USAID launches a policy to drive locally led humanitarian response

The U.S. Agency for International Development has published its long-awaited policy on locally led humanitarian assistance, one that outlines how the world’s largest donor will steer more money — and decision-making power — to organizations on the front lines of crisis. “Together, we have the chance to unlock the extraordinary potential of our local partners to meet emergency needs and to accelerate lasting recovery,” said USAID Administrator Samantha Power at Thursday’s online launch. Power’s remarks were met with a near-ceaseless flurry of hearts, applause, and thumbs up icons from the audience, which consisted of some 1,000 people from 100 different countries across the world. For many, the policy’s launch represented a tipping point — and a new way forward for humanitarian aid. “What we’re ultimately trying to achieve is a systems change that truly puts local partners at the heart of decision-making,” said Sonali Korde, the assistant to the administrator of USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, during the launch. It’s something that for years the humanitarian sector has been struggling to do. In 2016, more than 60 donors signed onto the Grand Bargain — an agreement to push more funding to local responders. But in 2022, local and national groups were still receiving just 1.2% of overall humanitarian assistance, according to an analysis from research group Development Initiatives. USAID was no outlier in that trend: In 2023, less than 2% of the agency’s humanitarian dollars went toward local organizations, according to USAID’s latest localization progress report. The year before, it was at just 1%. There are a multitude of reasons why that’s the case, from the challenges donors face vetting organizations in a crisis setting; to the neutrality that sometimes only international groups can provide; to the speed, ease, and flexibility of funneling money to long-time partners, such as U.N. agencies. Despite that, there’s widespread recognition in the sector that funding local organizations can help respond to crises more quickly and effectively — especially because such groups typically know the context, culture, and challenges of a region better than anyone else. “We recognize the very real challenges that make it difficult to partner directly with local leaders, associations and organizations in the humanitarian space,” said Power, speaking at the launch event. “But the more that we can navigate and overcome these barriers, the better we will be at getting lifesaving, life-changing aid to the places where it is most urgently needed around the world.” The backdrop Before getting into the details, USAID’s new policy begins with the context — something that Daryl Grisgraber, humanitarian policy lead at Oxfam America, feels is critical to understanding humanitarian localization’s greatest challenges. “With development, you can take some time to find the right partner, share capacity with them, and work to get them into the decision-making spaces,” Grisgraber told Devex. “But with humanitarian [work], all the things that would normally take years in the development sector have to be done in a matter of weeks. And frankly, that’s kind of impossible. There has to be more forethought of the humanitarian element of localization.” To do that, the policy suggests investing in partners well before a crisis occurs, and ensuring those organizations have the “logistical, operational, and organizational response capacities” needed to carry out a humanitarian response, even if that means working with an organization to get there. USAID also highlights the power dynamics inherent in today’s humanitarian systems, along with donors’ tendency to fund “known organizations” over new, local groups. And, the agency speaks about the role of international partners, stating that such entities play a critical, yet potentially shifting role in humanitarian response. “The policy acknowledges that the humanitarian context is different from development, and that’s an important distinction that doesn’t get brought up often,” Grisgraber said. “This, for us, is a fresh new take on what disasters are like and what they need.” The policy also dives into how USAID will approach the different phases of a humanitarian crisis. To prepare communities prone to conflict or disaster, USAID outlined a strategy focused on strategic, long-term partnerships with local organizations, and collaborations that could enable multiyear investments with a diverse set of organizations. For a rapid-onset emergency, there is rarely time for such engagement — so instead, the policy describes mapping the humanitarian partner landscape to find local, nontraditional partners, establishing mechanisms for the rapid release of funding before a disaster strikes, and leveraging existing partnerships between international and local organizations. For a protracted crisis or complex emergency, the policy takes constraints, safety, and security risks into account, highlighting the importance of risk mitigation, flexibility to changing circumstances, and access limitations. To work around these challenges, the policy pushes for local engagement in humanitarian coordination structures, advocating for local leadership, and ensuring local organizations are kept safe while venturing into areas international players may be barred from. In each situation, there’s an emphasis on not just shifting funding, but power — and ensuring local organizations can actually make the decisions that affect their own communities. “Success in USAID’s efforts to advance locally led humanitarian assistance is not defined by a single funding target, the launch of new processes, or a specific number of local partners,” the agency’s policy vision reads. “Instead, success is achieved when USAID’s ways of working meaningfully engage local partners to lead effective humanitarian planning and response.” The policy’s 5 goals USAID’s humanitarian localization policy focuses on five central goals: increasing the amount and accessibility of USAID funding for local humanitarian organizations; strengthening the agency’s ability to build humanitarian partnerships; boosting capacity strengthening, sharing, and learning within those partnerships; advocating for local humanitarian leadership; and leveraging humanitarian diplomacy. The first goal builds on a commitment made by USAID three years ago: that the agency will channel one-quarter of its funding to local groups by 2025. As of last year, USAID had only gotten 40% of the way there, with local organizations citing the agency’s complicated application process, language barriers, and reporting expectations — among other challenges — as reasons why. “Changing our mindsets and our methods across the agency has, of course, been challenging,” said Power, speaking at the launch event. “It has proven time-consuming to reach beyond our established partners to build relationships with these local groups. It has often taken more staff resources to help new partners navigate the sometimes-complex process of partnering with USAID.” USAID’s newest policy seems to note that trend, stating it will conduct a mapping of partners to reach out to new organizations before a crisis hits, while also leveraging the agency’s “resources, relationships, expertise, and humanitarian diplomacy” to encourage more equitable partnerships between local organizations and international groups, including multilaterals. “USAID will apply a wider lens to available partnership structures and expand on best practices for nimble, adaptable award making,” the policy states. “In addition to USAID’s ongoing efforts to lower barriers to entry for local organizations, USAID is re-examining its internal humanitarian assistance programming cycle with an eye toward broadening its partner base and facilitating expedient and effective humanitarian action.” The second goal — strengthening USAID’s ability to build humanitarian partnerships — acknowledges that bringing more local partners into the fold will require more time, effort, and resources from the agency’s staff. To support them through the process, the policy states USAID will provide targeted guidance, training, and resources to ease the burdens of grant management. USAID is also conducting a review of its humanitarian assistance program cycles, a process that ultimately, will result in a redesign more suitable for localization. The third goal centers on capacity strengthening, and calls for USAID to invest in local organizations’ growth. That includes by both helping build capacity and sharing it, and drawing on existing local expertise — and subject-matter experts in those communities — to build learning on both sides. For one local leader — Shaza Mohamed, the executive director of Sudan’s Nada Elazhar for Disaster Prevention and Sustainable Development — exchanges like those were exactly what pushed her organization forward. Through regular consultations, discussions, and meetings with partners of all kinds, after conflict broke out in Sudan, staff at NADA were not only able to provide insight, but draw from it. “This really encouraged us to work harder, and to improve the quality of our deliverables,” Mohamed said, speaking at USAID’s launch event. “It gave us the sense of being useful and capable. To do and to take a broader role in the humanitarian work in Sudan.” Over time, Mohamed explained how NADA’s role transformed: They shifted from being implementing partners to active decision-makers, who now have influence over humanitarian planning and programming across Sudan. The policy’s fourth goal builds on another earlier commitment made by USAID in 2021: that by 2030, the agency would ensure half of all activities it funds are “locally led.” Last year, more than half USAID’s programs met that standard — though in the agency’s latest localization project report, USAID stated the bar might have been “placed too low.” Regardless, the fourth policy goal states that USAID will advocate for local humanitarian leadership, not only by elevating those who are already in positions of power but bringing in new voices. That includes bringing local actors in humanitarian country teams, response clusters, and other coordination systems established in an emergency’s wake. For many, this piece of the localization puzzle is key. “If you determine the needs from the outside, and from a social context that’s quite different, there’s a good chance you’re going to get it wrong,” Grisgraber said. “Consulting the people who are affected and need what’s being offered is the best way to make aid really worth something.” The fifth and final goal is about “humanitarian diplomacy” — essentially, the ways USAID will use its influence to “catalyze a broader shift toward locally led humanitarian assistance” across the world. As the world’s largest humanitarian donor, USAID’s reach in the sector is vast. Beneath this goal, USAID has committed to collaborating with other humanitarian donors to reduce barriers to local partnership, advocating for more equitable collaborations between local groups and international agencies, and leveraging USAID’s convening power to incorporate localization into humanitarian response. “USAID Bureaus, Independent Offices, and Missions, as well as humanitarian implementing partners, have important roles to play in elevating and enhancing the voices, representation, and leadership of local actors and organizations to build the humanitarian response structure that we seek to support,” the policy reads. “Together, these changes made to the system have the potential to improve the lives of crisis-affected people around the world and to realize a shared vision of inclusive and locally led humanitarian assistance.”