[1] The Network increases collaboration between its members and advocates for the a higher percentage of funding to be given to local humanitarian organizations.

[1] It runs a funding programme for local humanitarian initiatives, and an online platform called South-to-South that helps share learning between local and national humanitarian organizations.

[1] Following a pledge to improve localisation made at the Word Humanitarian Summit,[2] NEAR Network was launched in 2016 and incubated by Adeso with $50,000 funding from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

[3][4] In 2017 and 2018, NEAR Network was critical of government donors failure to comply with 2016 commitments made as part of the Grand Bargain to fund local organizations directly.

[5][6] In 2019, NEAR Network launched the Localisation Performance Measurement Framework to help harmonize systems of reporting to government donors.