An Agenda for a Dignified and Sustainable Rohingya Refugee Response in Bangladesh
while the district administration coordinates the needs of Bangladeshi communities and ensures law
and order.249 Efforts are ongoing to reinforce the capacity of Government-appointed camp officials by
the humanitarian community/ Site Management sector through the Joint Capacity Sharing Initiative
(CSI). 250
The rights of non-citizens are recognised by the Constitution of Bangladesh but the policy framework
does not recognise Rohingya as refugees and limits their access to rights, and restricts the scope of
humanitarian operations.251 Despite such strong national leadership, the Rohingya refugee response
modalities do not fit well within the government coordinated disaster management structures at the
local level with overlapping roles and responsibilities for the RRRC, district administration and the
army.252
5.2.1.2 NGO actors- Who and where?
Along with the Bangladeshi authorities, local communities, national and local NGOs, UN, INGOs
present in the area and the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement, were the first responders to the
Rohingya influx of 2017.253
By early 2018, more than 120 agencies were engaged in the response. While Bangladeshi NGOs
implemented projects, the main players in terms of policy influence and financial resources were the
UN agencies, a few INGOs and BRAC, one of the largest NGOs in the world that was started in
Bangladesh.254 Between 2017-2020, the number of Bangladeshi NGOs delivering projects under the
JRP had marginally increased but progress has been slow in terms of their inclusion in sector coleadership roles and overall coordination. Language barriers, use of excessive jargon, the pace of
meetings, limited feedback opportunities and lack of coordination capacity255 constrained
participation of local NGOs and CSOs in the existing humanitarian coordination system.
Of note, there is a distinction made within some sections of the NGO community between national
and local NGOs. As per a report by COAST Trust (2019)-256
Local NGOs (LNGOs) refers to the NGOs whose leadership come from a particular local area.
For example, the NGOs whose leadership are from Cox’s Bazar or/and the NGOs that started
its journey from Cox’s Bazar are LNGOs for Cox’s Bazar. National NGOs (NNGOs) are those that
started their journey from any other part of Bangladesh other than Cox’s Bazar, or/and whose
leadership are not from Cox’s Bazar.
The self-identification of ‘local NGOs’ in the Rohingya refugee response has been used in the context
of relative distribution of power and resources as well as to legitimise the role of some actors in the
249
JRP 2020, supra n. 64, p. 37
Presentation - Capacity Sharing Initiative Cox's Bazar, available at https://cccmcluster.org/documents/presentationcapacity-sharing-initiative-coxs-bazar
251 See, BLAST and RSN, supra n. 125. HAG and Nirapad, When the Rubber Hits the Road: Local Leadership in the first 100
days
of
the
Rohingya
Crisis
Response,
December
2017,
available
at
https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/node/17192/pdf/when-the-rubber-hits-the-road.pdf.
252 Cook and Foo, supra n. 249.
253 HAG and Nirapad, supra n. 252.
254 Van Brabant and Patel, supra n. 238.
255 Ibid.
256 COAST Trust, Study on Localisation of Humanitarian Aid in Bangladesh, Focusing Rohingya Response- Business a usual or
breaking the status quo?, December 2018, available at https://coastbd.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Aid-Transparecy1.pdf
250
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Act for Peace / May 2021