USAID Archives

USAID’s measurement approach is undermining its progress on localization and its goal to diversify its local partner base

By Sally Paxton and Henry Lewis | Jun 20, 2024 | Blog, News

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has made a bold
commitment to the localization agenda: it has set a target that 25% of its funding will go directly to local partners by 2025. However, our new analysis shows that how USAID defines and measures localization is actually undermining its progress and at odds with its aim to increase the diversity of local partners and amplify under-represented voices. It is allowing perverse incentives – such as affiliates of international organizations to be counted as local – and leaving significant funding opportunities – such as projectized funding that currently goes to UN agencies and multilaterals – untapped for local partners.

Funding the localization agenda: USAID’s progress

By Gary Forster, Sally Paxton and Guest | Dec 5, 2023 | Blog

Daryl Grisgraber (Oxfam America)joins Gary Forster and Sally Paxton to highlight new Oxfam America research which uses Publish What You Fund’s methodology to track the US Agency for International Development’s localization goal.

A fair share? Reflections on USAID’s first localization progress report

By Sally Paxton and Gary Forster | Jun 28, 2023 | Blog

USAID has just provided a detailed update on its goal to direct 25% of its funding to local actors by 2025. Earlier this year, Publish What You Fund investigated the measurement of this 25% target and concluded that the choice of methodology could determine whether more than US$1.4 billion of additional funding is channeled to local actors each year. So we have been taking a close look at USAID’s progress report and the measures used.

Watch the launch: Metrics matter for locally led development

By Sam Cavenett | Mar 1, 2023 | Events

How USAID counts “local” will have a big impact on funding for local partners. Our new Metrics Matter report shows what difference it makes. Catch upon the launch, co-hosted with MFAN, and the discussion on the findings and their policy implications.

Metrics matter: achieving USAID’s 25% funding target to local actors

By Sally Paxton, George Ingram and Guest | Feb 28, 2023 | Blog

Almost as soon as USAID announced its target that 25% of its funding would go to local partners, the debate began over the definition of what counts as “local” and how to measure it. According to Publish What You Fund’s groundbreaking new research, the choice of methodology could determine whether more than $1.4 billion of additional funding is channeled to local actors each year.

Introducing our new research program to track USAID funding to local organizations

By Sally Paxton | Oct 10, 2022 | Blog

In November 2021, US Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Samantha Power threw down a challenge for her organisation: by 2025, 25% of USAID’s funding would go to local organisations. The details of how to measure this important metric, however, remains an open question. Given our experience with open data sources, we decided to try to develop a replicable methodology using available data that USAID already publishes. In this blog, Sally Paxton summarises what our exploratory analysis has shown, and how our new methodology can help to track progress towards locally led development.