Tearfund is the lead agency for the START Build ‘Shifting the Power’ consortium in Pakistan striving to strengthen national and local partner’s capacity in emergency response both within institutions and at a country framework level. Overall goal of the project is to strengthen capacity in specifically selected disaster-prone areas while generating evidence for further broader roll-out. Project aims to enhance capacity of the first respondents of the disasters i.e., Local NGOs and improve effectiveness and efficiency of the response. The vision of the project is to support national and local actors to take their place alongside international actors in order to create balanced humanitarian system that is more responsive and accountable to disaster affected communities. The project will strengthen local and national organizational capacity for decision making and leadership in humanitarian response. It will link local to national organizations and at the same time influence international organizations to promote the role of local and national actors. The project is underway in five countries viz. Pakistan, Bangladesh, DRC, Ethiopia and Kenya, and will demonstrate through an effective learning and documentation process to establish that this approach can make national responses faster, better quality and more effective.