It has been 18 months since Samantha Power, the head of USAID, announced that a cornerstone of her agenda would be shifting more of the agency’s funding to local organizations and putting people affected by development programs in a position to shape and lead them.
The agency’s task is a big one, and it goes beyond moving buckets of funding from one group of partners to another.
“The question we should really be asking is — is USAID really designed for localization?” said Ngasuma Kanyeka, co-founder of Taji Finance and a former chief of party on USAID programs, during a Devex Pro Live event on Tuesday on how far the agency has come on its “localization” goals.