World Humanitarian Summit, debates on how it occurs and whether it reproduces power-imbalances and new forms of inequality remain rarely-explored.

This paper draws on a qualitative-longitudinal approach, combining 28 KII interviews with UN, INGO and LNGO staff, alongside CBE teachers and document analysis of Afghanistan Education-Cluster meeting minutes (June 2023-December 2024). Analytically, it uses a resource-agency-ways of being framing, interpreted through Lukes’ (2005) three dimensions of power, to examine how localisation is conceptualised and contested in the CBE transition and how this shapes education service delivery.

Findings show unique contextual understanding of localisation, which is widely redefined as a rapid, politically-driven transfer of implementation responsibility from INGOs to LNGOs, rather than a structural transformation of the humanitarian-aid education system and sharing power. The paper also reflects on intersecting dynamics among stakeholders, where MoE seeks control, INGOs retain oversight through compliance and LNGOs hope for gradual empowerment. In practice, the rushed transition has resulted in service disruptions while also reinforcing unequal intra-local hierarchies.

This paper contributes to debates on power and agency in humanitarian-education governance, highlighting how “localisation” can be redefined under restrictive rule – enabling limited local agency while reproducing hierarchies and exclusions that affect education-delivery system.