NNGO Voices: Leader Perspectives on Locally-Led Development

This is a moment of great potential change for the development sector as it moves towards shifting power to local development, decolonizing aid, and building a more equitable development architecture. Funders, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), and national/local NGOs (NNGOs) are the key stakeholders in making these changes a reality. Governments also have an important role, as they have power over the operating environment of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in many countries.

This report highlights the NNGO perspective. Why? Each stakeholder group must have a seat at the proverbial table. Also, no baseline is currently available to measure progress in achieving the sustainable and autonomous operating models necessary for locally-driven development. To begin building that baseline, a team at Humentum talked to executive directors of NNGOs in Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Our goal in these conversations was to:

1. Gauge NNGO leaders’ perspectives and engagement with the conversations around power shifts in the sector globally and in their own contexts
2. Better understand the practical solutions they believe are needed to shift power and build organizational autonomy
3. Explore common goals and strategy between Humentum and NNGO  leaders on operationalizing locally-driven equitable development This is the third report in our Collective Journey to Equitable Development  Series.

This report is critically important because although we see the sector investing in locally-led development, we repeatedly heard from  NNGO leaders that they were not part of the discussion. This report shares their voices, perspectives, and their recommendations to the sector in their own words.