By Cheng Laban Ndoh: Executive Director of GEESI Development and Humanitarian Initiative (Nigeria)

As I move around the refugee settlements, my heart is broken not just by the hardship the refugees experience but by the state of affairs at some of the project sites. These sites, which once served as hot spots in the settlements, have suddenly become ghosted. A series of questions come to my mind, to all of which I do not have sufficient answers. But the problem is part of what has been happening lately in the context of global cuts of humanitarian financing. 

What can we do to revive these projects, is perhaps the most important question on which I would like to focus my energy. What needs to be done so that we don’t end up again in similar situations of deadlock. My impression is that in order to find some helpful answers to this question, we need to look at the bigger picture, which is the question of sustainability in humanitarian response.

Sustainability remains one of the most pressing challenges in humanitarian and development programming. While international and national partners play vital roles in initiating life-saving and development-oriented projects, many of these interventions are unable to stand the test of time once external funding or direct supervision ceases. “The failure of sustainability does not only waste resources but also weakens community trust and undermines long-term resilience.” In this contribution, I seek to highlight some of the key reasons on why implementation of projects that heavily rely on external partners often collapses after the initial phase. What are in our opinion (those of us who are on the ground), the pathways towards a more durable impact? I prefer to do this by listing some of the most known causes of the problem, leading to the lack of sustainability.

1. Top-Down Approaches and Limited Community Ownership

“Most projects are designed externally, with little or no meaningful participation of the target communities.” This creates a sense of dependency rather than empowerment, as communities view projects as temporary external gifts rather than collective investments. Without genuine ownership from within, the willingness to maintain, replicate, or expand these initiatives diminishes over time. This is what our lived experience tells us.

2. Short-Term Funding Cycles

Humanitarian and development funding is often restricted to 6–24 month cycles. Such short-term financial commitments prioritise immediate outputs over long-term systems strengthening. As a result, projects are often designed to achieve rapid visibility rather than building gradual resilience, leading to abrupt collapse once funding ends.

3. Capacity Gaps of Local Actors

While local partners, such community-based organisations (CBOs), and refugee-led organisations (RLOs), are engaged in implementation, they are often not adequately trained or resourced to sustain projects independently. Weak institutional capacity, lack of financial management skills, and limited exposure to sustainable practices make continuity a challenge.

4. Over-Reliance on External Expertise and Materials

Many projects depend heavily on international technical experts, imported resources, and sophisticated technologies that cannot be maintained locally. Once external actors withdraw, communities are left with systems and infrastructures that they lack the skills or resources to operate.

5. Inadequate Exit and Transition Strategies

Projects are too frequently designed without clear exit plans that transfer responsibility gradually to local initiatives, such as CBOs and RLOs. The absence of transition frameworks results in sudden disengagement and leaves beneficiaries unprepared for continuity.

6. Fragmented Coordination and Duplication

Competition among partners often leads to fragmented interventions and duplication of efforts within the same geographic space. This lack of synergy undermines comprehensive impact and makes it difficult for communities to integrate different interventions into their existing coping strategies.

7. Limited Alignment with Local Realities and Policies

Projects sometimes fail to integrate with existing local structures, government priorities, or cultural contexts. When interventions are not harmonized with national policies or local traditions, they are unlikely to secure long-term acceptance and institutional support.

The combined effect of all these challenges is that projects are implemented in unsustainable ways. It leads to loss of trust within communities vis-à-vis their relationship with humanitarian actors. It has implications on the wastage of scarce resources and donor funding. It exacerbates increased dependency syndrome within vulnerable populations. It perpetuates an endless cycle of dependency. This practice, instead of strengthening local initiatives, adds to their vulnerability. Weaker local initiatives, deprived of resilience and self-reliance, cannot be strong allies for sustainability. 

So, What is to be Done?

What are the potential solutions? Of course, in such a short contribution it is practically impossible to provide an exhaustive list of solutions. But some of the key considerations include the following. 

All actors working in the refugee response sector need to recognise the need to prioritize community ownership over externally-driven agendas of donors and other actors. This cannot be attained without involving communities in all important steps of humanitarian programming, from project design to implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. 

All of this requires embracing inclusive practices at the centre of which lies recognising the needs and aspirations of communities affected by forced displacement – as articulated by themselves, preferably through sustainable models of agency and representation. This would require investing in local capacities, including strengthening technical and non-technical skills of local partners. This needs to be complemented by locally sourced materials, indigenous knowledge, and culturally relevant practices. Therefore, local actors, such as RLOs and CBOs, need to be supported as central actors in sustainability, rather than peripheral implementers. In this regard, the need for multi-year and flexible funding cannot be overemphasised.

Sustainability cannot be an afterthought—it must be deliberately embedded at every stage of project design and implementation. For humanitarian projects to achieve lasting impact, they must move beyond externally driven, short-term responses and embrace community ownership, capacity building, and long-term resilience. By addressing the factors outlined above, I believe that partners can ensure that interventions not only meet immediate needs but also contribute meaningfully to the self-reliance and dignity of forcibly displaced persons.