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Locally Led Development Initiatives
2024 Issue 4 Edition |
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LOCAL WORKS: ADVANCING LGBTQI+ EQUALITY |
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 This Pride Month, USAID celebrates the achievements made by the Pride Movement toward advancing LGBTQI+ equality and is committed to combating discrimination, violence, and injustice against LGBTQI+ individuals at home and abroad. The Local Works program prioritizes inclusive development by partnering with community-based organizations across the globe that strive to advance LGBTQI+ equity and inclusion. These local partners are actively combating gender-based violence, representing individuals in legal cases, and advocating for equitable access to basic services such as employment, housing, and health care. To find out how you or your organization can continue to understand, strengthen, and promote inclusive development, check out USAID's LGBTQI+ Inclusive Development Policy.
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PARAGUAY: LEVERAGING
MUTUALITY IN PARTNERSHIPS
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 Participants gather at an entrepreneurship fair, where they showcased their products, connected with the community, and seized opportunities for growth. [Photo Credit: Habitat for Humanity Paraguay]
In response to challenges faced by entrepreneurs in Chacarita, a marginalized neighborhood in the capital of Asunción, Habitat for Humanity Paraguay sought out a responsive partnership with USAID/Paraguay through the Unsolicited Solutions for Locally Led Development opportunity. Their proposal initially focused on refurbishing homes for entrepreneurs to increase their businesses’ sales, and soon expanded to include other approaches such as capacity strengthening for community leaders.
USAID/Paraguay began co-creation for this award focusing on mutuality and trust that promoted a culture of learning and honesty. Through the co-creation process, Habitat for Humanity Paraguay worked with USAID to iteratively adapt their initial proposal to be more aligned with the priorities of the community, including adjusting their monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) plans to include locally defined measures of the program’s impact on issues important to the local community. Over the years, Habitat for Humanity has responded to local priorities, mobilized community resources, and engaged in deep-rooted community relationships. Read the full story to learn more about how inclusive co-creation and other locally led approaches positioned the program to address the ongoing needs of entrepreneurs in Chacarita.
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LIBERIA: HOPE FOR A BETTER FUTURE |
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 A local trainer and young community leader in Nimba County, Liberia, facilitates community trauma healing. [Photo Credit: Hope for a Better Future (HOPE)]
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Communities across Liberia have experienced prolonged social trauma for more than a generation due to two civil wars, the Ebola epidemic, and related challenges. In a post-conflict context where the demand for recovery through one-on-one psychotherapy cannot be met with existing resources, community trauma healing presents an effective alternative.
Hope for a Better Future (HOPE) — one of six co-created research awards funded by Local Works — is piloting a community-led process called Safe Spaces, to provide psychosocial skills for collaborative resilience to communities in Nimba and Grand Gedeh Counties. By introducing mindfulness, empathy, emotional control, and moral reasoning training through a process that engages community youth leaders, HOPE strives to strengthen the capacity of individuals dealing with prolonged social trauma to collaboratively find local solutions to local challenges and create a better future together.
In April 2024, staff from the Locally Led Development Initiatives and USAID/Liberia joined members of the HOPE team from Kennesaw State University, the Kofi Annan Institute for Conflict Transformation at the University of Liberia, the National Committee for Peace Justice and Caritas in Liberia, and TRENDS Global for a visit to Ganta, Karnplay, and Saclepea in Nimba County to see the activity in action. Led by trainers who are established young leaders in their communities and supported by consortium partner Sovereignty First, participants in the Safe Spaces intervention are practicing emotional regulation and mind-body awareness skills to increase feelings of safety in social interaction, self-reliance, and conflict resolution capacity, trust in interpersonal and social interactions, and capacity to collaborate peacefully and effectively with others. Participants engaged in training are forming teams to envision and pursue their own "dream projects" to improve life and advance the development of their communities.
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FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
LOCAL WORKS CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
Local Works is now accepting Letters of Interest (LOI) from USAID Missions for its annual application period. Through Local Works, USAID Missions may apply for funding and technical support to implement and advance the Administrator’s localization agenda, the Agency’s new Local Capacity Strengthening policy, and more. As part of the launch process, Local Works will host three Agency-wide Q&A webinars to provide information to Missions interested in applying:
USAID Missions are invited to submit their formal Letter of Interest by August 16, 2024, 5:00 PM EDT. Instructions on how to apply are available in the submission guidance. Please note that this application is only open to USAID Missions.
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VIDEOS
CELEBRATING THE STRATEGIC RELIGIOUS ENGAGEMENT POLICY
At USAID, partnerships are at the center of everything we do – and woven throughout our history of partnerships are examples of religious actors on the front lines of development and humanitarian assistance across the globe. Check out this new video from USAID celebrating the Agency’s first-ever Strategic Religious Engagement Policy that highlights the principles and framework guiding USAID’s approach to faith-based partnerships.
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TOOLS AND RESOURCES
LEPP ANNUAL REPORT
In FY 2023, the Limited Excess Property Program (LEPP) successfully transferred over $15 million worth of federal surplus property to 16 countries where USAID provides humanitarian aid, disaster relief, and development assistance. These donations support global health systems strengthening, humanitarian assistance, and educational programs around the globe. Read more about the donated supplies and their impact in LEPP’s 2023 Annual Report.
USAID/MEXICO: A CASE STUDY IN LOCALLY LED DEVELOPMENT
USAID/Mexico has prioritized and integrated locally led development approaches in its programming, specifically in the USAID Civil Society + Pro Bono Activity. Check out this case study developed by USAID’s Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Governance (DRG) that highlights how the project effectively utilized locally led development enabling tools such as collaborating, learning, and adapting as well as network-based capacity strengthening.
NEW ADS UPDATES INTEGRATE LOCALLY LED DEVELOPMENT THROUGHOUT THE PROGRAM CYCLE
USAID recently released wide ranging updates to ADS 201, which place a greater emphasis on key Agency priorities including localization. The updated ADS 201 now highlights the importance of leveraging locally-generated evidence and local knowledge, and the need to integrate local priorities and decision-making into strategy-setting, activity design, implementation, and monitoring, evaluation and learning. These revisions help provide guidance to staff for planning and undertaking community-led processes to advance locally led and inclusive development. Learn more about the updated ADS 201.
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JOB OPPORTUNTIES
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Locally Led Development Initiatives are part of the Local, Faith, and Transformative Partnerships (LFT) Hub in USAID's Bureau for Inclusive Growth, Partnerships, and Innovation (IPI). 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.
Stay up to date with all the latest information from USAID’s LFT Hub by subscribing to these additional newsletters!
- American Schools and Hospitals Abroad (ASHA)
- Cooperative Development Program (CDP)
- Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (FBNP)
- Limited Excess Property Program (LEPP)
- New Partnerships Initiative (NPI)
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We would love to hear from you!
You can provide feedback and submissions through the linked forms.
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