The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is proud to announce six new research and development awards, co-created by USAID’s Local, Faith, and Transformative Partnerships (LFT) Hub with a diverse range of local and traditionally underutilized partners, to support USAID’s commitment to locally led development.
Totaling $8.8 million, these awards will enable USAID and its partners to generate new knowledge, tools, and approaches that advance local leadership of development programs, in ways that meet local priorities, enhance local capacity, and engage local actors as both producers and users of research findings.
The following awards center local voices throughout the research process on locally led development to ensure USAID can better inform its efforts to achieve sustainable, locally led development results:
- Communities of Practice for Effective Partnerships (COPE), implemented by the Gerry Roxas Foundation in collaboration with LINC and Corporación ECOSS, will strengthen an international community of practice that supports the use of systems thinking in addressing local development challenges. Spanning across nine countries in Asia and Latin America, COPE will bring together diverse organizations to learn from and support each other.
- Donors and Locally Led Development: Transforming Relationships for Strong and Resilient Communities, led by Indian Grameen Services with research expertise from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, is examining how donor roles affect locally led development in India to make future development programs more effective.
- Hope for a Better Future: Resilience for Youth in Liberia is implementing and assessing trauma healing informed activities to engage youth as sustainable development partners in Liberia. Kennesaw State University will partner with the Liberia National Commission of Justice, Peace and Caritas; the Kofi Annan Institute for Conflict Transformation; the University of Liberia; TRENDS Global; and Sovereignty First.
- Locally Led Development in Fragile Environments (LIFE) is exploring how and why locally led development leads to impact in fragile environments through research in Bangladesh and Ethiopia. The Global Secretariat of the Movement for Community-Led Development, the Hunger Project, leads LIFE, with World Vision and Relief International as evaluation partners.
- The Effect of Social Capital on Family Wellbeing in Peru's Valley of the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro Rivers (VRAEM) is studying the effects of community-led programming on social welfare conditions in conflict-affected zones of Peru. Management Sciences for Health Peru is working with Peru’s National Commission for Development and Life without Drugs (DEVIDA), local governments, and community health workers.
- Stopping As Success+ (SAS+): Locally Led Transitions in Development, led by CDA Collaborative Learning Projects with Peace Direct and Search for Common Ground, is enabling development partnerships to be more locally led by making transitions from international to local entities more responsible, effective, and sustainable.
Find out more about these projects and other locally led development research at USAID here.