From Hamburg to Uganda: how an NGO learned to reinvent itself

Development aid is often provided by large, international NGOs based in the Global North. These globally operating NGOs are under growing pressure to adapt the nature of their work – including administrative tasks – to the places where it occurs. However, this process of localisation is rarely straightforward. It’s not just about transferring responsibilities or adjusting ways of working to fit local contexts. It’s the contradictions within organisations that can distort or stall this process, which get left out. Our article on Organization Studies takes a unique, long-term look at this question. We tracked the expansion of Viva con Agua (VCA) – a German NGO that launches and supports water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) initiatives – over a 15-year period from its headquarters in Hamburg, Germany, to Uganda. Through 74 interviews, 272 hours of observation, and over 100 internal and public documents, we show how localising development work not only requires NGOs to reconsider what they do and how they do it, but also raises questions about organisational identity, such as “who are we?”, “what are our core values?” and “what distinguishes us from other NGOs?”. From Hamburg to Kampala: a distinctive identity meets a new context VCA emerged in the early 2000s from the creative and activist culture of Hamburg’s St. Pauli District. Its founding identity was shaped by inclusiveness, anti-racism, cultural openness, and civic engagement – expressed through partnerships with artists, football fans, and musicians. The most emblematic partnership is the one with football club FC St. Pauli, which is also known for its activist culture. When VCA started to work in Uganda in 2007, this energy helped the organisation build rapport and find local collaborators with similar values. However, it soon became clear that cultural alignment wasn’t enough. For example, the water, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure that worked in other countries didn’t always fit Ugandan realities. One early challenge involved latrines built by VCA for local communities in northern Uganda. Soon after building the latrines, staff realised that the facilities were not used by many villagers due to local norms and traditions – such as the fact that a father-in-law and his daughter-in-law are not allowed to share facilities. When adapting programmes reveals deeper tensions To improve local engagement, VCA developed culturally resonant initiatives such as Football4WASH and Dance4WASH, which are education-through-sport programmes, and other participatory formats. These efforts succeeded in creating more meaningful local traction. For example, a few weeks after VCA organised a Dance4WASH choreography with primary school pupils in a rural school north of Kampala, the school principal told us that during parent-teacher day, parents talked about the dance routine and performed the typical featured gestures (which reflected the World Health Organization’s handwashing guidelines. Children were showing the handwash dance to their parents, brothers, sisters, and other community members, and thus, the information spread. However, these localised efforts also raised new questions: Who defines what VCA stands for? Where are decisions made? And how much autonomy can be given to the Ugandan team without losing organisational cohesion? In our study, we identified two entangled organisational tensions: the need to scale globally while adapting locally, called global–local paradox,and the need to evolve identity while maintaining continuity, called identity elasticity paradox. What emerged was not just a series of dilemmas that could be resolved easily by organisational decisions, but a knotted dynamic of complex, interconnected, and irresolvable challenges. Addressing one tension – such as adapting projects to the Ugandan context – made the identity questions more urgent. This interplay, which we call an “asymmetric paradox knot”, meant that VCA’s efforts to adapt their business to local life were deeply intertwined with questions of internal legitimacy, leadership, and coherence. In a 2020 interview, a VCA founder highlighted the challenges he and his team faced due to the increasing VCA network, including local supporters in Kampala and elsewhere. He emphasised that the question of “who we are as an organisation?” is present in the NGO’s daily work and something they reflect on in strategy meetings. “It’s the same family,” he said, “with the stoned son and the rock ‘n’ roll daughter, but everything has a very similar DNA. And that’s what Viva con Agua does in the end, keeping it together. » What allowed the organisation to move forward? In our study, we identified two key “knotting mechanisms” that helped VCA manage tensions in practice. The first mechanism was stretching identity by integrating Ugandan staff into the NGO’s strategy and representation. For example, VCA actively supported local staff to build their own branch of VCA and gradually increased their responsibility for local WASH projects. Stretching identity also meant creating space for new ways of “being VCA” that aligned with core values and local context, such as a new collaboration with a social enterprise to provide affordable water filters from natural materials for rural communities – cross-subsidised by an artistic, “lifestyle” version of the same filters aimed at wealthier consumers. This project was one of the first initiatives of the Ugandan VCA staff that was independent of Western donations. VCA also helped manage tensions by contextualising activities. This involved redesigning programme content and delivery methods to reflect local knowledge, norms and social rhythms. For instance, VCA members realised that some teachers they collaborated with for Football4WASH programmes kept the provided footballs, instead of giving them to the children to practise the hygiene exercises. So the local crew came up with a school competition: they showed the pupils and teachers specific Football4WASH drills and tricks, and only the best schools were rewarded. This way, they ensured that the teachers were committed to the idea, and led practice sessions with the children using the footballs. Everyday practices It is interesting to note that small, everyday practices reinforced VCA’s shift. For example, field visits were traditionally planned by the German team, which flew to 1-2 project sites and the local office in Kampala. In March 2019, the local crew organised the field trips for a German delegation for the first time. They rented a bus so that more project sites, all over the country, could be visited, and they invited various Ugandan artists, musicians, and dancers to join the trip with local and German VCA members. They had concerts and workshops along the way, raising awareness of the organisation and the programmes. According to VCA representative interviewees, small shifts also encouraged more horizontal, trust-based communication. Ugandan staff voiced ideas and opinions more often, and challenged German team members in constructive ways. In 2017, the Ugandan VCA team was formally registered as an independent chapter of the NGO. While the global organisation maintained support structures, decision-making authority increasingly shifted to local teams. Weekly calls between Hamburg and Kampala became not only coordination meetings, but spaces to continually renegotiate identity and alignment. One of the project coordinators from Germany explained in an interview that he talks to the local VCA crew in Kampala once a week to check in and “to evaluate how far their work is still based on the same basic ideas and principles as the work is in Germany”. These calls were aimed at empowering the local team to become creative and take responsibility, while also ensuring that they acted within the value system of VCA. A broader insight for development actors VCA’s experience is not offered as a blueprint, but as a diagnostic lens. It shows that one development organisation faced overlapping tensions that had to be navigated simultaneously. More specifically, we can see that the NGO’s localisation efforts could not be separated from identity work. Without deliberate efforts to manage internal contradictions, VCA’s well-intentioned initiatives may have continued to stall or backfire. As the aid sector continues to decentralise and evolve toward more hybrid models, our study provides a conceptual framework for how organisations can adapt without becoming fragmented.