Why pivoting to local partners is best for one cash-strapped UK charity

6 June 2025

This story was originally published by The New Humanitarian.

By Will Worley

The movement to localise aid has long demanded that international aid organisations step back and shift power. One prominent NGO appears to be taking the next step.

Christian Aid has announced it will lay off 45% of its staff – around 320 people – as it moves away from a traditional aid model of country offices delivering programmes (which ended in December 2024). Instead, the UK charity will focus on a “partner-based approach” supporting civil society groups from five regional “hubs” in Colombia, Nigeria, Kenya, Jordan, and Bangladesh.

The reform effort comes amid a major shortage of aid finance following recent budget cuts by the United States, Britain, and other key donors – though CEO Patrick Watt said preparations started long before, in 2023. Watt frames the plans as part of the aid sector’s localisation movement: “Two key questions we have asked ourselves in designing this new model are, ‘why us?’ and ‘why not local?’” he said in an April press release outlining the changes.

Christian Aid is a household name in the UK, where it enjoys a status as a favoured charity of the country’s churches. Consultations with staff on the NGO’s plans are currently ongoing, with decisions to be made in July, said Watt. The process should be complete by March 2026.

As the prospects of cutbacks and restructurings loom over the humanitarian sector, and the push to localise aid evolves, The New Humanitarian spoke with Watt to find out more and see what other INGOs facing similar challenges might learn.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

The New Humanitarian: Can you explain the reform plans?

Patrick Watt: We wanted to be much sharper about what we do. As part of that, we wanted to double down on our partnership approach. Our partners are a mix of mostly national and regional civil society organisations, some faith-based and some secular. Each of the five regional hubs will be responsible for managing a portfolio of partnerships across the countries in their parts of the world.

This is partly about shifting from a mindset that’s about scarcity and control, focusing exclusively on the organisation and its resources, to a model of abundance and collaboration: Our work is part of a broader movement for change to create a more just world.

We’re a modestly sized actor within the global civil society ecosystem. But if we use our resources well we can play a catalytic role, and we can help convene and connect.

The New Humanitarian: What role is finance – or the lack of it – playing in these reforms?

Watt: In some ways we’re carrying a structural legacy of when we had a larger institutional income than we have today. Between 2018 and 2022, we had quite a steep decline in institutional income. But our voluntary income has held up. So, we’ve gone from being two thirds institutional-funded in 2018 to today – two thirds voluntary-funded – with a smaller total income and a heavier structure than we can justify.

That was a spur to these changes.

But I think we have made a kind of conscious shift in saying that we want to remain a majority voluntary-funded organisation into the future, because it is more stable and gives us much greater freedom of choice than institutional funding.

We’ve designed this model so that we can stand it up financially purely off the back of our voluntary income. So we’re removing any incentives to chase institutional funding simply in order to stand up staff and offices, which I think is a bit of a trap for INGOs.

In terms of what funding we’d like, it needs to be strategically aligned, rather than pulling us out of shape, ideally flexible multi-year funding. I think that necessarily leads us towards having more conversations with trusts and foundations [as potential donors].

The New Humanitarian: What are some of the practical ways you will help partner organisations?

Watt: We’re moving to more consistently sharing 50% of all indirect cost recovery (donor payments for the costs of running programmes) with national and local partners. Typically, historically, most INGOs would hold on to most of that money for themselves. And, where they worked with local organisations, would behave as though the local organisation didn’t have organisational running costs of their own that had to be met.

We also invest a fair amount of our unrestricted income into grants to partners. These relationships are not based on projects but are longer term; sometimes supporting their core operations, in other cases focused on a particular set of strategic change objectives. And where we’re doing that we are also allocating 10% of flexible grants to cover core running costs for the partner organisation.

(A spokesman later told TNH: “At the end of this process, we expect to be able to increase our investment in partner grants by £5 million a year, set against 2024 investments.”)

The New Humanitarian: Given the extent you’re working with partners, what is the purpose of Christian Aid?

Watt: This shift is about being partner-based, not partner-led. This is not about outsourcing our decision-making, or our critical thinking, to partners and saying ‘you decide and we’ll give you the money’.

We have a strategy as Christian Aid. We have an approach. We want to work with organisations, whose strategies and approaches overlap with ours. That doesn’t mean that everything we do and everything our partners do will be the same, it’s about finding common ground.

That said, we will use our energies in three ways. Firstly, connecting civil society groups internationally, for instance to engage with policymakers. Secondly, convening, which in many parts of the world is helped by our faith identity. Thirdly, catalysing: Christian Aid has a long history of spotting gaps and helping to incubate organisations that outgrow us, like our roles in establishing Voluntary Service Overseas, the Disasters Emergency Committee, the Fair Trade Foundation, and the Jubilee Debt Campaign.

The New Humanitarian: Will these roles mean you are still a humanitarian organisation?

Watt: We are. We are going to remain an organisation that works to alleviate human suffering. But we will also be an organisation that works on tackling the underlying reasons for that suffering: through long-term development programming, and through campaigning.

That works in a continuum, and the ratio between that will shift over time and it will differ into different countries and partners [who specialise in different areas].

The New Humanitarian: Despite the optimistic vision, a lot of people are going to lose their jobs through this process. What has the impact on staff been like?

Watt: [The aid cuts] do mean that the environment for the people who will lead us through this process is more difficult.

We’re investing in support for colleagues [who will be laid off].

Staff the world over will have the same terms and conditions: People in Burundi or Afghanistan are not going to be treated any differently from colleagues in the UK.

There’s a constraint: I think the most you can do is put a fair amount of resource into treating staff well and equitably.

(A spokesperson later told TNH that the “reduction in roles [in] programme countries will be greater” than in the UK. Staff in the UK will also be “significantly” reduced, but because 70% of income comes from the country, there will still be a “significant staff presence” for fundraising and public engagement. As for workers being laid off, Christian Aid “will be offering any affected staff outplacement support to include help with CV writing, interview preparation, and career coaching”, the spokesperson said.)

The New Humanitarian: Do you have any reflections on laying off this many staff in order to do these reforms, and lessons for others considering similar moves?

Watt: I think it’s impossible to do a run-up process like this and get everything exactly right. There will always be things that you could have done better.

It’s very hard to design a model like this and involve every member of staff equally, but it’s important you communicate well. You’ll always get some people who want a slower, more inclusive process. You’ll get some people who want it over and done with. And there’s an element of judgement in how you kind of strike the balance between those differing expectations.

It’s also important to listen to experience in the wider sector. Some of the networks that Christian Aid is part of, like the Pledge For Change (a localisation initiative), were quite important to giving impetus to these changes, but also helping to think about what works and what doesn’t.

I think our advice would be that the United Nations and the international NGOs (who are expecting severe cuts) together really rethink their approach to locally led response, and move beyond thinking of that in terms of subcontracting, to a genuinely equitable partnership model.

There’s a danger that as the UN system slims down, that it tries to hold on to more of the shrinking pie for itself. And I think there’s a real opportunity right now to pivot to a much stronger, locally led response.

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The New Humanitarian puts quality, independent journalism at the service of the millions of people affected by humanitarian crises around the world. Find out more at www.thenewhumanitarian.org.