Taking the Lead is a joint initiative aims to support local organisations and networks such as WIHRINI to build their individual and collective capacity to:
Taking the Lead supports local actors to analyse their humanitarian context, assess their own organisational and collective capacities and formulate capacity building plans to improve their performance.
The initiative is primarily focused on small to medium sized local actors who engage in humanitarian action. It is designed to be relevant for a wide range of types of organisations including non- governmental organisations, civil society organisations, not-for-profit and for-profit organisations, local authorities and other state actors, and academic organisations. Taking the Lead is not limited to those who have a humanitarian mandate but can be used by any organisation that participates in humanitarian action at local level in a given environment and for organisations engaged in the management of vulnerabilities and risk in the context.
The purpose of the initiative is to provide a structure which local organisations can use to drive their own organisational and collective capacity building.
The initiative is intended to be a reflective process led by those involved. The discussions and analysis that organisations undertake separately and collectively are an essential part of the learning and reflective process and are as important as the completed assessments and action plans which will be created. The initiative is intended to support self-driven and long-term change and growth.
The assessments and change planning activities are not intended to be conducted by external bodies as evaluations or audits of local organisations.