In fiscal year 2022, USAID reached its highest level and percent of direct local funding in a decade and with the new report, is launching a transparent new indicator for tracking local leadership in USAID’s work.
In November 2021, Administrator Samantha Power announced two targets: first, by FY 2025, USAID will channel a quarter of its funding directly to local partners and second, by 2030, at least half of USAID programs will enable local actors to exercise leadership over priority setting, activity design, implementation, and defining and measuring results. The recently released report, Moving Toward a Model of Locally Led Development: FY 2022 Localization Progress Report, documents USAID’s recent progress toward these goals.
The Localization Progress Report also outlines a new indicator USAID will use to track its progress on the equally important goal of shifting power and enabling more local leadership of USAID-funded programming. This indicator covers multiple types of engagement with local actors, whether they are recipients of direct funding, sub-partners to an international intermediary, participants in a USAID program, or members of a community affected by USAID programming.