Practical Guidelines for Supporting Locally Led Development

10. Action area: Transparency and accountability

Abstract

This chapter examines how transparency and accountability systems can better support locally led development (LLD). While commitments to LLD have grown, transparency and accountability frameworks remain predominantly geared towards domestic constituencies with limited visibility for local actors over funding flows, decision making processes and partnership arrangements. It examines practical entry points to strengthen transparency both on how resources flow to local actors and on the results achieved. It reviews options such as harmonised tracking, shared accounting models and clearer reporting on intermediary roles, alongside approaches to reinforce accountability to local stakeholders through scorecards, partnership feedback mechanisms, and more inclusive monitoring, evaluation and learning systems.

What is the issue?

Development partners’ transparency and accountability systems continue to prioritise accountability to domestic constituencies over accountability to their local stakeholders (OECD, 2024[1]). The 2025 sudden cuts in official development assistance (ODA) starkly illustrated this imbalance: when faced with budget constraints, many organisations prioritised compliance with development partner requirements and their own institutional stability over their responsibilities to local partners, revealing how accountability relationships remain fundamentally skewed (NEAR, 2025[2]). This can weaken accountability to affected populations and reduce incentives to shift decision making power to local actors across the programme cycle (Pinnington et al., 2024[3]). Mutual accountability is further constrained where civic space is limited, as restrictions on freedoms of association, expression and advocacy can prevent both local actors and civil society in provider countries from effectively holding partners to account.

Local organisations also often lack visibility into how intermediaries report back to development partners and what share of resources reaches communities. Local actors rarely have a full picture of upstream budgets, total funding available, or the contract details between development partners and intermediaries.1 As a result, they are treated primarily as implementing partners rather than equal partners in decision making. The ability to hold international intermediaries and development partners accountable only becomes a reality when local actors have visibility into resourcing decisions, including the shares of funding they can expect to receive. Without clearer “lines of sight” on decisions and money, local partners cannot meaningfully contest trade-offs, influence course correction or verify whether commitments on localisation are being met.

Where to start

Strengthening transparency on funding flows, programme governance and engagement modalities

Development partners can establish publicly available, shared reporting and tracking mechanisms that provide a clear picture of how much ODA reaches local actors, both directly and through intermediary arrangements. While several initiatives are underway to estimate funding to local actors, differences in definitions, scope and methodology limit comparability across members and over time. Members of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) could therefore build on ongoing work under their Working Party on Development Finance Statistics (WP-STAT) to move towards a common methodology for estimating locally led development (LLD) funding flows. This could enable more meaningful benchmarking and support collective efforts to increase the share and quality of funding that reaches local actors, while taking into account reporting burden considerations and the practical challenges associated with tracking these flows.

• In December 2024, the DAC tasked its Working Party on Development Finance Statistics (WP-STAT) to develop proxy metrics for LLD, building on existing OECD Creditor Reporting System data (see Box 1.1.).

• Publish What You Fund outlines an alternative approach to measuring LLD by focussing on the percentage share of total project-type funding that goes directly to local organisations (Publish What You Fund, 2025[4]).

• The Financial Tracking Service of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is a global database that tracks humanitarian funding flows in real time and records development partners’ contributions, recipient organisations, sector breakdowns and funding gaps (OCHA, n.d.[5]).

In addition to measuring direct allocations, development partners can track and publish the volume of funding channelled through intermediaries, clearly indicating what proportion ultimately reaches local actors and identifying the share of intermediaries that are local themselves. Where intermediaries subcontract to local organisations, development partners can require systematic reporting on onward transfers, increasing transparency across layered funding chains and strengthening visibility over the “pass-through” of resources to local levels.

• Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) uses the Project Electronic Recording of Financial and Operational Reports Management System (PERFORMS) to strengthen transparency and oversight across its contracted development programme (see Box 10.1).

• Several DAC members, including Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, require aid-receiving organisations to publish funding data to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) (IATI, 2024[6]). The IATI Standard is an entry point for shared tracking not only of general fund flows but also of how much funding reaches developing country civil society organisations and marginalised communities.

• The Grand Bargain tracks funding for local and national actors through its self-reporting cycle. In the 2024 data collection, 26 of 51 signatories reported difficulties in tracking and disaggregating funding flows to local actors, citing system limitations, lack of data and non-reporting by intermediaries (IASC, 2024[7]). Some signatories plan to improve tracking systems, offering an opportunity for development partners to collaborate.

Box 10.1. Australia’s PERFORMS system to increase transparency across contracting chains

PERFORMS is a centralised reporting mechanism through which prime contractors with contracts above AUD 3 million submit annual data via an online system. By consolidating data across contracts and subcontracts, PERFORMS provides Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) with greater visibility over funding chains, including how resources are allocated and managed within large programmes. This improves transparency on intermediary arrangements and strengthens accountability for how funding flows through delivery partners to local actors. The reporting captures:

• financial flows at the contract and subcontract levels

• employment and personnel data

• subcontracting arrangements

• selected results information.

Lessons learned from implementing PERFORMS

• Anchor the system in clear policy objectives. Securing approval and buy-in was facilitated by clearly linking PERFORMS to government priorities, including improved programme analysis and tracking commitments such as gender equality and localisation.

• Invest in early and broad stakeholder consultation. Workshops and consultations with DFAT teams and contractors helped clarify the benefits of standardised reporting, assess data availability and ensure feasibility of data collection.

• Pilot and test before full rollout. Trial data collection with major contractors allowed DFAT to test functionality, refine the system and identify data gaps in contractor reporting systems prior to launch.

• Design for flexibility and iterative improvement. Building the questionnaire on an internally managed, adaptable platform enabled DFAT to streamline questions over time and incorporate new policy priorities (e.g. COVID-19-related data) without additional cost or administrative burdens.

Source: OECD (2025[8]), Tracking local content in Australia’s development contracts: PERFORMS, https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/development-co-operation-tips-tools-insights-practices_be69e0cf-en/tracking-local-content-in-australia-s-development-contracts-performs_27a20871-en.html.

Development partners can systematically track and recognise contributions by local actors by adopting a “shared accounting model”. This is one example of an innovative approach to monitoring LLD, as it systematically accounts for financial and in-kind contributions from local actors. The model includes mapping inputs, defining cost centres, and integrating financial and in-kind contributions into reporting systems.

• A Local Contribution Accounting Model piloted in Bangladesh and Myanmar demonstrates how local inputs, such as volunteer time, donated goods and community resources, can be formally integrated into financial reporting systems (National Alliance of Humanitarian Actors Bangladesh, 2024[9]). It highlights the importance of recognising local contributions on equal footing with external funding, which supports more equitable aid systems.

Accountability

Effective mutual accountability depends on the ability of all actors to exercise it in practice. This requires enabling civic space, including freedoms of association, expression and participation, in both partner countries and provider contexts. Where such conditions are constrained, local actors may be limited in their ability to engage, provide feedback or hold partners to account, while civil society in provider countries may face reduced scope to scrutinise development co-operation policies and practices. Protecting and enabling civic space should therefore be understood as a foundational condition for the accountability approaches outlined in this chapter.

A practical entry point is to embed LLD accountability expectations directly into partner agreements (rather than relying only on corporate-level targets). This can strengthen mutual clarity on responsibilities, reduce reliance on informal commitments, and provide a concrete basis for review and course correction.

• Denmark has piloted locally led accountability agreements by requiring non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to embed five elements of local leadership in agreements with local partners (capacity-sharing, funding, advocacy, representation and equality), aligned with the Localisation Performance Measurement Framework of the Network for Empowered Aid Response (NEAR). In addition, headquarter staff engage directly with local partners through annual consultative meetings to verify reporting and build trust-based relationships (NEAR, 2019[10]).

• Ireland monitors LLD benchmarks integrated into memoranda of understanding signed with Irish civil society partners. Benchmarks include accountability to affected populations (notably in humanitarian programming), the proportion of on-granting to local organisations, provision of overheads for local partners, the proportion of Global South leaders on programme boards and narrative reporting against partners’ own LLD policies. (OECD, 2024[1])

• Terre des Hommes’ Partnership and Localisation Policy commits to including fairer funding shares in partner agreements with local actors and to reporting back to funding partners on progress (Terre des hommes, 2023[11]).

Regular feedback and learning loops with local stakeholders are important mechanisms to strengthen accountability on results to local actors. 360-degree accountability approaches, joint monitoring, reflection sessions and community dialogues create systematic channels for local voices to inform programme direction and hold development partners accountable to community priorities. This may involve examining the costs and consequences of not working with or through local actors to strengthen collective accountability.

• The Netherlands aim to prioritise active listening and iterative dialogue to understand and respect local priorities to move beyond one‑off needs assessment. In their monitoring and evaluation systems, they prioritise horizontal accountability (KPSRL, 2024[12]).

• Oxfam Pilipinas published a learning review of its Strategic Partnership Model to strengthen transparency, accountability and sector-wide learning. The review highlights the value of periodically assessing partnership approaches to identify improvements and ensure that ways of working remain aligned with equitable and locally led principles (Oxfam Pilipinas, 2025[13]).

Accountability for supporting LLD goes beyond measuring the volume of funding channelled to local actors; it requires assessing whether resources are used effectively and deliver results that matter to local communities. Operationalising a scorecard can provide a practical mechanism for tracking both outcomes and the extent to which resources reach local levels and align with LLD principles. When designed with and accessible to local stakeholders, such tools can strengthen accountability to local partners, enable informed dialogue between communities and national and subnational authorities, and help address persistent gaps in responsiveness at national and subnational levels. Consider reverse accountability approaches to strengthen accountability of larger agencies to smaller, marginalised actors.

• The Edge Effect’s Diverse SOGIESC (sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics) Partner Appraisal Tool, currently being piloted with support from Australian Aid, enables lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex and queer (LGBTQI+) organisations to assess whether larger humanitarian and development organisations have the policies and practices needed for safe and effective partnership.

• The Swedish International Centre for Local Democracy’s Community Scorecard enables citizens to track local government’s performance, including how resources and services reach communities and facilitate dialogue between local actors and authorities (ICLD, 2023[14]).

• In the climate adaptation space,2 the pilot accountability mechanism of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) uses scorecards to assess whether climate adaptation initiatives align with locally led adaptation principles (IIED, 2023[15]). This supports efforts to channel more climate finance to the local level by tracking how money for climate adaptation reaches local communities.

• The Localisation Performance Measurement Framework of NEAR draws out some key indicators around improving the quantity and quality of funding as well as access to direct funding (and access to quality partnerships) (NEAR, 2019[10]).

Assessing the quality of partnerships with local actors is equally important, particularly where support is channelled through international intermediaries. DAC members can create space for subcontracted local partners to provide direct and safe feedback on their partnership experiences, helping to surface power imbalances and practical constraints. They can also hold intermediaries accountable for applying equitable partnership standards by monitoring and verifying adherence to agreed principles, such as fair coverage of overhead costs, appropriate insurance arrangements and transparent funding decisions. Publishing the results of such assessments in a timely and accessible manner, through procurement scoring, performance reviews or similar mechanisms, can reinforce accountability and incentivise more equitable practices. In humanitarian settings, members can also strengthen incentives for “accountability to affected people” in their partnerships with international agencies through information sharing, participation in decision making and feedback systems (Featherstone, 2023[16]).

• Australia launched biennial Perceptions Surveys as a commitment under its International Development Policy to seek feedback on how implementation of the country’s policy commitments is perceived by partner country governments, civil society organisations, sector experts and other development partners in the Indo-Pacific region (Australia DFAT, 2023[17]).

• Dutch Relief Alliance (DRA) conducted a local partner survey to measure the quality of partnerships between international and local DRA partners and to identify areas for improvement (Dutch Relief Alliance, 2023[18]).

• Global Affairs Canada surveyed Canadian CSOs and partners to better understand how it can strengthen its definition and priorities, create better partnerships, and improve how they operationalise LLD activities and principles (Global Affairs Canada, 2024[19]).

MEL systems should be accountable not only to development partners but also to local stakeholders. This means holding leadership accountable for applying locally led principles as promised in their monitoring and evaluation, such as actually engaging local experts, taking a localised evaluation design, and monitoring the quality of co-creation and funding processes. Development partners can ensure that their locally funded partners are also accountable to the communities they serve.

• Australia’s NGO Co-operation Programme works with Australian NGOs and their local partners to co-design evaluation frameworks and criteria that reflect community priorities and context (OECD, 2024[1]).

• Germany BMZ’s Participatory Development Programme in Urban Areas (including in India and South Africa) co-designs evaluation criteria and indicators with implementing partners and local communities, aligning measurement with locally defined priorities (OECD, 2024[1]).

• The Netherlands’ “basket indicators” for gender equality intentionally remain broad, allowing partners to tailor reporting to their programmes while contributing to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ overarching results framework (OECD, 2022[20]).

• Spain agrees jointly with its partners on expected results and indicators to be monitored as part of its bilateral partnership frameworks MAPs (Marcos de Asociación País), strengthening shared accountability for results (OECD, 2024[1]).

• Ground Truth Solutions prioritises making sure those affected by crises are driving the systems and decisions impacting their communities. For example, they surveyed local partner organisations in Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia and Uganda on their relationships with international partners and on the quality of the relationships, financial support and capacity strengthening efforts (Ground Truth Solutions, n.d.[21]).

Additional resources

• The GPEDC monitoring exercise provides information on whether development partners report to existing local information management systems for development co-operation, which in turn enables local stakeholders to hold decision makers to account (see Annex A).

• The Humanitarian Advisory Group Localisation Baseline Tool provides a diagnostic framework used to assess progress on localisation at country level across key dimensions such as funding, partnerships and leadership (Humanitarian Advisory Group, 2019[22]).

• An Interagency Standing Committee (IASC) Discussion Paper explores the linkages between accountability to affected populations, LLD and the humanitarian-development-peace nexus (IASC, 2024[23]).

• Oxfam’s Community Perception Tracker (CPT) is is a mobile tool that captures and analyses community perceptions in real time during crises, enabling rapid identification of trends from qualitative data to inform response, preparedness and accountability to affected populations.

• Pledge for Change’s “Pledge for Change Accountability and Learning Mechanism (PALM)” tool and approach proposes a new model for mutual accountability and learning by centring the perspectives of local and national CSOs, using triangulated inputs from partner feedback, self-reported data and Southern-led assessments to strengthen accountability and learning.

• In the humanitarian sector, Upinion places communities at the centre of evaluating development partner strategies and localisation efforts, and it is building a growing body of research on this approach (Upinion, n.d.[24]).

References

[17] Australia DFAT (2023), Australia’s International Development Performance and Delivery Framework, https://www.dfat.gov.au/sites/default/files/performance-delivery-framework.pdf.

[18] Dutch Relief Alliance (2023), Dutch Relief Alliance 2023 Annual Impact Report, https://dutchrelief.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/DRA-Annual-Impact-Report-2023.pdf.

[16] Featherstone, A. (2023), Supporting Donors’ Responsibility for Greater Accountability to People in Crisis, IASC Task Force 2 on Accountability to Affected People.

[19] Global Affairs Canada (2024), Global Affairs Canada Survey on Locally Led Development, https://acgc.ca/global-affairs-canada-survey/ (accessed on 30 March 2026).

[21] Ground Truth Solutions (n.d.), Ground Truth Solutions’ Principles, https://www.groundtruthsolutions.org/our-principles.

[22] Humanitarian Advisory Group (2019), Measuring Localisation: Framework and Tools, https://humanitarianadvisorygroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Measuring-Localisation-Framework-and-Tools-Final_2019.pdf.

[23] IASC (2024), Discussion Paper: Exploring the Linkages between Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP), Localisation, and Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus, https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/sites/default/files/2024-07/IASC%20Discussion%20Paper_AAP%20Localisation%20Nexus%20links%20and%20opportunities_28_June_2024.pdf.

[7] IASC (2024), Highlights of the 2024 Grand Bargain Self-Reporting Cycle, https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/grand-bargain-official-website/grand-bargain-self-reporting-cycle-2024.

[6] IATI (2024), Powering Transparency: IATI’s Role in Enhancing Accountability and Driving Impact, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gove.12863#gove12863-bib-0016.

[14] ICLD (2023), Community Scorecard: Promoting Participation and Accountability in Local Government using the ABCD approach, https://icld.se/wp-content/uploads/ICLD_Policy-Brief_30-web-1.pdf.

[15] IIED (2023), Interview: New scorecards expose what’s going wrong in the climate finance delivery chain – and pilot how to fix it, https://www.iied.org/interview-new-scorecards-expose-whats-going-wrong-climate-finance-delivery-chain-pilot-how-fix-it.

[12] KPSRL (2024), Locally Led Development: KPSRL Distilling Series 2021-2024, https://kpsrl.org/sites/kpsrl/files/2024-11/FINAL%20-%20LLD%20-%20KPSRL%20Distilling%20Series.pdf.

[9] National Alliance of Humanitarian Actors Bangladesh (2024), Local Contribution Accounting (LOCA) Model, https://www.nahab.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Presentation-RHPW2024-Final.pdf.

[2] NEAR (2025), Under Pressure: How INGOs are responding to the aid funding crisis and what it reveals about the fragility of localisation commitments, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5fc4fd249698b02c7f3acfe9/t/6880fd9c521d810929156313/1753283998982/INGO+Policy+Brief-1.pdf.

[10] NEAR (2019), Localisation Performance Measurement Framework, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5fc4fd249698b02c7f3acfe9/t/6011621dba655709b8342a4c/1611751983166/LMPF+Final_2019.pdf.

[5] OCHA (n.d.), Humanitarian aid contributions, https://fts.unocha.org/ (accessed on 16 January 2026).

[8] OECD (2025), Tracking local content in Australia’s development contracts: PERFORMS, https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/development-co-operation-tips-tools-insights-practices_be69e0cf-en/tracking-local-content-in-australia-s-development-contracts-performs_27a20871-en.html.

[1] OECD (2024), Pathways Towards Effective Locally Led Development Co-operation: Learning by Example, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/51079bba-en.

[20] OECD (2022), The Netherlands partner with local women’s rights organisations and feminist movements for gender transformative change, https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2021/03/development-co-operation-tips-tools-insights-practices_d307b396/the-netherlands-partner-with-local-women-s-rights-organisations-and-feminist-movements-for-gender-transformative-change_c65d79cd.html.

[13] Oxfam Pilipinas (2025), Transforming Partnerships: A Learning Review of Oxfam Pilipinas’ Strategic Partnership Model, https://oxfam.org.ph/download/transforming-partnership-a-learning-review-of-oxfam-pilipinas-strategic-partnership-model/.

[3] Pinnington, R. et al. (2024), Why Aren’t We There Yet? Understanding and Addressing Donor Barriers to Localisation in Climate Adaptation, https://odi.org/en/publications/why-arent-we-there-yet-understanding-and-addressing-donor-barriers-to-localisation-in-climate-adaptation/.

[4] Publish What You Fund (2025), Metrics Matter III: Counting Local: A cross-donor analysis of direct funding, https://www.publishwhatyoufund.org/app/uploads/dlm_uploads/2025/05/Metrics-Matter-III.pdf.

[11] Terre des hommes (2023), Partnership and Localisation Policy, https://somaha-stiftung.ch/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Localisation_Policy_Final.pdf.

[24] Upinion (n.d.), Accountability to communities, https://upinion.com/section/themes/accountability/.

Notes

← 1.  This perspective was also reflected in consultations conducted by the Movement for Community-led Development (MCLD) and Peace Direct with civil society organisations ( CSOs) across Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and North America. CSOs shared how intermediaries often retained a disproportionate share of resources, leaving less for CSOs. For example, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, intermediaries received large sums of which only 30% reached local communities. Additionally, expatriates were said to have been paid high salaries, while local actors received “crumbs”. One CSO mentioned a possible explanation for this concern: that the cost of managing the funds is higher than what reaches the CSOs. Additionally, in Nigeria, respondents described how they were only given a small portion of the budget and were excluded from the proposal design.

← 2.  In Action area: Clarity of intentions and definitions, these guidelines highlighted climate adaptation as a key opportunity to embed LLD into existing policy frameworks. IIED is advancing this work by piloting an accountability scorecard to assess whether climate adaptation initiatives align with LLD principles. While focussed on climate, similar models could be applied in other sectors such as health or education.