When Samantha Power, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, outlined a “new vision for global development” in November 2021, her announcement that the agency would direct a quarter of its funding to local organizations by 2025 garnered much of the attention.
But that goal was accompanied by another target, which USAID partners have been eager to learn more about. Power pledged that by the end of the decade, half of USAID’s programs would “place local communities in the lead to either co-design a project, set priorities, drive implementation, or evaluate the impact of our programs.”
It has taken a while for the agency to develop a more specific framework for what exactly that commitment entails. The unhurried rollout is largely by design, according to Sarah Rose, USAID’s senior advisor for localization.