‘’Localisation will only become real when power dynamics are openly addressed, such as donors holding fiduciary risk being willing to transfer it to local organizations. It requires trust to be built and donors accepting a level of risk. INGOs must be willing to become less central and local organizations need to be ready for what real leadership demands in terms of governance, accountability, and systems’’.
Roseline Kamdem is a humanitarian and development leader with over 17 years of experience across Francophone Africa. She co‑founded a grassroots NGO in Cameroon, worked in feminist grantmaking at UAF‑Africa and FRIDA, and served as Deputy Director of Programs at the International Rescue Committee in Niger. Her career spans Central, West, and East Africa, with a focus on women and girls’ empowerment, business development, and localization. Bilingual in French and English, she writes about leadership, resilience, and the unspoken realities of the humanitarian sector.
Humanitarian work is increasing and no doubt that’s important. Some argue that this increase may be absorbing resources for regular poverty reduction work. What do you see as the most viable routes for more sustainable humanitarian aid that does not displace regular development projects?
Humanitarian work will always exist. The question is what happens before the crisis. Firstly is anticipation and preparedness. In Niger, I watched communities that had been trained in disaster preparedness manage small population displacements on their own — 50 households, no external assistance, no waiting. Secondly, the nexus approach, designing programs that connect emergency response and long-term development from the start. Donors talk about the nexus but few are willing to fund it the way it requires. Communities outlast governments and donors being willing to invest in community capacity despite political uncertainty even in the most unstable environments is where sustainable impact begins.
Localisation has been talked about for a while but traction seems slow. What does localization look like in the humanitarian sector, and with your expertise in the African context, where in the eco-system do you see more room for accelerating and sustaining localization and locally-led solutions?
Localisation will only become real when power dynamics are openly addressed, such as donors holding the fiduciary risk being willing to transfer it with the right support systems to local organizations. It requires trust that has to be built and donors accepting a level of risk they have historically transferred to International NGOs (INGOs). INGOs must be willing to become less central and local organizations need to be ready for what real leadership demands in terms of governance, accountability, and systems. Many are not. The Grand Bargain of 2016 on reforming how humanitarian aid is delivered promised 25% of funding directly to local actors by 2020. We are still far from that target.
You’ve given grant funding before and have been a recipient too. I note your point about no grant being better than a bad grant. What is a bad grant in your view, how might it turn costly and what are the specific, considerations you’ve applied when faced with being offered a bad grant?
A bad grant costs you more than it gives you- costs in time, in operational stretch beyond what you can deliver, in mission drift, or in organizational credibility. As a grantmaker, I watched organizations accept funding that pulled them away from their core work. As a program leader, I have sat in rooms where the pressure to say yes was enormous – funding pipelines dry, salaries at stake, teams anxious. Mission drift is perhaps the quietest danger as the temptation to reshape your mandate around available funding is real.
For smaller organizations, a bad grant can be one with insufficient or no operational costs built in, sometimes inadvertently creating conditions for mismanagement. When I evaluate a grant, three questions cut through the pressure: Do we have the staff and operational capacity? Are we stretching our mandate to fit the funding? What happens to our reputation if this goes wrong?
In a shrinking aid landscape, the ability to achieve and evidence sustainable impact is crucial, but a point sometimes made is that many NGOs struggle to do this. What do you think the elements of a sharper NGO impact measurement system should be?
Impact measurement is not a reporting exercise, it is a design decision and a continuous one. Too often, measurement is the last thing on the list and by the time someone asks for the data, the project is almost over. I learned this concretely on a project supporting a community space for women. Attendance was low. We asked ourselves what was wrong. The answer was in what the women weren’t saying out loud. They needed a discreet, confidential space to speak freely. We added a listening room and attendance changed. Impact measurement system should start at project design stage with a clear plan, an adequate budget, and lessons from previous projects genuinely integrated.
Women in Leadership even in routine contexts sometimes have to deal with the bias of not being fully trusted to lead well- a bias that one can’t really afford in crises settings. What’s the worst prejudice you’ve experienced as a humanitarian leader in tough conditions – how did you respond?
Bias, I encountered most consistently was quiet “You are too kind to lead.” Kindness is not something I can remove from myself — nor would I want to. It is how I built teams, because I genuinely love and care for people. When a major crisis hit and we had to make some of the hardest decisions of my career fast, under pressure, my team stood with me. Not because I demanded it, but because of what we had built together over the years. Barriers are real, but I believe showing up fully as yourself, consistently, visibly is part of how barriers get dismantled. When I left my last posting, a colleague said something I won’t forget. She told me I had shown her that you can really lead and still keep your feminine energy intact.
Life has been harsh for you at certain times- lost your home, became displaced, etc. You call it having ‘’had a front-row seat to what resilience looks like’’. As a proud mother of 5, how are you hoping the close-up view your children are having of your life shapes their values and worldview?
Life has not always been kind. My children have seen all of it. They see a mother who fought for her dreams and for them, who did her best to show them a world beyond their hometown in Cameroon. They see a mother who prays and prayer has kept me sane. My son once told me he is a citizen of the world, not a Cameroonian. I didn’t know whether to be proud or heartbroken. I was both. But I believe you can become anything you truly want, if you work for it and if you have faith. Jesus is my anchor; He carried me when we lost our home, when we lost my parents, when I had no idea what came next.
‘’Life has been a teacher’’ you say and out of it has come an international career which has its privileges but with sacrifices too. What key capabilities would help one succeed in an international environment and what due diligence would you recommend women do before relocating?
There are costs not often documented anywhere, particularly for women and mothers. Capabilities such as minimalism- travelling light emotionally and physically, leaving behind objects, friendships, versions of yourself that belonged to a place, adaptability – drawing on different facets of your personality depending on country, team, context and Curiosity —asking questions, not assuming, served me most.
Go in with your eyes and ears open. School enrollment often requires anticipation months in advance, find trustworthy people for childcare, build a support system early, research medical services before you go. On food and toiletries, some products you depend on may not exist in certain locations. I once arrived in a country to discover that toilet paper was a rare commodity. Your children during the adaptation period, will draw on you more than you expect; know what’s going on.
Yours is one of only 17 stories from across the world in Thomas Werner’s ‘’Twenty-One Summers’’, a book which focuses on life in seasons and intentional choices about how to spend one’s time. What reflections did you have with your story told within that framework and philosophy?
Reading my own story in someone else’s words pushed me to stop being quiet about what I had lived. if Thomas sees enough value in my story to put it in a book, why not share my story with a wider audience, in my own voice? One day, I intend to tell it fully in my own book, in my own words. What touched me most was simple. He noticed that I never complain, always looking for a solution, for the next step. When I recently left my last posting, colleagues called me “Mama Solutions.” That landed differently than any title I have ever held.
Resilience is meant to be positive but can be abused when it keeps one trapped in conditions one could/should exit. What’s the ‘Roseline’ brand of good resilience you’ve built?
Good resilience, for me, is knowing the difference between a season to endure and a season to exit. Since 2021, every country I have worked in has experienced a coup d’état or serious sociopolitical instability. Curfews, closed borders, restricted commodities, evacuations. ‘’This too shall pass’’ is the phrase that has carried me through. Staying, even suffering well can get mistaken for strength. There were conditions I stayed in longer than I should have, because staying felt like faithfulness. But every step forward costs you something. The question was never whether to pay the cost. It was which cost was worth it. My anchor through all is Jesus. When everything else shifts and in this career, everything shifts that does not.
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