What’s in a Trend? Localization might be trendy, but are we going beyond lip service?
If you’ve been in a forum, a panel, a roundtable, a fireside chat, a Twitter space, or any other form of speaking event rooted in global development in the last five years, you’ve heard the talk. I know you have.
“We must invest in local leaders.”
“Local solutions are the key to solving many of the world’s problems.”
“It is only through local development that we are going to achieve global goals.”
It’s no secret that global development practitioners have learned that localization is a trendy topic. Some have internalized it as a directive for their work. Others know it as a good subject for their next live-streamed conversation and not much more. But whether a person’s ideology behind localization is fully actualized or not, everyone with the word on their lips seems to agree on one thing: it’s trendy.
But just how popular is this localization term, really? And is anything changing because of that popularity? Reasonably, we could fill a library with books on these questions, so for now, we’ll stick to a familiar source we’ve all turned to when a query arises: Google.
Since 2004, Google has tracked the worldwide frequency of search terms and allowed the public to view the upward and downward trend of these searches for themselves. In effect, it allows us to take a snapshot look at the trends in public discourse, provided that they find their way onto the internet.
Across the globe, Google reports notable increases in the frequency and popularity of searches relevant to World Localization Day. The term “local,” for instance, has doubled in global popularity since November 2020 and searches for the term hit an all-time high in November 2022. Similarly, the phrase “local nonprofits” hit an all-time high in February of 2023 and has doubled in popularity over the last six years. So, too, has “local leaders,” a phrase that has doubled in search frequency since August 2020 and hit an all-time high in public interest in April 2022.
With localization and its affiliate terms trending upward in public discourse and the digital space, it begs the question: is that public interest doing anything to available resources? Is localization trendy when it comes to funding local causes or is the proverbial “talk” distant from the “walk”?
In 2015, a number of reports came to light on the state of localized funding available worldwide in an effort to examine progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) meant to be achieved by 2030. That year, a number of sources, including the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, indicated that less than 2% of worldwide humanitarian funding was going directly to local NGOs. The majority of funding, instead, made its way to international NGOs with annual budgets of over $1 Billion USD.
This is not to say that the international NGOs receiving the majority of this funding were (or are) doing inherently bad work. Many millions of people have been aided by the efforts of the world’s largest organizations and their size, inherently, helps reach large swaths of people in crisis. It is, however, worth noting that there are localized NGOs and smaller-scale efforts operating all over the planet with extreme efficacy, local insights, and the flexibility needed to adapt to local nuances when it comes to problem-solving. Getting resources into the hands of these organizations is an ongoing challenge - and one that the world must rise to meet immediately.
But perhaps, since 2015, with the “trendiness” of “local” initiatives reaching an all-time high, we also saw a shift in funding towards these local causes.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. In fact, in 2021, global funding given directly to local NGOs backtracked far enough to reach a five-year low, at 1.2%, according to a report by The New Humanitarian. This feels particularly egregious, given the way that local NGOs responded to the COVID-19 pandemic beginning in the year prior to this data. We know, for instance, in the AMPLIFY Girls network alone, we saw local NGOs going door to door with supplies for adolescent girls in areas where national-level relief could not reach. We saw informal schools set up outside in regions where school shutdowns seemed unending. Local leaders mobilized food, menstrual supplies, health education, masks, clothing, and more to girls and their families at a time when no one but those local leaders could have provided these resources. And despite that showing of the value of local action, and despite the online discourse around these stories surging, we saw not an increase, but a dip in available funding.
There is still time to course-correct. World Localization Day 2023 serves as an opportunity for all of us in the development space to think twice before simply talking about “local” initiatives. Every use of the word “local” today should be accompanied by a question: “Am I helping to actualize direct funding to these local causes that I know to reference in my speech?” Over the past five years, since the founding of AMPLIFY Girls, we have either directly given or directed over $1.4 Million USD to local NGO partners in our collective. But even we know we can do more.
It’s time for us all to do what we can to make the trends more than just talk.
— by Zack Fowler
Head of Strategic Partnerships, AMPLIFY Girls
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A nonprofit professional with a substantial on-the-ground focus, Zack has experience with gender, health, and education initiatives across four different continents. He has been a fan of AMPLIFY Girls ever since he participated in the first full partner gathering in Rwanda in 2018.
He is the former Executive Director of WISER International, an organization that Zack worked with for over 10 cumulative years, supporting its efforts in girls' education in Kenya.