In 2022, funders across the globe made significant commitments to support locally led development, pledging to shift power, direct resources to local actors, and advocate for real change. However, with escalating global challenges, it’s important to ask: What has changed as a result? What is the vision for impact? And how can signatories be held accountable by civil society?
Christine Sow, President and CEO of Humentum, and Ruth Rhoads Allen, President and Chief Collaboration Officer of CDA Collaborative Learning, call for urgent ecosystem action. This joint statement highlights three critical initiatives that can turn these commitments into reality.
Endorse this letter and join us in taking decisive action to support locally led development.
We applaud the increasing number of bilateral and private funding agencies that have endorsed the public statement supporting locally led development. Since 2022, you’ve committed to fostering change for locally sustained action, including:
- Shifting and sharing power
- Channeling high-quality funding as directly as possible
- Publicly advocating for locally led development
This collective commitment by funders is a significant achievement. Yet as we approach the 2024 UNGA meetings, it’s important to ask: What has changed as a result? What is the vision for impact? And how can signatories be held accountable by civil society?
The urgency to take concrete actions in support of locally led development has only grown. Crises in Gaza and Sudan, as well as ongoing challenges in low-resource communities worldwide, highlight the vital role of local organizations and leaders in sustaining societies. In places like Ukraine, where civil society is strong, there is a foundation for lasting recovery if local capacity is adequately supported. Similarly, Indigenous leadership in addressing the climate crisis underscores the importance of local groups to both people and the planet.
These are ecosystem challenges. With more than 40 signatories to the funder statement, there’s a unique opportunity to strengthen collaboration among funders to act with collective intent. However, trust and accountability between funders and civil society on locally led investment are still not fully realized. To build goodwill, funders need to more actively demonstrate curiosity about what nonprofits know from research and experience, and how we can team up. Local organizations have been navigating these realities for decades, and many INGOs are also working toward a more equitable and impactful future. Listening to these voices and directly engaging their expertise can rapidly accelerate progress toward your commitments.
Ecosystem action is possible. As we look forward to seeing signatories “walk the talk,” we highlight three significant initiatives for consideration and offer practical options for funder action:
1. Funder Standards and Accountability:
The International Non-Profit Accounting Guidance (INPAG), launching in mid-2025, will revolutionize support flows and accountability between funders and nonprofits and help address needs championed by the growing #ShiftThePower movement and others. INPAG will:
- Allow funders to accurately assess organizations’ readiness for additional funding.
- Reduce the time and effort required to interpret grantee financial data by standardizing accounting definitions.
- Alleviate the financial reporting burden on organizations, currently imposed by diverse donor requirements.
- Strengthen joint accountability between funders and organizations, fostering greater trust.
Action: Funders can join the INPAG Donor Reference Group, consider adopting INPAG for grantee reporting, and financially contribute to INPAG’s launch and adoption.
2. Organizational and Systems Transformation:
Initiatives like Transforming INGO Models for Equity (TIME), Stopping as Success (SAS+), RINGO, Kujalink, Epic’s African CSO Platform and others are pioneering the shift in power structures within NGOs and their relationships with funders. Supporting these efforts and the connective tissue among them can scale up transformation across the sector.
Action: Funders can invest in developing a consolidated service platform fit for purpose to equip and advise INGOs, CSOs, and donors on institutional transformation. This platform would accelerate innovation in addition to offering tools, resources, and roadmaps for equitable transitions. It would also provide a safe space for shared learning as individual actors take risks in a challenging ecosystem.
3. Due Diligence Passporting:
CSOs are unduly burdened by the due diligence demands of funders, often working at cross purposes and imposing duplicative requirements that take valuable CSO resources. Several initiatives are providing workable models to reduce this burden, such as the Charter for Change consortium’s due diligence passporting tool, the Managing Risk in Humanitarian Settings guide addressing the “compliance trap”, and The STEP process by TechSoup, which streamlines due diligence.
Action: Funders can a commit to due diligence passporting and require any of their grantees that do sub-granting to do passporting. Learning from this process is a critical step for moving the sector to a standard for grantee assessment.
These initiatives are just the beginning. We are committed to amplifying the many more shared by those endorsing this letter.
A common theme is clear: Funders should collaborate with civil society partners with more intent and urgency to address systemic and funding-related challenges. We believe in the power of locally led development and the need for our sector to make monumental shifts. We are eager for strong funding partners to accelerate this change. Visible and tangible investments, such as those outlined above, will help make locally led development a reality.
The most important thing is to start somewhere.
Sincerely,
Christine Sow, President and CEO, Humentum
Ruth Rhoads Allen, President and Chief Collaboration Officer, CDA Collaborative Learning
Get involved! Endorse this letter and join us in taking decisive action to support locally led development.
Thank you to the organizations who have endorsed the letter:
- Uganda National NGO Forum
- Roots of Development
- International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN)
- Rights CoLab
- Nuru
- Christian Aid
- Trickle Up
- Bond
- Radical Flexibility Fund
- Alliance for Peacebuilding
- Fair Funding Solutions
- Amna Refugee Healing Network
- West Africa Youth and Children’s Advocacy Network
- The African Youth Cafe
- Church World Service
- Pak Mission Society (PMS)
- EngenderHealth
- CBOs Coalition for Human Rights and Good Governance – Malawi
- Pisgah International Development and Relief Services
- RIEFP
- Friends of Children Uganda
- Results for Development
- Organization for Social and Economic Development (OSED)
- Integrated Development Foundation
- North East African Community Health Initiative
- Oxfam GB
- World Congress of Muslim Philanthropies
- TechSoup
- Alight US