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BUREAU FOR DEVELOPMENT, DEMOCRACY, AND INNOVATION
LOCAL, FAITH, AND TRANSFORMATIVE PARTNERSHIPS HUB
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Locally Led Development Initiatives |
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LOCALLY DRIVEN GENDER EQUITY
March was Women’s History Month! There was a lot to celebrate, starting with Peace Corps Week through World Water Day. Read on for stories of how locally led development activities drive gender equity, with a deeper look at some stories of USAID partnerships with the Peace Corps. Find important USAID policy updates and learning events in our announcements.
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MOLDOVA: HOW IULIA PLANNED WITHOUT PITFALLS |
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 VOLUNTEERS GATHER TO STRENGTHEN THEIR SKILLS IN BUILDING OUT MORE ROBUST VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS. PHOTO CREDITS TO PEACE CORPS/MOLDOVA.
Iulia was a local volunteer coordinator already supporting her community of Donici, Orhei through short-term efforts, but she struggled to find enough volunteers to run the longer-term activities. In Moldova, caring citizens like Iulia dedicate their free time to their community but have not received formal training on voluntarism or people management skills, even though a national volunteerism law was passed in 2010.
In rural areas not reached by national efforts to expand Moldovan volunteerism, people expressed interest in developing skills to establish or improve community-based volunteering programs. Through a first-of-its-kind training series funded by the Small Project Assistance (SPA) Program – a partnership between USAID and the Peace Corps – Iulia learned how to plan, recruit, motivate, and evaluate a volunteering program. With Moldovan holiday National Day of the Traditional Costume approaching, she recruited a volunteer team to plan a large community event honoring their heritage. During mentoring calls with the training cohort, Iulia shared her insights, discussed her challenges, and received tips to ensure the success of the event.
Iulia and her team sought to bring together different generations to deepen their cultural appreciation by celebrating Moldovan traditional dress, which draws from different stylings typical of several regions in the country. When it came time to implement her community event, she found that she had cultivated a group of adult volunteers eager to step into the leading roles and support her as a volunteer with their strengthened skills. Despite feeling nervous on the day of the event, Iulia and the volunteers knew how to successfully manage their event and mobilize community members to participate throughout the day. Iulia received encouraging comments from local authorities and community members. Iulia stated, "Due to the fact that I went step by step through the process of volunteer management, the event ran as planned and without pitfalls.”
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 MOLDOVAN VOLUNTEERS HOLD POSTERS ON LEADING VOLUNTEER GROUPS AND EFFORTS.
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 VOLUNTEER TRAINING PARTICIPANTS DISCUSS IDEAS FOR CREATING AND MOBILIZING CHANGE IN THEIR COMMUNITIES.
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MEXICO: CONSTRUCTING COMMUNITY CISTERNS, STRENGTHENING SOCIAL TIES |
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 GUADALUPE USES WATER FROM SPA-SUPPORTED CISTERNS TO CLEAN AROUND HER HOME IN CUATRO PALOS, MEXICO. PHOTO CREDIT: SOULEYMAN MESSALTI FOR USAID.
Residents of Cuatro Palos, a remote community enclosed in the Sierra Gordo mountain range of Mexico, used to face the daunting task of traveling 20 miles round trip across treacherous terrain to pump and carry water home from the only water source near them. Due to climate change, the water source was unreliable.
Guadalupe, a Cuatro Palos resident, deeply involved herself with a community-led project supported by the SPA Program. Eager to share her and her community’s process of applying to the SPA program, she explained: “We came to an agreement and put together a committee and made the request. It was a lot of work, but it was very beneficial.”
The community constructed or rehabilitated 30 cisterns that capture and store rainwater. The cisterns ensure that Cuatro Palos residents have easier and reliable access to water throughout the year for daily tasks — even during dry seasons elongated by climate change.
“It makes me very, very proud. We are a family of eight and, well, all of us benefit from the water from the cistern,” Guadalupe said.
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BANGLADESH: TAILORING AND TEACHING |
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 MAHAMUDA BEGUM SMILES OUTSIDE HER TAILORING STUDIO, EXCITED TO SHARE HOW HER BUSINESS HAS GROWN. PHOTOS BY MEGAN (MEG) SMITH FOR USAID.
When Mahamuda Begum’s husband died, their youngest daughter was only two months old. Without a job of her own, she would collect wood from the forest to both sell and use as fuel, like many others in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Already one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable areas, the high rate of deforestation further exacerbates the risks associated with climate change. Mahamuda knew she needed to do something to support her young daughters. While collecting fuelwood one day, she met staff from USAID’s local partner, Community Development Centre (CODEC). They asked for her story – why she was forced to turn to illegal forest resource extraction to survive. Through CODEC, she joined a training on alternative livelihoods. Already knowing how to sew, Mahamuda strengthened her expertise as a businesswoman and established herself as her community’s go-to tailor. Marketing her skills and craft, she was able to both make and repair clothing, eventually generating a profit. Some of her clients shared that they appreciate the quality, proximity, and convenience of alterations, repairs, and new clothing in one place. The trust that she cultivated in her community allows her business to flourish. Throughout Mahamuda’s efforts, she never stopped supporting her daughters’ education, ensuring they will both have the resources to graduate from college. Gaining fame in her community – or from “zero to hero” as she shares – enabled her to help others gain new skills by teaching roughly 30 of her neighbors how to sew.
“Since I can help my community,” she says, “I feel better and empowered.”
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 MAHAMUDA'S CLIENTS SIT IN HER TAILORING STUDIO.
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 DETAILS OF FABRIC USED BY MAHAMUDA.
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LIBERIA: LOCALLY LED PROGRAM LAUNCH |
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 LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL STAKEHOLDERS GATHER FOR THE LAUNCH OF A NEW LOCALLY LED RESEARCH PROGRAM. PHOTO CREDIT: USAID/LIBERIA.
More than a generation of prolonged social trauma in Liberia makes peace difficult to attain. One-on-one psychotherapy may be infeasible to sustainably support an entire population, but a new program in Liberia is exploring community trauma healing as an effective alternative. Launched in February, a partnership between USAID, Kennesaw State University, the Liberia National Commission of Justice, Peace and Caritas, the Kofi Annan Institute for Conflict Transformation at the University of Liberia, TRENDS Global, and Sovereignty First will work collaboratively with youth leaders to find local solutions to local problems. Around 20,000 vulnerable youth and their communities will participate in various trauma-informed approaches to community healing, with the goal of offering psychosocial support to hundreds of people to foster healing and resilience across communities. Read more below!
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USAID POLICY UPDATES
- On March 23, USAID launched its new Policy Framework: Driving Progress Beyond Programs, outlining the Agency’s vision for development that lasts beyond the life of our programs. The new Policy Framework establishes three overarching priorities: first, to confront the greatest challenges of our time; second, to embrace new partnerships; and third, to invest in USAID’s enduring effectiveness.
- Partnership is at the heart of how we work at USAID. Our updated Acquisition and Assistance (A&A) Strategy recommits USAID to lowering barriers to partnership, so our partners can focus on delivering results. Read it now to learn how we’re building our A&A workforce, streamlining our processes, and diversifying our partner base.
- “We are infusing localization across all of our sectors of work. This is not just about doing localization on climate change, or on health, or education – it's across all of our work. We want it to be the first way we work with partners and countries." Assistant to the Administrator of the Bureau for Policy, Planning, and Learning (PPL) Michele Sumilas shared during a recent Senate of Foreign Relations Subcommittee hearing on localization at USAID. Watch the full testimony here.
- Explore the newly updated USAID Gender Policy: it provides a set of principles for working with partners to advance intersectional, locally led, and transformative approaches in support of gender equality worldwide.
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PARTNERSHIPS
- As part of a partnership between the Movement for Community Led Development (MCLD) and USAID, MCLD conducted a training on the Participatory Community Led Development Assessment Tool in Dhaka, Bangladesh in January. Through the three-year project Locally Led Development in Fragile Environments (LIFE), USAID, MCLD, and other partners seek to understand how and why locally led development approaches lead to impact in fragile countries, focusing on Ethiopia and Bangladesh. The MCLD team expects to release a simplified version of the assessment tool in May 2023 after piloting it with communities.
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ICYMI: USAID and diverse partners co-created six new research and development awards advancing locally led development globally. Check out the press release for more information!
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BLOGS AND OTHER STORIES
- Female-led local organization Alay sa Kapatid Foundation is partnering with USAID for the first time through Local Works to facilitate reliable access to water in communities where water has been scarce and its distribution inequitable. On World Water Day during Women’s History Month, they shared their top tips for first time partners to USAID and some outcomes they see as women lead development in their own communities. Read more.
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Local Works recently held a Learning Summit with nine USAID Missions across the Latin America and Caribbean region participating in the program. In Paraguay, the participant-led conference enabled cross-Mission, cross-sectoral learning on locally led development. USAID Deputy Administrator Paloma Adams-Allen participated with Mission and DC-based USAID staff, and representatives of local USAID partners also came to share their experiences. Stay tuned for more updates in our next newsletter!
- For Laura Alvarez – USAID/Paraguay’s Specialist for both Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning and Local Capacity Strengthening – “an even better way to strengthen capacity is to reframe the relationship, starting with a more philosophical approach to the objective: the ‘Why.’ After we can answer that, we can get to the ‘How.’” In this new blog on WorkWithUSAID.org, she shares more of her thoughts on how USAID’s programming will be affected by the Agency’s first-ever Local Capacity Strengthening Policy.
- What do coffee breaks have to do with capacity strengthening? In this blog, a drafter of the USAID Local Capacity Strengthening Policy shares how fostering new relationships — even in casual settings — unlocks new opportunities for locally led development. Read the blog.
- “Ever since the first training, I have been dreaming to learn and grow more,” said Ms. Ahdab Mahmoud Morshid, one of more than 400 coastal Yemeni women microentrepreneurs who participated in artisan entrepreneurial training supported by USAID. “I learned how to negotiate, market, design a unique brand identity, and manage my business finances.” Now, she has expanded her business internationally and serves as a role model in her community. Read Ms. Morshid’s story.
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TOOLS AND RESOURCES
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EVENTS
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Locally Led Development Initiatives are part of the Local, Faith, and Transformative Partnerships (LFT) Hub.
The LFT Hub focuses on strengthening USAID’s ability to partner with non-traditional and diverse actors including local, faith-based, and community organizations; schools and hospitals; foundations; diaspora communities; cooperatives; and volunteer organizations. Learn more about how LFT is harnessing the power of partnerships through the following:
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