Proximity is not power.
What I said about localization at the DG ECHO Leadership Group Meeting in December 2025, what I meant by it, and the five things I will not argue for.
5 refusals
The position Positions
Positions, argued from practice
Localization is a legitimacy problem, not a capacity problem.
Sixteen interviews, 264 coded references, and a driver who designed a security protocol that outperformed correct procedure.
16 interviews264 references
The position 
The scarcest resource is decision quality under constraint, not funding.
A wrong decision has a name attached to it. A slow one does not, which is why organizations produce slow ones in perfect good faith.
Organizations optimize for the appearance of order over clarity of action.
Order is legible to funders and auditors. Clarity of action is not. The hiring test that made the difference cost an afternoon.
30 risks, no owner
The position 
The customer and the beneficiary are the same person.
We can track a parcel to the second it lands on a doorstep. In a disaster zone the map goes dark. Same ports, same customs systems, same networks.
88% agree80% never use AI
The position 
Interoperability is a governance problem, not a technology problem.
Thirty-six senior leaders named the barriers to collaboration. Not one of them was a systems problem, and you cannot procure your way out of any of them.
36 leaders10 initiatives
The position 
Fragmentation is a choice, not a condition.
Collaboration means somebody else's name on the result. Where funding follows attribution, giving up visibility is a budget risk, not vanity.
CHF 2.5m committed
The position 
Survival mode is the wrong instinct.
Costs up, funding down, and every organization I speak to is retreating into what it owns. The right move is to decide what business you are in and give the rest away.