Amid localization, INGOs 'aren't going away,' says InterAction chief

Multinational NGOs “aren’t going away,” and the focus of localization efforts should instead be on “the relationship between international and local organizations,” according to the CEO of InterAction, the membership body for aid NGOs in the United States. Growing calls for more money to be channeled directly to organizations in program countries, and the U.S. Agency for International Development’s recent commitment to do so, have led to much reflection on the role of international NGOs going forward. Late last year, two U.S.-based organizations announced that they would shutter their foreign operations and step aside in favor of locally led groups, while others are also considering their future. But InterAction chief Sam Worthington told Devex that while money needs to be transferred to smaller organizations that are able to implement creative solutions and form connections with service users locally, much of that money will still need to come from “big NGOs [that] are really good at marketing and have huge fundraising engines in the global north.” U.S.-based NGOs are thinking hard about how money moves from north to south and are experimenting with localization models, he said. That includes appointing more senior leaders from other countries and developing contracting models in which local NGOs lead on grant and funding bids, with support from larger organizations. However, the amount of power that donors are willing to hand over has its limits. “Someone has to take a decision about where resources go,” Worthington said. “Everyone wants more local decision-making, but are they willing to change the rules to allow that to happen? The answer is usually ‘somewhat’ but rarely entirely. “It’s rare to find a donor who will say, ‘We’ll fund your operating costs, and you do good work.’ People usually say, ‘You have to use the money like this, and we’ll monitor you and check you haven’t done anything inappropriate.’ There’s a contradiction here, where the rhetoric says one thing but the actual donor rules are getting stricter.” He said NGOs can often find themselves between an institutional funder saying one thing and a local organization wanting something else. “The NGO’s bias is usually towards more local capability, but the funder holds a lot of power,” Worthington said. “And there’s a tendency to push risk outwards and downwards. Government protects itself. The NGO tries to protect itself. The risk goes onto the local group. One of my fears is that if we go local too fast, in the wrong way, we end up pushing funding to local groups who make a mistake and then get the rule book thrown at them.” “Everyone wants more local decision-making, but are they willing to change the rules to allow that to happen?” --— Sam Worthington, CEO, InterAction For this to change, he said, donors will have to give small, unrestricted funding directly to local groups. He gave the example of some funders, such as the Ford Foundation, that have adapted their funding to be much less restrictive. But major changes are still needed for this model of grant-making to become more widespread. Worthington also said that NGOs are working hard to change their ways of working, in response to both the COVID-19 pandemic and localization pressures. He said that InterAction members were looking at traveling less, spending less time at the headquarters, and moving more power and authority to country offices. “There’s a very consistent effort to change who is being heard,” he said. “There’s a significant drive to diversify the sector. There’s the question of to what extent does your staff represent the people that you work with. If you’re in India, OK, your staff are Indian, but are they all men? Are they from the communities you’re working in? Who are you missing? Who isn’t getting support?”