USAID's Locally-Led Development Agenda: Open Government and Independent Monitoring
Date: May 2025
Author(s): Jeffrey Hallock, Jonathan Fox, and Nicholas Chen
Publication type: Scholarly journal article
Published by: Public Administration and Development
USAID’s ambitious localization agenda between 2021–2024—suspended in early 2025—aimed to provide more funding for local organizations, strengthen local systems, and co‐create with local communities. This study uses pre‐2025 open government data to identify continuity and change during USAID’s localization push. While USAID’s localization agenda primarily focused on funding to local prime implementing partners, our research shows that, in the countries studied, more USAID funding went to local subaward recipients than to local prime implementers. We also find that USAID contributed to debates about how to conceptualize and measure locally‐led development. Though the US sharply curtailed foreign assistance and USAID data transparency at the start of the second Trump administration, if a localization agenda were ever to be revived in the future, then prioritizing user‐centered access to project data would enable informed participation integral to locally‐led development.
Jeffrey Hallock is an ARC researcher and a doctoral student at American University researching anti-corruption reforms. His work focuses on elite contestation of reforms and the international community’s role in supporting anti-corruption efforts.
Jonathan Fox is Professor and Director of the Accountability Research Center at the School of International Service, American University. He works with a wide range of public interest groups, social organizations, private foundations, and policymakers to learn from transparency, participation, and accountability initiatives. For publications, see: www.jonathan-fox.org.
Nick Chen is Analyst Intern at MITRE, having graduated with a degree in International Studies and Data Science from American University in May 2025.