USAID GOES LOCAL!

Six months after being appointed as the Administrator of USAID under the Biden administration, Samantha Power set her agenda for USAID for the coming four years during a speech early November.

Stressing the urgency of current issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and threats to democracy, Power called for close attention to cries for help across the world while remembering the USAID’s responsibility to uphold justice through aid. “We need to listen to what our partner nations actually want,” she declared.

She lays down her vision towards international development to be more inclusive, this is translated in three ways:

Currently, only a limited amount of the USAID funding is going to local partners. Despite numerous efforts and initiatives the funding going to local partners only increased from 4% to 6% during the last decade. The commitment now made is for 25% of USAID funding to go to local partners in the next four years. The aim is that by the end of the decade 50% of the USAID programming will “need to place local communities in the lead.” This can be done through involvement of local communities in program design and setting priorities or implement or evaluate the programs.

These attempts have been made before, by former Administrators, who did not succeed in a significant increase in funding going to local partners. But what is different this time is that the U.S. Congress is supportive of this localization goal.

At the same time as the Administrator’s speech, a website was launched to demystify the process of working with USAID and be the starting point for new partners. This is a resource hub designed for new, current, and future local and international partners to navigate how to work with USAID.