Partners in Localization
Desiiigning For Change
Those who work in the development and humanitarian sphere know that local ownership of international assistance is the route to greater equity, effectiveness, and sustainability. USAID has embraced this understanding and redoubled our commitment to shift funding and decision-making power to the people, organizations, and institutions driving change in their communities. Similar commitments are shared by actors across the development and humanitarian ecosystem, from national and local to U.S.-based or international organizations. So as USAID advances its own commitments to locally-led development, we know we need to build upon, leverage, and complement the expertise, resources, knowledge, skills, and networks of all development actors in a way that elevates local leadership.
In June 2023, USAID’s Bureau for Planning, Learning, and Resource Management (PLR) and Bureau for Management convened a group of over 300 partners and stakeholders from across the globe, along with USAID staff, to generate creative ideas that support USAID’s efforts to advance locally-led development. The workshop, “Partners in Localization: Designing for Change,” drew upon the wealth and diversity of participants’ experiences to collaboratively identify challenges to our localization efforts and propose solutions to overcome them.
We are pleased to share of the ideas proposed, as well as the full set of notes and ideas recorded during small group discussions. The views and conclusions contained in this report are primarily those of non-USAID participants and should not be interpreted as representing the views, positions, or official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Government Nevertheless, we see enormous value in providing full transparency around the discussion that took place as we work together to explore new ways of working and reinforce our ongoing efforts to advance our localization goals.
The emphasis we heard on flexibility and accessibility underscores the importance of our efforts to reduce burdens in our Acquisitions and Assistance (A&A) processes and reinforces commitments we’ve made in the Agency’s A&A strategy more broadly. We recognize the barriers many partners face, especially those new to working with USAID. So we are creating more ways to engage in A&A processes in languages other than English. We’re taking steps to support full cost recovery for partners. We’re streamlining risk assessment requirements: we revised our pre-award survey guidance to enable greater flexibility, adaptability and burden reduction.
We are encouraging staff to reduce reporting burdens for implementing partners, including limiting requests for required information, accepting more streamlined reports, and creating flexibility in report formats. We also heard support during the workshop for co-creation approaches and are reinforcing across the Agency that co-creation is not just a procurement tool but a collaborative exercise that, if appropriate, can be used at any point in the program Cycle, including implementation.
Another key topic of discussion centered on opportunities to empower and engage USAID staff to integrate locally-led development throughout the Program Cycle, including during country strategy setting and mid-course stocktaking, activity design and implementation. We are supporting staff with updated programmatic guidance, as detailed in forthcoming revisions to ADS 201. We also developed a Localization Playbook, which captures internal guidance materials, many of which are crowdsourced from USAID Missions, that support staff to efficiently implement proven strategies to amplify local leadership in programming.
These are just a few examples of how the workshop discussions resonated with ongoing reform efforts at USAID. But we do have further to go, and the conversation during the workshop will inform the next steps.
Partners in LOCALIZATION
workshop discussions
We view the Partners in Localization workshop as just one conversation of many. We hope future discussions can follow up on some of these key recommendations while continuing to engage partners and stakeholders around ways that the development and humanitarian industry at large can advance locally-led development. Our international and U.S.-based partners play a key role in helping us to realise USAID’s vision for localization.
As we move toward a target of 25 percent of our funding going directly to local partners, we look to the international communities to help mentor and facilitate local organisations to be successful. Similarly, as we aim for 50 percent of our programming to put local actors in the lead, we look to our partners to creatively identify and propose approaches that elevate local voices and knowledge, engage local leadership and decision-making, and shift the power to local actors and local communities who will continue to work toward more prosperous futures well beyond our partnership together.
On June 12-13, 2023, USAID’s Bureau for Planning, Learning, and Resource Management, in partnership with the Bureau for Management, hosted a workshop to engage partners in the development of new strategies and ideas to accelerate USAID’s localization goals.
The workshop, entitled Partners in Localization: Designing for Change Co-Creation, gathered participants from all over the globe, including local partners and local organizations not currently working with USAID, U.S.-based partners, and USAID/Washington and Mission staff. More than 200 participants joined virtually, and 120 attended in-person each day.
Partners in Localization
“Partners in Localization: Designing for Change,” drew upon the wealth and diversity of participants' experiences to collaboratively identify challenges to our localization efforts and propose solutions to overcome them
1. OBJECTIVES
The two-day workshop was designed with the following intended outcomes:
Shared understanding of USAID’s localization goals and the roles partners can play in achieving them.
Identification of high-priority challenges, which impede localization but offer ample opportunity for partnership to support solutions.
Development of specific actions that partners might take, in the short, medium and long term, to help USAID continue to accelerate its progress toward achieving localization goals.
2. KEY OUTCOMES
After creating a shared understanding of USAID’s localization goals, efforts, and current progress, participants collectively identified key challenges to localization for three groups of actors: USAID, local partners, and U.S.-based and international partners. For USAID, the primary identified challenges centred around procurement, staffing/culture, and risk. For local partners, the main categories of challenges were complexity and time, capacity, funding, and lack of access to information. For U.S.-based and international partners, challenges included business models, contracting and risk management, and local partner relationships.
Additional information on challenges can be found in the article. Participants then brainstormed possible solutions in small groups, answering the question: how might we tackle one or more of these priority challenges to help USAID meet its localization goals? In-person and virtual attendees reviewed ideas together, then voted on five ideas to move forward, providing feedback on and adding detail to each idea. The next section summarizes the key elements of the five selected ideas, noting that some ideas contained more than one element and some elements were common across multiple ideas. Additional ideas proposed during the workshop can be found in the article.
PROPOSED IDEAS TO RESPOND TO LOCALIZATION CHALLENGES
Disclaimer: The statements below are shared in the spirit of transparency and to promote ongoing exchanges of ideas about ways to advance localization efforts. The views and conclusions are primarily those of non-USAID participants and should not be interpreted as representing the views, positions, or official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Government.
Idea: Expand phased procurement models that pay for project design
What it would mean:
a phased approach to procurement, with the partner compensated at all stages: phase one pays for program research and design, including participation in a co-creation process, and phase two pays for implementation.
What it would accomplish: Local partners would not have to make significant investments in procurements with an uncertain outcome.
Idea: Expand, improve, and better define co-creation
What it would mean:
Implement co-creation at different phases of the Program Cycle so that local organizations may participate similarly to primes.
Improve communication from USAID about the role of and process for co-creation.
Create an advisory group of local organisations to decide who is at the table for co-creation and frame co-creation priorities.
What it would accomplish: Local organizations lead on design.
Idea: Enhance access and support for local organizations
What it would mean:
Dedicated funding for local organizations.
Limit competition to local partners.
Pre-qualify local partners.
Accept concept notes in local languages.
Reduce administrative and reporting requirements.
What it would accomplish: Significantly increase the number and diversity of local organisations receiving USAID funding.
Idea: Flexible, unrestricted funds for unsolicited proposals from local organizations with effective solutions
What it would mean:
Sector-agnostic country-level fund without set priorities; unrestricted funding.
Country Missions have the flexibility to choose funding approach and model.
Flexible awards that are descriptive of outcomes.
Funding is dedicated to local organizations with reduced administrative and reporting requirements.
Appropriate selection committee approves grants/contracts - three to six-month timeline from application to decision.
What it would accomplish: Quick, flexible, innovative financing for local organizations; the ability for local organizations to learn by doing.
Idea: Equitable cost recovery for local organizations
What it would mean:
Fund participation in co-creation.
Make a de minimis rate that is uniformly acceptable: increase to 20 percent.
What it would accomplish: Organizations do not have to make significant investments that are not paid for by USAID.
3. WORKSHOP FEEDBACK
Participant feedback on the workshop was solicited through an online survey and also through the chat discussion in the online forum. Key takeaways reported by participants through the survey included:
A stronger understanding of the USAID co-creation approach and the importance of solutions coming from local leaders. Respondents generally felt that the workshop helped them learn by doing, and that they better understood how co-creation supports USAID efforts to generate solutions from local partners. Participants appreciated the co-creative aspect of the workshop and were eager to be involved in future co-creations.
"USAID is increasingly open to learning from partners about practical ways of making localization work.”
The importance of collaboration and partnership. The workshop reinforced and informed participants about the role of communication and collaborative problem-solving across and within organizations. It highlighted the need for sharing experiences and best practices among organizations to address shared challenges collectively.
"I learned a lot about the perspectives of other stakeholders that I had not appreciated previously, which is key as we try to think about our approach."
Role of management, systems, and communication improvements in creating positive outcomes. Participants reported learning about the procurement process, funding application systems, and shared challenges in business strategy. Much of the feedback highlighted the difficulty of the funding application process for local organizations, with many local partners learning that these are shared obstacles requiring strong inter-organization communications systems.
"There is a real need for collaborative approaches, ways of strengthening local actors to be able to meet and respond to USAID funding, and the need to run organizations as businesses."