Disrupting Development: A More Efficient Approach to Foreign Assistance?

Mehreen Farooq | Governance Technical Expert, Counterpart International

International development organizations are reconsidering how they do work after President Trump signed Executive Order, “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid,” earlier this week.

As calls abound for greater funding of domestic relief and recovery efforts alongside more investments in American infrastructure, questions around the efficiency and benefits of foreign aid need to be addressed.

One study found that working through local partners to implement programs, could lead to a cost savings of about 32%.

Could localization be the missing linchpin?

As an international development organization with over sixty years of global experience partnering with local organizations to deliver foreign assistance, Counterpart International, a non-profit organization, has been ahead of the curve by working through local partners.

In October 2021, Counterpart established a local partner funding metric to account for our commitment to supporting localization in international development. We have since disbursed more than $23 M of U.S. government funding to 290 local partners spanning 16 countries across 4 continents.

Learning from our work could guide others in the industry to do development differently.

We recognize that our role as an international organization goes beyond compliance with federal regulations to ensure US taxpayer resources are used responsibly — to achieving results in partnership with local partners. Our approach integrates mentorship, learning-by-doing through grants to local partners, institutional strengthening, and tailored capacity-strengthening support to become resilient, self-reliant organizations.

We do this by avoiding three major pitfalls common in the aid industry:

First, we go beyond urban-based ‘donor darlings’ using stakeholder tools like our Missing Voices Analysis to engage local partners that have the credibility and the capacity to mobilize communities at the grassroots level where conflict and service delivery gaps are most persistent. In Bangladesh, for example, Counterpart implemented USAID’s Promoting Advocacy and Rights Activity and supported 30,687 community members to work in partnership with the public and private sectors to advocate for their priority issues such as planned urbanization, environmental protection, and social development. Drawing from our global expertise in convening stakeholders, we supported our partners to work beyond their immediate constituencies — to foster networks, and pursue lasting cross-sectoral change.

Second, we avoid reinventing the wheel. Instead, we apply proven models of appreciative inquiry — a collaborative process where we get to know the communities on the front lines of pressing development challenges and we leverage their existing socio-political and economic capital to catalyze change. In El Salvador, Counterpart implements the USAID-funded Rights and Dignity program, where we partnered with the Central American University José Simeón Cañas, a longstanding champion of human rights. In 2019 we leveraged the University’s reputation, academic infrastructure, and existing funding streams to establish the first-ever Salvadoran National Observatory for Human Rights; which by 2024 has become a sustainable national and international cornerstone of credible information for activists engaged in research, policy-making, and advocacy efforts.

Third, we skip the ‘rinse and repeat’ mentality of scaling development with the same set of tools and approaches everywhere; and instead apply complexity thinking to guide how we adapt promising practices to new contexts. For example, we understand that market systems in fragile states require unique approaches to building resilient food systems. In Senegal, where Counterpart implements Sukaabe Janngo II, a USDA-funded McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition project, we support supply chain producers and buyers to work with local farmers to both improve the quality of their product, and to be able to effectively bid on local contracts to provide school meals.

In short, our learning indicates that it is possible to conserve resources and invest foreign assistance prudently by working through local systems and the organizations that understand how to navigate them best. Still, it is important to note that many local organizations struggle to meet rigorous requirements to be compliant and fiscally responsible agents of American taxpayer dollars. This is where international development organizations like Counterpart can play a vital role: co-creating and strengthening local organizational capacity for long lasting results.