What was the purpose of your visits?
Bueno de Faria: The purpose was not only to express solidarity, but to understand how the response is unfolding in practice: where ACT members are adding value, where important gaps remain, and what these emergencies tell us about localization, community-led humanitarian action and the changing international humanitarian system.
What was your biggest takeaway?
Bueno de Faria: My principal conclusion is clear: ACT members and their partners are doing important and distinctive humanitarian work, particularly by reaching communities that larger response mechanisms do not easily reach and by strengthening, rather than replacing, local capacity. But this work cannot be sustained at the scale required without substantially greater support from our ecumenical, faith-based, and multi-religious partners.
How does the ACT Alliance work through local actors rather than replacing them?
Bueno de Faria: One of the strongest impressions from both countries was the contrast between the ACT approach and much international humanitarian implementation. ACT’s international members are not simply establishing parallel delivery structures. They are deliberately working through churches, community organizations, national nongovernmental organizations, and other established local actors. This is localization in practice: international capacity backing local leadership, rather than international capacity displacing it.
In community-led response, preparedness is not simply the pre-positioning of supplies. It also means investing in organizations, relationships, knowledge, and leadership before an emergency occurs.