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.
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.
Daryl Grisgraber (Oxfam America)joins Gary Forster and Sally Paxton to highlight new Oxfam America research which uses Publish What You Fund’s methodology to track the US Agency for International Development’s localization goal.
USAID has just provided a detailed update on its goal to direct 25% of its funding to local actors by 2025. Earlier this year, Publish What You Fund investigated the measurement of this 25% target and concluded that the choice of methodology could determine whether more than US$1.4 billion of additional funding is channeled to local actors each year. So we have been taking a close look at USAID’s progress report and the measures used.
How USAID counts “local” will have a big impact on funding for local partners. Our new Metrics Matter report shows what difference it makes. Catch upon the launch, co-hosted with MFAN, and the discussion on the findings and their policy implications.
