In recent years, a new term has gained more and more popularity in international development – localization. The concept means shifting power from international organizations to local actors, communities, and implementing partners to make development initiatives more inclusive and responsive to the actual needs of the recipients. As a result, localization is often referred to as making aid more efficient and cost-effective. Despite its positive impacts, as with any paradigm shift, experts also weigh in on the pros and cons, as localization comes with its own set of challenges. Let’s explore this topic further through the lens of several international development experts.
Key Takeaways:
- According to experts, localization improves aid effectiveness, ensures long-term sustainability, and reduces costs, while strengthening local resilience and expertise.
- In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Oxfam empowered a community to create its own water and food security system, while in the Central African Republic, local women leaders negotiated peace during a crisis, showcasing the effectiveness of the localization of resources.
- Regulatory environments, the lack of human capacity, and funding difficulties are the main challenges faced in implementing localized development strategies.
- Simplifying bureaucratic processes and supporting local organizations through capacity building can help to overcome barriers to localization.
DevelopmentAid: How does localization enhance the effectiveness of international development aid in specific regions? Can you provide examples?
“People in communities know what they need better than anyone. They even know how to address these issues effectively. They just lack support – and that’s precisely why involving them in defining the strategy brings sustainable results. Since 2008, I have been working to promote citizens’ engagement in any decisions or actions that influence their lives, and I can assure you that it makes a great difference and adds value to development aid. I have experience with this approach in both fragile and stable countries.
Here is an example from the Democratic Republic of the Congo of a localized approach in disaster risk reduction (DRR). In a small community called Oicha, people were empowered by Oxfam to identify, plan, and implement the actions needed to protect their lives and stay safe during difficult times. The outcome was remarkable: they created their own system of water and food security and an early warning mechanism. More importantly, they were so organized that they formed a powerful local platform that influences and coordinates humanitarian actions within the community, becoming a backup for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Another example from the Central African Republic involved women in peacebuilding. This was a project aimed at making Security Sector reforms more gender-sensitive – in other words, ensuring that the reforms addressed women’s specific needs. Therefore, we empowered local women leaders in some hotspot regions to advocate for their rights. They were able to decide what was important and how to address this. During the project, a presidential election took place, and the situation worsened with the armed groups. Women were raped, men were killed, and many INGOs repatriated most of their staff.
Our leaders (the women) took it upon themselves to bring peace to their community. They went to negotiate with the armed groups and military forces, and this resulted in peace. This community was one of those least affected during the election period. We didn’t even ask for that; it was a risk and not part of the project, it went beyond our scope.
Just to conclude that, when communities lead the aid, it brings a more durable impact.”
“Localization of programs, teams, and funding is absolutely critical to the long-term sustainability (and scale) of solutions and impact. Going forward, it will be the model through which I envision most platforms/agencies will move as they not only see the limits of their platforms becoming barriers to progress, but also as they recognize that the capacity of the communities they are working with has outgrown their own capacity to deliver from afar. One recent example that comes to mind is Cool Earth’s Amazon program, where they successfully piloted a new program to provide direct cash transfers to individuals in communities as a new tool to fight deforestation. This was an iteration of their long-term program, where funding was granted at the community level and better aligned with local conditions. More broadly, over the last 10 years, I have begun to see a movement (in Asia) away from a reliance on global and multilateral organizations towards those that are local in nature. While solutions may be inspired by, invested in, or supported by global platforms and stakeholders, they have now very much been customized to address local needs. This, in turn, is impacting global and multilateral agencies as they look to pivot their work away from driving programs towards the alignment, empowerment, and capacity-building of local organizations.”
“One key challenge, or, as I would say, the real white elephant in the room, is that within the humanitarian and development community, there is no one single or unifying framework of what ‘localization’ is. It is more than just access to funding or who has the authority to maximize it in driving the overall implementation and ownership. From my experience working with various actors, localization, be it in humanitarian action or development, is all about power dynamics and relationship contexts. The more we understand power and relationship, the better we demystify or unlock how to use resources, capacities, and influences using the right channels with the right authority and to better engage the right people. This may be a simple approach, but it takes a village to make it happen. This requires disruption of the system (humanitarian action and program development), support to participe in the revolution, and adherence to ‘quid pro quo’ (reciprocity for all) engagement.”
“Localization enshrines community engagement and promotes local ownership and accountability for the affected communities which leads to enhanced effectiveness and sustainability. Over the last five years, directly working on localization with various UN agencies, local actors, i.e., civil society organizations, local government bodies even community-based organizations, were brought into the limelight by mapping their capacities, their willingness to take ownership of the initiatives, and by providing them with access to humanitarian resources including logistics, funding, partnerships and leadership/representation space in UN-based and donor-based coordination structures which are predominantly run by international actors. These efforts enabled the internationally led humanitarian responses to be more culturally and economically aligned with local needs, making it more acceptable, effective, and leading to long term impact, as it enabled humanitarian efforts to be more aligned with development efforts in the longer run. This has been witnessed in the case of Lake Chad region countries among others.”
“Localization, if adequately implemented, is an enabler and enhances the effectiveness of international development through cost savings in terms of administrative and logistical costs. It builds local capacity and resilience by leveraging local knowledge, expertise, and systems, which also strengthens the capacity of local organizations. Localization supports the implementation of people-centered programs or context-based programs ‘crafted’ to fit context ‘needs’ and improves the local economy through locally sourced resources.”
DevelopmentAid: What are the main challenges faced in implementing localized development strategies, and how can these be addressed?
“‘Selfish programming’: How do we implement our projects? Instead of focusing solely on project implementation, we need to focus on people. We should shift from pursuing results to transforming lives.
- Lack of flexibility in funding: Donors should be more flexible about when and how funds are used. Transparency and accountability remain critical, but the process should allow for flexibility.
- International rules and procedures stifle local leadership: International procedures often cannot be applied effectively at the local level. They simply do not work. Procedures need to be adapted to each context.”
“While unique challenges can often be found regionally, and even on an issue basis, the three constraints that appear to be most common are:
- Regulatory environment – The ability of organizations to create legal entities, and their ability to develop and deploy projects, is one of the greatest challenges to developing and empowering fully localized strategies as the organizations that are needed to support activities often lack the legal structure to (fully) operate.
- Human capacity – Depending on the region, the issue/challenge of focus, and the scale required, organizations can frequently be hindered by the availability and capacity of the local talent pool.
- Business models and financing – Given the size and scale of the many challenges faced, the challenge to build, and fund, a sustainable/scalable business is also common as local funding ecosystems may not exist and developing consumers/customers may provide further headwinds to building, and funding, for the local organizations.”
“Localization in a way is synonymous with accountability and resilience. From my experience, in both humanitarian and development work, if we are mindful and responsive to the feedback and complaints of the people, supportive of meaningful participation or engagement of local actors, and inclusive in accessing or providing information to affected or at-risk communities, then we strengthen our accountability to provide support or work with them. This approach contributes in the long run to improving the contextualized resilience of the community and enhances a strong push for them to own the process and make the necessary decisions to improve their lives.”
“Limited accountability and ownership among local actors, limited capacities, the internal bureaucratic procedures of donor and funding bodies, the lack of equitable partnerships and the lack of risk sharing mechanisms are key challenges intrinsic to the localization of aid and development funds in any context (humanitarian or development). Furthermore, localization is seen more relevant in emergency response, and not in the paradigm of humanitarian, development and peace nexus, stunting the full potential that enhances the sustainability and effectiveness element of any initiative. All these challenges pose variable levels of risks such as aid diversion, financial, reputational or fiduciary risks among others. Better accountability and transparency models encapsulate localization and determine its pace and, if introduced in a systemic manner among local actors, are key to overcoming most of these challenges. This strengthens the trust across the board, mitigating the established risk factors. Another dimension that helps to overcome these challenges is the genuine effort towards the promotion of equitable and/or strategic partnerships with local actors. However, the pre-requisites for such an arrangement are risk analysis and comprehensive capacity strengthening using the UN’s Development Assistance framework that advises a robust approach for effective capacity building from individual to organization and enabling environment actors. Last but not the least, strengthened remote management capacities are needed that enable locally led action.”
“One challenge is reducing bureaucratic hindrances, such as the due diligence burden on local organizations, which can be addressed by simplifying the processes. It is also important to be intentional in building trust with local organizations through mentoring. Providing direct funding, covering overhead costs, and sharing risks – not just transferring them – are vital. Ensuring the availability of the needed tools and resources will improve the already existing structures. Funding the participation of local actors in high-level events and key decision-making events is essential. Donors and international organizations should take deliberate steps to set aside funds for local organizations by including this component in the budgeting process.”
See also: Is Europe’s aid model obsolete and should it be reformed? | Experts’ Opinions
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