USAID Releases 2024 Localization Progress Report

USAID reached new highs in our progress toward our commitment to put local actors in the lead, strengthen local systems, and be more responsive to local communities, according to a new report released today. The report, Growing Momentum: USAID Localization Progress Report, FY 2024, is the third annual update on USAID's progress toward two Agency-wide localization targets set in November 2021 aimed at increasing the amount of direct funding to local organizations and increasing local leadership over program design, implementation, and measurement.

The report shows that USAID provided $2.1 billion directly to local non-governmental, private sector and government partners, or 12.1 percent of USAID's acquisitions and assistance (A&A) and government-to-government (G2G) funding. Of this, $1.9 billion went to local non-governmental or private sector partners through A&A partnerships - double the level of FY 2021 and 11 percent of all A&A funding) - and $169 million went to partner country governments through G2G partnerships. An additional $88 million went to regional partners. Both the number of new awards to local and regional partners and the number of unique local and regional partners also reached new highs in FY 2024, increasing by 87 percent and 48 percent, respectively, since FY 2021.

In FY 2024, USAID captured for the first time the extent to which its programs took steps to elevate local leadership across the project lifecycle of design; implementation; and monitoring, evaluation, and learning. The new Locally Led Programs indicator tracks the use of a set of 10 "good practices" for local leadership, and USAID found that, in FY 2024, 35 percent of all qualifying USAID activities met the criteria for this indicator, utilizing at least one good practice in each of the three phases of the project lifecycle. But over three quarters of activities used at least one of the ten good practices for local leadership.

As localization at USAID is fundamentally a reform effort, not just a set of targets, the report also details a range of actions the Agency has undertaken over the past year-plus to support current and future progress. These include steps to strengthen the policy foundation, incorporate locally led development and humanitarian assistance into strategic planning, lower barriers for local organizations to partner with USAID, support staff to elevate local leadership in programming, invest in staff and align staff incentives in support of localization goals, and champion locally led approaches in the broader development and humanitarian communities.

In the spirit of transparency, USAID has also published the underlying data for the direct local, G2G, and regional funding analysis presented in the report.

USAID Localization Progress Report FY 2024