Sustaining change: why locally led development works – but funding models hold it back

To address the complexity of global poverty and inequality, we need solutions that reflect and integrate that complexity. This is where community-centred, locally led efforts shine, offering results that don’t just last funding cycles, but generations.

But there’s a challenge. These approaches don’t always translate into neat, quantifiable outcomes, which is the kind of data that funders often require. In fact, the more nuanced the problem, the more likely it is that the solution involves hard-to-measure, qualitative outcomes.

Take education, for example. If you’re trying to support a struggling child who feels unheard, handing them a textbook is unlikely to help. A teacher who truly engages and inspires them, however, can make a real difference. Yet those improvements in the child’s attention and confidence won’t appear in standardised test results. The less effective textbook is at least easier to quantify – and, unfortunately, therefore easier to fund.

Give a voice to the problem, give a voice to the solution

While inequality is a global problem, its causes are often deeply rooted in local contexts. In an increasingly post-colonial world, we’re learning more and more that a one-size-fits-all solution, designed by people outside of the problem, simply can’t account for the cultural, social and historical nuances involved.

Locally led solutions are shaped by the people experiencing the challenges firsthand. This means interventions are tailored to the unique needs of a community, ensuring they stay culturally relevant and are more likely to be sustainable long term.

But it isn’t enough to view local leadership as just one approach among many – it should be indispensable to any approach. To explain why, let me take an example from my charity Karuna’s work in Nepal.

Lessons from Nepal

When Karuna began working in Nepal in the early 2000s, the communities most in need of support were also the most isolated, lacking access to essential services like healthcare and education. It took years of relationship building to work effectively with them.

After the 2015 earthquake, NGOs from across the world responded quickly, distributing aid throughout the country. However, the communities we had been working with struggled to receive this aid due to cultural and geographical barriers. On paper, the aid was reaching the right number of people. But, in reality, it wasn’t reaching those who needed it most.

Fortunately, local NGOs, which had the necessary years of direct experience working alongside these communities, stepped in to ensure the aid reached those most in need first. The key success factor here wasn’t the amount of aid, it was the hard-earned relationships and deep cultural knowledge that facilitated distribution, something that is not reflected in standard delivery metrics.

The funding dilemma

Despite their effectiveness, long-term, locally led efforts are often difficult to fund. Many donors work on short-term funding cycles, typically one to three years, and focus on immediate, measurable results. However, many of the most complex issues require long-term, multi-faceted approaches, with tangible changes in social attitudes and norms sometimes taking entire generations to manifest.

To take another example from our work in Nepal, the tradition of chhaupadi forces menstruating women into unsafe, sometimes life-threatening conditions. Finding safe alternatives to such deep-rooted and taboo practices requires sustained engagement with local leaders, schools and communities. It’s simply not a problem that can be solved with a single intervention, yet short-term funding doesn’t often allow for the years of dialogue and relationship building required.

The challenge of sustainability

This dilemma is echoed by the need for sustainable outcomes. Sustainability goes beyond environmental resilience – it’s about creating lasting change that a community can maintain after a charity’s direct involvement ends.

In the case of our menstrual health project mentioned above, we train local women as healthcare workers, ensuring that knowledge and skills remain within the community. This is one way the project can continue, even if external funding runs out.

Locally led development also challenges implementing organisations to think about their work in more subtle ways. Instead of short-term activities and outputs (such as the number of women attending a particular number of workshops), NGOs need to be thinking about long-term, harder-to-measure changes in underlying attitudes and behaviours. For example, what life changes have occurred and how can they be quantified?

Moving forward: bridging the gap

So, how can we bridge this gap between short-term funding and the long-term sustainability of locally led work?

Firstly, we need more flexible funding models. Rather than rigid, one-size-fits-all grants, funders could offer multi-year funding or allow adjustments based on shifting community needs. This would give charities like Karuna the ability to plan for the long term, while still meeting accountability requirements.

Secondly, involving local leaders in project design is crucial. This ensures that initiatives are sustainable, adaptable and in line with donor expectations.

Thirdly, implementing organisations need to introduce more sophisticated monitoring frameworks designed to measure less tangible changes. For example, prior to starting a recent Karuna project in Nepal, community members were given a baseline survey, assessing their confidence in managing the impacts of climate change. This survey will be revisited regularly throughout the project’s implementation, helping us to track our target to increase confidence levels by 30% over a five-year period.

Finally, stronger partnerships between funders and local organisations are essential. When donors understand the complexities of locally led work, they are more likely to invest in long-term outcomes over quick fixes. For instance, our partnership with the German government has provided significant funding with the flexibility we need to continue our work in Nepal.

A call for sustainable change

Locally led work isn’t just about hitting targets, it’s about ensuring communities can make decisions about their own futures.

For this change to be truly sustainable, both charities and funders must recognise the importance of long-term investment. By embracing flexible funding, fostering strong partnerships and prioritising local ownership, we can ensure that locally led work continues to benefit communities for generations to come.

Ultimately, it’s about finding a balance between the immediate pressures of short-term funding and the lasting impact of sustainable, locally-driven change. A balance that, I believe, is within our reach.