Locally led development empowers communities to drive their own progress, ensuring sustainable and meaningful impact. Read on to discover the benefits of this approach and how to create a locally led development program.
Locally led development, also called community-led development, puts communities at the forefront of their own progress. It shifts the power dynamic, ensuring that solutions are tailored to specific needs and contexts.
Studies show that community-driven initiatives often have higher success rates and greater sustainability than top-down approaches. Locally led development allows for a group of people to generate and implement solutions for the issues affecting them and their environment.
In this article, we’ll explore how nonprofits can leverage this approach to maximize their effectiveness and foster long-term change, particularly in the uncertain and (somewhat) unpredictable nature of the development landscape recently.
What is Locally Led Development?
Locally led development (LLD) is an approach that prioritizes the agency and ownership of local communities in their own development processes.
Instead of outside actors creating solutions, LLD emphasizes local knowledge, resources, and leadership.
It recognizes that communities are best positioned to understand their unique challenges and opportunities, and that sustainable change is more likely when solutions are rooted in local realities.
LLD also strengthens social cohesion and builds long-term capacity by fostering inclusive participation and ensuring that all voices – especially those of marginalized groups – are heard and valued.
The focus of locally led development includes:
- Local Ownership: Communities drive the agenda and decision-making.
- Context-Specific Solutions: Interventions are tailored to local needs and realities.
- Capacity Building: The program strengthens local institutions and skills.
- Partnerships: Outside and local actors collaborate, with local actors in the lead.
Building this partnership with local communities, which may also include investments in their capabilities, will allow the implementing organization to add more tailored resources that directly contribute to boosting the effectiveness of their programs.
What are the Benefits of Locally Driven Development?
We are living and operating in times of huge funding cuts, shuttered organisations, and dismantled programming as a result of the Trump administration’s closing of USAID and the foreign aid freeze.
With the loss of funding from USAID, the largest global donor, locally led development offers organizations an opportunity to continue serving their missions through a different approach – one that works.
In fact, if the development sector had been effectively empowering and equipping local communities over the last 30-40 years, perhaps there would have been less of a dependence on this federal funding today. Locally led development is needed now more than ever, especially for those members of communities impacted by the current USAID cuts.
Locally led development creates a community of practice where there are groups of people with a shared passion and goals working together to solve a particular problem.
Benefits include:
- Increased Impact: Solutions are more effective when they align with local needs.
- Sustainability: Local ownership ensures long-term commitment and maintenance.
- Resilience: Communities become less dependent on external aid and more self-sufficient.
- Cost-Effectiveness: Local resources and knowledge can reduce project costs.
- Community Engagement: This approach fosters trust and strengthens relationships with local populations.
- Adaptability: Respond with flexibility to changing circumstances.
Increased Visibility: Attract the attention of both potential donors and partners willing to provide resources to achieve your goals.
How to Create A Locally Led Development Program
Here are the key steps to implement a locally led development program:
1. Engage the community
Begin by engaging with local communities to understand their needs, priorities, and existing capacities.
This step is where goals and expectations are set or amended, which sets the groundwork for partnership building. At the outset, decision-making should be decentralised to foster a collaborative and open atmosphere, eliminating any unbalanced power dynamic.
2. Build partnerships
Establish partnerships with local organizations, leaders, and stakeholders. These partnerships must be equitable and collaborative. Consider a community of practice approach to foster this collaborative and equitable atmosphere.
Corporate-nonprofit partnerships are essential as an alternative to the reduction in “traditional” grant disbursement to enhance resources and expertise. Many for-profit companies are interested in partnering with social impact organizations or, if they’re large enough, have a social impact arm themselves.
Building connections and networks will make forming these partnerships easier and lay the groundwork for deeper collaboration in the future.
3. Assess needs
Conduct a thorough needs assessment with the community to identify specific challenges and opportunities.
There are several steps to accurately and strategically complete this assessment. Firstly, one should prioritize the agency of diverse local actors in framing development co-operation, which includes identifying challenges, needs, and setting development co-operation priorities. This step also involves recognizing and enabling local actors’ involvement in framing, design, delivery, and accountability.
In addition, it is important that external NGOs understand and appreciate the local context by involving local stakeholders in national dialogues and policy development. This can be achieved through the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC) monitoring exercise, which provides contextual information on stakeholder engagement and representation.
There is a great value in applying a spectrum approach to understand local stakeholders’ agency, enabling a more granular understanding of expectations, barriers, and the evolving roles of different stakeholders. Essential to this approach is ensuring a context-specific assessment to create tailored and relevant solutions.
4. Program design (or redesign!)
Design or redesign programs that are tailored to the local context and address the needs identified in the step above.
Ensure that local knowledge and resources are incorporated into the design. Where funding or other monetary support is used, efforts should be made to ensure this is as “unrestricted” as possible. This will allow more freedom and flexibility in designing the most aligned solutions and support.
Some resources to help with this step include: RTI hard questions about locally led development, DT Global LLD Framework, Humentum LLD Policy Blueprint & LLN – A Community Placemaking Manual.
5. Strengthen capacity
Provide training and resources to build the capacity of local organizations and community members.
This could include skill development, leadership training, and organizational development. Capacity strengthening should be done with a flexible, long-term approach that will provide the most relevant and transformative development experience.
6. Rethink your fundraising
When it comes to fundraising for locally led development programs, you’ll need to educate your donors about your approach – and how it’s different.
Use your donation page to clearly illustrate how your new program works, and how their funds will support this work of lifting up communities with development that is driven locally.
Hope for Colombia uses their Donorbox donation page to showcase this approach and invite more generosity.
7. Apply for grants
Where possible, explore grant opportunities to support locally led initiatives. This piece on government grants for nonprofits can be used as a guide to find grants for your organization.
Note, however, that there has been a decline in the availability of grants (from institutional donors) since the collapse of USAID. Be sure to complement this grant search with explorations of alternative funding sources such as corporate partners or individual donors.
8. Monitor and evaluate your program
Establish a monitoring and evaluation framework that involves local stakeholders.
Use community feedback to make adjustments and improvements to the program. Community members must also be trained on the use and understanding of your monitoring and evaluation framework. The aim is to allow them to carry out all aspects of a project or initiative themselves.
9. Prepare your internal staff
Organizations must change their internal culture to get staff ready for this shift to more locally led development.
This approach requires fostering trust, empowering local teams, and decentralizing decision-making processes. It also means accepting that local actors understand their contexts best and further underlines this shift in power dynamics, moving away from top-down control and embracing collaborative approaches.
10. Get support from MzN
MzN International, a social impact consulting firm based in Germany, is a world leader in supporting NGOs to be the best they can be.
We have extensive experience in supporting organizations all across the globe to prepare and restructure for community-led engagement. Our services include strategic planning, capacity building, and impact measurement, ensuring sustainable and meaningful change within the communities
Locally led development is not just a trend – it’s a necessary shift towards more effective and sustainable development practices.
By empowering communities and prioritizing local ownership, nonprofits can achieve greater impact and create lasting change.
Embracing LLD ensures that development efforts are truly responsive to the needs and aspirations of the people they serve. This type of systemic and intentional change will take time, so all partners must approach this new dynamic with patience and consideration.
If you’re looking for a partner to help you start or revitalize a locally led development program, reach out to MzN International.
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