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PurposeThis paper aims to explore the relationship between local women's relief initiatives and international relief workers in Batticaloa, eastern Sri Lanka, during the post‐tsunami emergency.Design/methodology/approachInterviews with representatives from women's organizations in the tsunami‐affected town of Batticaloa, local and national nongovernment organizations (NGOs) based in Batticaloa, as well as international aid agencies are discussed in relation to theories on resilience, vulnerability, gender and humanitarianism.FindingsObserving that women in a disaster‐affected area often represent important knowledge and resources, this paper documents how international relief workers failed to connect and cooperate with local women's organizations in post‐tsunami Batticaloa. It suggests that the reasons behind the disconnection can be linked to “us and them” undercurrents of international relief work – the lingering remnants of a colonial heritage. The disconnection may have led to a disempowerment of local capacities, flaws in the international relief activities, and reduced resilience among Batticaloan women in relation to the Sri Lankan civil war.Research limitations/implicationsDespite a growing volume of policies and guidelines on the importance of involving local capacities, there are inadequacies in the way international relief agencies operate vis‐à‐vis disaster‐affected communities, including women's established relief networks.Practical implicationsThe paper points at some reasons why international relief organizations struggle to engage local women's resources in their emergency operations. It suggests that cultural, social, and linguistic barriers are among those that need to be addressed if relief workers are to provide effective and sustainable assistance to crisis‐affected communities.Originality/valueCoupling theories of resilience, vulnerability, gender, and humanitarianism, this paper argues that women in disaster‐affected areas must be involved in international relief operations in a way that reflects their actual knowledge and resources. Presenting original interview material and documents collected during the first six months of the post‐tsunami operation, as well as through a follow‐up study in 2008, the paper points at international aid agencies' apparent inability to acknowledge local women's resilience and take their capacities into account. It also points at some of the ways in which this compromised the effectiveness and sustainability of international relief work in post‐tsunami Batticaloa.

Humanitarian agencies consist of several organizational levels, of which some find themselves far from each other in terms of culture and context. In their efforts to ensure a common direction in activities, humanitarian managers therefore rely on an array of guiding documents such as strategies, policies, and guidelines. Such guiding documents, however, are reported to have a marginal effect on humanitarian practice at field level. In this article, the authors take a closer look at the interlevel dynamics of humanitarian agencies and ask why their guiding documents are prone to flawed implementation. This study is centered on the United Nations Development Programme’s Gender Equality Strategy 2008-2011, and in particular its Eight Point Agenda for women’s empowerment and gender equality in crisis prevention and recovery. Theories concerning safety management and organizational accidents in commercial companies are used to analyze the implementation process. The findings revealed job perception gaps and diverging “realities” between the different organizational levels, combined with implementation indicators that are perceived as “irrelevant” at the country office and field office levels. Indicators tend to measure the output of administrative efforts within the organization rather than the outcome for the crisis-affected communities the guiding document was intended to protect. This phenomenon can be described as virtual implementation, as managers at the headquarters level are left with a mistaken belief that their guiding documents have made a humanitarian impact. As a consequence, virtual implementation can exacerbate the job perception gaps within the organization and develop latent conditions for future failures.