Are aid intermediaries unavoidable, or have donors made them necessary?

Every intermediary in aid can explain why it exists.

Far fewer can explain what it costs, what power it keeps and when it will stop being needed.

Money intended for people living in poverty rarely travels directly from a donor to a local organisation. It moves through governments, multilateral agencies, international NGOs, contractors, consultants and national partners before reaching the people closest to the problem.

Each layer has a justification.

Together, those layers can create a system in which local organisations are last in line for the money and first in line for the delivery risk.

That is not a technical inconvenience. It is a power structure.

The obvious response is to remove the middlemen and fund local organisations directly.

Sometimes that is exactly what should happen.

But a serious challenge to the aid system must also test its own preferred answers.

Some intermediary functions can matter. A smaller organisation may not yet have the staff to complete a complex donor audit in English, carry legal liability across several countries, manage foreign-exchange risk or comply with safeguarding rules designed thousands of miles away.

That does not prove that the local organisation is incapable.

It proves that donors have designed a system that many local organisations cannot enter on equal terms.

An intermediary may provide specialist expertise, manage compliance, connect organisations to funding or protect partners from risks they should not have to absorb alone.

Those functions may add value.

But usefulness is not innocence.

The problem begins when support becomes control.

An intermediary becomes difficult to justify when it hides its costs, owns the donor relationship, dictates the strategy, controls the evidence, receives the recognition and leaves the local organisation carrying delivery risk without meaningful authority.

That is not partnership.

It is subcontracting with better language.

The debate is too often trapped between two convenient positions.

One side treats every administrative layer as theft or waste. That is not credible. Security, transport, research, compliance and financial oversight cost money.

The other side points to complexity and declares the existing chain unavoidable.

That is not credible either.

Complexity is not neutral when the organisations that understand the community best remain furthest from the money and the decision-making.

If nobody can explain the full journey of the money in plain language, opacity is not an unfortunate side effect. It has become part of the model.

Put every intermediary through the test

The burden of proof should sit with the organisation taking money and power, not with the local organisation forced to justify why it deserves direct access.

Every intermediary should answer five questions.

What necessary function do you perform?

“Coordination”, “capacity building” and “partnership” are not answers. What could not happen safely or effectively without you?

What does your function cost?

Show the direct and indirect charges clearly. If the cost cannot withstand daylight, the role cannot claim legitimacy.

Who controls the decisions and the money?

A local organisation is not a partner if it controls neither the priorities nor the budget.

What remains locally because you were there?

Useful support should transfer knowledge, systems, relationships, negotiating power and donor access. If everything leaves with the intermediary, nothing meaningful was transferred.

What is your exit or evolution plan?

If the role is genuinely supportive, there should be a credible path for it to shrink, change or end.

These questions do not assume that every intermediary is the enemy.

They reject the idea that any intermediary should be above scrutiny.

They also expose the deeper problem.

If international intermediaries are needed mainly because donor rules are too complicated, risk is pushed downwards and funding systems refuse to trust local institutions, the intermediary is treating a problem created by the donor architecture.

An intermediary that exists mainly because donors refuse to trust local institutions is not solving the problem.

It is monetising the donor’s refusal to change.

The long-term answer is not another layer helping communities navigate an unreasonable system.

It is a different system.

That means simpler access to funding, proportionate reporting, investment in locally held financial and legal capacity, and donors willing to build direct relationships instead of outsourcing trust.

Some intermediaries may still be necessary today.

Necessary today does not mean entitled to exist forever.

Bring evidence, not slogans

We want practical examples of when intermediaries add value and when they extract it.

If you work for a local organisation, tell us which functions genuinely help and which take power away.

If you work for an intermediary, make the strongest case for your role. Explain the value you add, what it costs, what authority you hold and what you are doing to transfer it.

No slogans. No anonymous percentages without evidence. No claim that every organisation is either hero or villain.

Just one unavoidable question for every layer in the system:

What becomes possible because you exist, and when will somebody else be able to do it without you?