With USAID Administrator Samantha Power’s announcement that USAID will shift 25% of its funding to local organizations over the next four years, how will international development organizations ensure the inclusion of girls’ and young people’s unique experiences and perspectives?
Evidence demonstrates that locally led development delivers successful program results and sustainable outcomes. This dual impact results from donors and implementing partners transferring power to local actors by creating programs based on their priorities, increasing local partnerships and generating more co-financing. However, as an organization that collaborates with young women and girls, Plan International USA recognizes that funding, resources and capacity-building support often favor adult- and male-led organizations, especially without quotas from funders.
When only 1% of gender-focused foreign aid goes to women-led organizations, and even less to girl-led organizations, the international development sector exclude women, girls and young people from decision-making spaces that directly impact them. Creating space for groups that rarely receive funding will lead to even more effective, sustainable and inclusive LLD outcomes. Girls and young people are experts in their own experience, so their perspectives should guide programming that impacts them. Otherwise, programs can miss key insights into these experiences.
What does partnering with girl- and youth-led organizations look like?
When the perspectives of girls and young people are included in a project from the start, it creates more effective programming that caters to their specific needs. For example, in consultation with 30 girls activists from Guatemala and Brazil, Plan launched the Equality Accelerator in October 2020, in response to the urgent need to create a girl-friendly funding mechanism that closes the funding gap and enables young people to pursue initiatives in their communities. With Plan’s investment and resources, the girls created a platform that truly caters to their needs as young activists. EA is an online platform that provides direct flexible funding opportunities, shares leadership development resources and creates a global community. So far, more than 2,500 youth-led organizations and 3,800 individuals have registered on the EA site. Since 2020, the EA has distributed €400,000 to youth-led organizations to enact initiatives in their communities.
Similarly, Plan International Sweden’s €70M LLD-focused Generation Change! program furthers LLD by providing civil society organizations with grants from their Civil Space Flex Fund. GC! strengthens CSOs, including youth-led organizations, to work in politically, socially and environmentally volatile contexts where severe violations of human rights occur. It operates in 21 different countries and has engaged more than 140 local CSOs.
With the Civil Space Flex Fund, CSOs and young activists can apply for small, time-sensitive grants for technical support, capacity building and unforeseen circumstances when their organization’s activities are most under attack. In Bangladesh, for example, young activists chose to learn policy advocacy skills, resulting in sending letters to decision-makers and leading more than 30 press conferences and Q&A sessions with politicians. Their efforts led to an increase in the national budget for issues young people care about and the creation of a child safety hotline. GC! is helping to increase resilience in civil spaces.
Benefits of partnering with a diverse of local groups
Creating girl- and youth-centered LLD programming opens the door to partnering with diverse cross sections of the population. For example, 80% of EA-funded organizations in Guatemala and Brazil are led by young people who are LGBTQIA+, 60% are led by a majority of young Indigenous people and 50% are led by a majority of young Black people. This increases the ability of development organizations to reach diverse demographics. Working with young partners lends development organizations access to untapped populations, perspectives and expertise.
Girl- and youth-led organizations are also reliable development partners and can meet due diligence and reporting requirements, as long as they are youth-centered. For example, the EA uses a transparent due diligence and compliance process that includes a community reference, ID cards, co-signed forms and financial reports with detailed instructions. These requirements are the same for registered and unregistered CSOs. Internally, Plan trains staff to shift attitudes, finance and compliance reporting processes, and areas where requirements hinder youth participation. EA staff report 100% compliance with its funding policies thus far, which they credit to mutual practices of transparency.
Directly funding girl- and youth-led organizations also results in a positive feedback loop of increased credibility, external funding and local partnerships. This leads to one of two outcomes. The organizations build their capacity and are primed to become long-term partners, or become self-sustaining within their community and do not require additional support from the donor. Upon receiving the grant, EA-funded organizations reported expansion, formalization and increased credibility in their communities, where they are recognized as legitimate, successful organizations. According to EA’s Youth Funding Project Officer, Sanchia Zucker Rodriguez, receiving a grant is a “gold star” that leads to greater community recognition, increased funding and easier and stronger partnerships with local government. This shift is transformational not only for the youth organizations, but also for development organizations, because it creates local buy-in on their projects.
Finally, girls and young people offer creative, unique program designs, as they understand how to best engage their peers on issues they care about. One EA-funded organization in Brazil, Resgatando e Valorizando a Mulher, addresses the lack of women’s and girls’ representation in STEM through storytelling and advocacy. Cultura la em Casa in Guatemala uses art and cultural expression to engage women in learning about about domestic violence and self-esteem. When young people design programs, there are tangible outcomes because of their nuanced expertise. When shifting toward LLD, we must recognize that our program designs and methodologies will also shift — for the better.
Key takeaways
Young people are key, successful partners in designing locally led programs. We cannot create sustainable LLD without ensuring we engage all local actors. When we partner with girl- and youth-led organizations, we access a network of enthusiastic leaders with innovative visions for programs that reach diverse populations.
While the international development field’s shift toward LLD is a step in the right direction, we cannot forget that girls and young people are an essential part of success. We must look inward to ensure that our programs, compliance processes and organizational culture enables them to succeed. Young people are not just the partners of tomorrow, but the partners of today.
