The Biden administration has made localization—generally defined as shifting contracts and grants from U.S. organizations to local non-governmental organizations (LNGOs)—a centerpiece of its foreign assistance policy. Just months into her role as USAID administrator, Samantha Power set up a working group to operationalize localization policy and announced targets to increase funding to LNGOs to at least twenty-five percent of USAID awards by the end of 2024. Following up on this commitment, in October 2022 USAID launched a new localization policy titled, “Strengthening Local Capacity In USAID Programming And Partnerships” to “guide USAID decisions about why and how to invest in the capacity of local partners to better achieve inclusive and locally-led development.”.
Rethinking the constraints to localization of foreign aid (brookings.edu)
