By Aysha Imam, AIDMI, India

Across the world, humanitarian crises are becoming more frequent, complex, and prolonged. Conflict, displacement, and climate extremes are placing unprecedented pressure on the international humanitarian system. In this context, the concept of locally led action is gaining renewed attention. At the heart of this approach lies mutual aid—the informal networks of solidarity through which communities support each other during crises.

Mutual aid is not a new idea. Long before formal humanitarian institutions emerged, communities relied on shared labour, informal credit, neighbourhood support, and collective problem-solving to survive disasters. These practices remain central to how people cope with crises today. As humanitarian needs grow and resources remain constrained, there is a notable rise in interest in these community-driven systems from parts of the international system.

The experience of working with affected communities illustrates how mutual aid functions in practice. For more than three decades, AIDMI has documented and worked with community networks responding to disasters such as earthquakes, floods, cyclones, and increasingly extreme heat. These experiences show that mutual aid is often the fastest and most trusted form of support during crises. Communities mobilise through family networks, women’s groups, small business associations, and neighbourhood organisations—often hours, days, or even weeks before external assistance arrives, and continuing long after external support has withdrawn, demonstrating the sustainability and resilience of mutual aid systems. These networks provide immediate and practical support: sharing food and water, offering temporary shelter, extending small loans, caring for children and elderly people, and spreading information about risks. Because they are embedded in everyday social and livelihood relationships, they are able to identify who needs help most and respond quickly.

AIDMI’s work with small businesses and workers across multiple Indian cities highlights how mutual aid operates within everyday livelihood systems. During periods of extreme heat or economic disruption, shop owners and workers support one another by sharing shade, water, storage space, and temporary credit. These actions are voluntary, solidarity-based, and self-organised, emerging from trust and long-standing relationships within communities. They are largely self-resourced, with people contributing time, effort, and in-kind support to sustain each other. Any external assistance, when it comes, often complements these existing efforts rather than initiating them. This underscores both the strength and resilience of mutual aid systems, as well as the need to ensure that external support does not undermine their independence or create unintended dependence.

However, the growing international interest in mutual aid also raises important questions. While recognition is welcome, there is a risk that external support could unintentionally weaken the very systems it seeks to strengthen. Mutual aid works because it is flexible, informal, and rooted in local relationships. If support becomes overly structured or short-term, it may disrupt these dynamics.

From AIDMI’s perspective, the key challenge is therefore not to formalise mutual aid excessively, but to recognise, enable, and protect it—while also strengthening what it already does well. Mutual aid is effective because it is fast, trusted, flexible, and deeply rooted in local relationships, allowing communities to respond to changing needs with immediacy and care. Flexible financing, partnerships with local organisations, and respect for community knowledge can help reinforce these strengths without undermining their independence. Another important lesson is that humanitarian actors often focus on vulnerability while overlooking local capacity. Mutual aid demonstrates that communities possess significant resources, knowledge, and organisational strength. Recognising these capacities opens new possibilities for partnership and shared ownership in humanitarian action.

Ultimately, strengthening humanitarian response in times of crisis requires listening to communities and supporting the systems they have built over generations. Mutual aid reminds the humanitarian sector that effective action begins not only with institutions, but with people helping one another and sustaining collective responses over time.

Photo caption: Cascading funding shortfalls, increasing access restrictions, and overlap of accelerating conflict and climate extreme hotspots were discussed by extreme heat-affected small businesses in Ahmedabad in a workshop on the Future of Aid, June 2025. (Photo: AIDMI).

(The article is based on the presentation and discussion at the panel – “Mutual Aid and Locally Led Action: Rethinking International Support in Times of Crisis” that organised by ALNAP at HNPW2026.)