Localization and investing in what lasts: locally led development and ex-post learning

by Jindra Cekan | Dec 30, 2025 | Climate Investment Funds (CIF), Congo, Grand Bargain, M&E, OCHA, Sustainability, Sustainable development

Localization and investing in what lasts: locally-led development and ex-post learning

This year-end blog highlights learning from the Climate Investment Funds (CIF), IRC/ CARE, about what can work, what needs more resources, learning from what didn’t, OCHA challenging assumptions and RI data, bring true localization, and sustainability/ resilience learning for Adaptation Fund (CF) to come.

1. CIF’s PPCR and ARISE programs

A final, summative evaluation of a $1.2 billion Climate Investment Funds (CIF) 10-year programme, the PPRC, that I and Valuing Voices evaluators were involved through ICF has led to inspiring learning on local leadership and investments in nature-based solutions (NbS). We did three ex-post evaluations of work in Samoa, Bangladesh and Mozambique which i mentioned in this 2025 blog. The CIF used our evaluation findings for both a management response and learning and follow-on programme design.

The learning is shown in their management response to our recommendations including on Sustainability:

* “Management agrees that future programs should give greater attention to sustainability from the outset by improving design and exit planning to ensure that project outcomes, institutional capacities, and partnerships remain effective beyond project completion.

* To sustain results over time, Management agrees to foster local ownership, build institutional and technical capacities, and mobilize resources for operations and maintenance, which were found lacking in operations and maintenance across the three ex-posts.” These drew on our ex-post evaluation findings:

* “Also, Management acknowledges the value of maintaining robust monitoring, evaluation, and learning systems to enable adaptive program and project management and support sustainability….

* Building on the country led monitoring processes, introduced within the PPCR, future programs will explore opportunities for supporting further monitoring and evaluation to better understand the factors that contribute to long-term resilience in the face of increasing climate risks and uncertainties.”

They used, among other lessons, ex-post findings in the design of the ARISE programme (Accelerating Resilience Investments and Innovations for Sustainable Economies), This includes key learning like “CIF will continue to promote a systems-oriented approach and adaptive design frameworks that link national, sub-national, and local interventions…[and] encourage inclusive engagement of local stakeholders, particularly disadvantaged and climate-vulnerable groups.” They also heard us about local Ownership: “Champion locally-led adaptation solutions, empowering communities to drive innovations and deliver lasting impact – with inclusive, scalable funding approaches rooted in communities most affected” and “Countries being in the driver’s seat is the best way to set priorities. Some PPCR countries chose smart agriculture, others infrastructure and flood protection, or early warning systems…” They also chose to listen to community desires for sustainable solutions, including lessons from Mozambique: “Install solar-powered, efficient irrigation to conserve water and maintain productivity”,

2. IRC & CARE Congo’s Community Driven Development (CDD)

5 years after a 4-year CDD programme called Tuungane 1 in Eastern Congo closed, they found “evidence as to its effects remains inconclusive.” It had two components: 1) an intervention at the VDC (village development committees)  level that involved $3,000 grants, and 2) further $50,000 to $70,000 sub-grants to undertake infrastructure projects such as the construction of schools and hospitals. A key element was a focus on women’s empowerment and on championing the rights and roles of women in collective decision-making. A robust evaluation of 781 villages found that while “the program had a positive [output] on the quality of primary schools and health facilities, and on the presence of material and supplies in these facilities…  villagers living in areas that received Tuungane 1 have education and health facilities nearby that are built and stocked better than in areas the program did not focus on.

Yet they found no evidence for improvements in education outcomes or long-term impact(s):

• “We find no evidence that the program had an effect on other dimensions of service provision: capacity, staff quality, quality of administration, community participation, service cost or utilization.” They determined that it was a dearth of resources invested into salaries and costs”: “Teachers and nurses still received very little compensation for their work…. [and] Many individuals mentioned that prohibitive prices remained a central obstacle for making of use educational or
  health services….
• We do not find positive economic effects and even see some (generally scattered) evidence suggesting adverse economic effects.
• Finally, when it comes to the role of women, the evidence does not suggest that Tuungane 1 led to improvements in women’s empowerment.”

Many programs do that show that an insufficient investment in only “gender quotas, which increase the number of women in leadership positions, may not be sufficient to alter entrenched gender roles and norms.” Such gender roles are complex and ‘just’ making sure women are participating is not enough. This is a common finding across many ex-post evaluations. Doing ex-post evaluations shows how to design better, and foster locally-led development in fact, not theory. Kudos for publishing valuable, if disappointing, results.

3) OCHA leadership created a Grand Bargain 2.0 in 2021, it is high time it is implemented de facto.

• “Approaches and methodologies to localization of ‘sustainable development’ programming must be promoted so that local NGOs can take ownership of such approaches and start implement them. Most aid agencies don’t have yet the know-how to implement such a “localization approach” as this requires a complete change in the way they operate. This would also imply to “educate” donors on this new way of working as being initially more time consuming in terms of planning, and would require a “power change” from the humanitarian “elites” to the local communities and authorities….
• The concentration of monetary resources at the top facilitates accountability to global north donors at the expense of accountability to aid recipients. Humanitarian elites wield power by dominating the discourse that sets the agenda for action, notes scholar Sheila Nair. Meanwhile, power imbalances in humanitarian governance tend to exclude local communities from direct funding and leadership opportunities….How much are organizations excluded? “Even where international organizations have adopted localized funding models, international-local partnership practices remain highly hierarchical. In a 2019 survey by the Accelerating Localisation through Partnerships consortium, only 24% of local and national NGOs said international-local partnerships seemed ‘genuine’….
• While the Grand Bargain has not yielded significant results, local groups are busy enacting change outside of formal international frameworks. ODI’s July study identifies bottom-up action as the driving force for the most significant localization shifts during the [COVID] pandemic.  Standout initiatives include an informal coalition of Red Cross national societies in the Pacific region that draws from their collective resources and expertise to improve local capacity and access to funding. And in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Santé & Développement emerged as a grassroots effort to address pandemic-related needs with the support of locally raised funds.” In fact, “While Grand Bargain signatories pledged by 2020 to give at least 25% of humanitarian funding to local and national stakeholders, only a tiny fraction of that — just 1.2% in 2022 — went directly to local and national groups.”

And given huge funding cuts of humanitarian aid alone as of end of 2025 (the USA is offering the UN only $2 billion of the $50 billion+ needed and many other donors are pulling back aid) maybe there is a silver lining.  Refugees International (RI) announced in late 2024, that “New evidence reveals a compelling financial case for localizing humanitarian aid: Local organizations are delivering assistance in a more cost-efficient way than their international counterparts. And yet they remain woefully underfunded.”

Localization is cheaper (as mentioned in 2015’s American Red Cross Haiti $500 million scandal) and must now become the priority, especially given research RI cites, that “local organizations are delivering assistance that is 17% more cost-efficient on average. Global data suggests that this figure could be as high as 32% for large U.N. and INGO budgets.” They go on to note that “The system must stop treating local organizations as subcontractors and meet them on equal terms as partners who lead…. ”

Given aid cuts, localization may be the (best?) last resort, and possibly the most sustainable.

4) Adaptation Fund’s ex-post adaptive sustainability and resilience learning continues 

Finally, I am excited that in spite of a challenging funding environment, our ICF team has been selected by the Adaptation Fund (AF) to lead its 8th ex-post evaluation. This 5 years post-closure is of an $8 million water project run by Government of Ghana’s MEST and UNDP, of Increased Resilience to Climate Change in Northern Ghana through the Management of Water Resources and Diversification of Livelihoods. I am team lead under ICF Director Jessica Kyle and with the help of Isabel Morford-Cheibub, with an excellent Ghanaian expert Dr Martha Aata-Asantewa. We will be examining sustainability drivers, including local ownership, resources, partnerships, capacities and resilience characteristics as well as looking to learn from emerging outcome pathways to adaptive sustainability. Excited to share more lessons in 2026!