While humanitarian response spans a wide range of operations from aid delivery and temporary shelter, to training and preparedness, a successful humanitarian operation also depends heavily on local capacity building and existing governance structures.

Yesterday at the Aid and International Development Forum, the speakers at the governance panel wholeheartedly agreed.

Jessica Vogel, Manager of Operations for International Stability Operations Association (ISOA), moderated the discussion.

She paralleled strong governance and building local capacity, with increasing the rate of success during humanitarian assistance. “Without local capacity the challenges and delivery of relief is ten fold,” Vogel emphasized.

Robert Wells, strategic consultant at Whitney, Bradley and Brown, Inc., reiterated her point. He argued that initiating and constructing partnerships on the ground are both keys to local capacity building.

Wells also stressed that the local governance should be “in the cockpit” of their own humanitarian assistance missions. By organizing constructive collaboration, he maintained, it leads to sustaining professional development.

Johanna Mendelson Forman, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, explored a gap in local capacity: the local diaspora.

Referencing the disaster in Haiti, she asserted that the educated citizens who fled the country were those same individuals who had the most ability to revitalize their damaged country.

“It is the talent and skill of the Haitian diaspora that will recreate Haiti,” Forman stated.

Local capacity building and good governance structures are at the heart of sustaining humanitarian assistance after the temporary funding disappears.