Publish What You Fund’s three recent localisation studies have found that commitments from major donors and philanthropies to increase local funding have not yet led to meaningful change. Our latest research, Metrics Matter III: Counting Local, shows that five major bilateral donors are still only providing a fraction of their funding directly to local organisations. […]
Today, we are launching Metrics Matter III: Counting Local, the third instalment in our Metrics Matter research series tracking direct funding to local organisations. Our findings reveal that despite strong rhetoric, donor funding practices have yet to meaningfully reflect the localisation agenda.
Join us on 28 May as we bring together voices from local groups, INGOs, think tanks and funders to explore the current state of locally led development, the old and new barriers to change, and what needs to happen for local actors to have the power, resources and recognition they deserve. We’ll discuss if this is the time to rethink how we approach localisation.
Our new report shows a troubling lack of transparency among philanthropic foundations that pledged to increase direct funding to local organisations. Despite commitments made in 2022 through the Donor Statement on Supporting Locally Led Development, the vast majority have failed to report targets or progress.
Many bilateral donors have signed up to international agreements to take a more locally led approach and transfer a greater share of resources to local partners. But our new study finds that many of the same donors are not sharing any practical evidence of increased local funding. Commitments Without Accountability highlights that four out of five donors do not have localisation strategies or clear definitions, targets, or methods for measuring progress in funding shifts.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has made a bold
commitment to the localization agenda: it has set a target that 25% of its funding will go directly to local partners by 2025. However, our new analysis shows that how USAID defines and measures localization is actually undermining its progress and at odds with its aim to increase the diversity of local partners and amplify under-represented voices. It is allowing perverse incentives – such as affiliates of international organizations to be counted as local – and leaving significant funding opportunities – such as projectized funding that currently goes to UN agencies and multilaterals – untapped for local partners.
