What’s the hold up with localization? Three reasons why international actors stifle moving localization from rhetoric to reality
Despite welcoming the majority of the world’s migrants and displaced people, city governments face barriers to accessing international funding and financing. The international humanitarian community’s promise of localization – a power shift that aims to move funding, among other resources, from international coffers to actors closer to affected communities – seeks to address this problem.
But local actors, including city governments, are still waiting for the promise of localization to be fully realized.
The gap between what is said and done – the central focus of DevEx’s Roots of Change series – is not a consequence of the limited capacities of local actors. A 2022 study reveals that local actors are well-placed to implement programming that is 32% more cost effective than if international intermediaries delivered the same programming.
Cities are prime local actors. They have the mandate to deliver social, economic, and basic services to all residents, regardless of status. The Mayors Migration Council’s (MMC) Global Cities Fund for Migrants and Refugees (GCF) attests to cities’ willingness, agility, and creativity in implementing inclusive solutions of their own design for the urban migrants and refugees who call it home.
Cities are part of the solution, not the problem.
But if local actors worldwide – city governments included – are indeed acting, what’s the hold up with taking localization from rhetoric to reality?
International and, at times, national actors reinforce three key barriers that slow systemic change, as highlighted by the MMC in the DevEx “Local Voices, Global Impact” webinar in July 2024.
1. The Empty Promises
The biggest hold up is the funding itself.
Pledges and commitments from traditional donors to directly fund local actors too often remain unfulfilled.
In 2016, donors promised 25% of all international humanitarian assistance to local and national actors. In 2022, only 1.2% of these funds went directly to local actors, with city governments taking an even smaller tranche. Direct funding puts the full weight of a pledge into practice.
More direct funding to cities will complement other non-monetary, capacity-sharing investments to scale up cities’ abilities to meet the needs of migrants and refugees.
2. The Momentum of the Status Quo
International and national funding and financing systems limit cities’ abilities to receive critical investments.
Status quo funding and finance systems – multilateral development banks included – privilege national governments, sometimes at the expense of city governments. Additionally, cities are beholden to national government policies, which can make what limited funds reach cities more reflective of national government interests than the priorities of city governments.
Further complicating funding access, only a fraction of the world’s cities can access credit, especially in low- to middle-income countries. Of the world’s 500 largest cities, a mere 4% are deemed “creditworthy” in international markets and only 20% in local markets.
The international finance machinery hamstrings cities’ access to investments critical for managing the growth that urban centers experience, especially where funding is most needed.
3. The Strings Attached
Some donors export rigid expectations to local actors.
By default, traditional donors seek tidy mission statements, rigorous M&E systems, and perfected theories of change that stymie local the know-how of ground-level actors, city governments included.
Funders must reframe – not lower – expectations to harness the city-level expertise of local actors. Rather than impose a culturally specific, definite bar that local actors must meet, donors must think expansively about local actors’ skills in all their diversity.
Fortunately, in an order otherwise challenged by limited funds, restrictive financial systems, and hesitancy to meet local actors where they are, forward-thinking donors are uniquely placed to enable putting localization promises into practice.
Investments powered by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the IKEA Foundation, and Robert Bosch Stiftung prove that donors can contribute to solutions by directly investing in city governments, their mayors, and their own bold ideas to make their cities more inclusive of migrants and refugees. What’s more? These donors contribute to solutions in a way that remains flexible and responsive to the capacity, ingenuity, and local knowledge of city governments.
Take Arua – a city in northwestern Uganda that is home to many refugees from neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan. A GCF grantee, the City of Arua established Uganda’s first city-owned, refugee-operated recycling plant and mobilized more than 1,500 students for a climate-adapted tree planting campaign.
Arua joins a cadre of GCF cities whose impact was made possible by innovative ideas from cities, resources from donors who back up their localization pledges with funds, and the MMC’s commitment to honoring and amplifying the agility of local actors.
International development and humanitarian donors can follow the innovative approach modeled by the GCF and its community of global partners to actualize the promise of localization and make cities more inclusive homes for displaced people worldwide.
What’s next?
Mayors will be headed to the UN General Assembly in New York later this month to discuss these important issues with global decisionmakers. To learn more about what mayors are doing to promote better migration policy, sign up for our email list.
