Understanding and addressing the unintended effects of aid localisation

ABSTRACT

Aid localisation is a decades-old endeavour recently catalysed by the 2016 Grand Bargain agreement. However, localisation’s unintended effects have yet to be assessed systematically. This study typologises five unintended effects in the context of Cordaid’s partnerships within the Just Future program: competition, administration, value, civic space, and climate effects. Through literature reviews and 15 key informant interviews, it finds most frequently and impactfully that localisation risks perpetuating hierarchies, as international NGOs favour partnerships with larger local NGOs that manage to meet donor requirements at the expense of community-based organisations (competition effect). In addition, it risks disproportionately increasing local administrative burdens due to donors’ low risk appetite and mistrustful perceptions of local capacities (administration effect). Localisation furthermore risks diverging from certain values, such as gender-related and LGBTQ+ rights, which are a priority for many international NGOs (value effect). Recommendations focus on adaptive management and providing technical assistance to smaller local NGOs.

KEYWORDS:

• Decolonisation
• international development
• localisation
• NGO
• policy evaluation
• side effects
• unintended consequences
• unintended effects

Introduction

If North-to-South devolution in aid projects (i.e. localisation) is intended to support local actors, why would one of our Southern interviewees associate it with the “hijacking of grassroots organisations”? While development projects naturally revolve around their stated goals, unintended effects abound (Davidson et al. 2022, 2; De Alteriis 2020a, 56, 60; De Alteriis 2020b, 5; Koch 2024, 1–2; Koch and Schulpen 2018, 205–206; Lemon and Pinet 2018, 256). In 2016, the Grand Bargain agreement reached at the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) concretised the long-discussed intention to localise aid efforts, seeking to expand the role of local non-governmental organisations (LNGOs) (Roepstorff 2020, 285–286). However, reproach for inadequate Southern inclusion is inherent to the call for localisation (Robillard, Atim, and Maxwell 2021, 17), implying that the resultant international agenda risks producing unspotted unintended effects. To date, a systematic assessment of the inadvertent aspects of the localisation agenda has been lacking. It is, therefore, important to understand: which unintended effects does the localisation of aid produce?

To answer this question in a manner most beneficial to development practitioners, this study, enabled by Cordaid, develops a practical typology outlining the five most significant unintended effects of localisation.¹ The typology is tested by applying it to the case of the Just Future program, which features the deliberate localisation elements of equitable partnership and inclusive decision-making (Cordaid et al. 2020, 11, 86–87). The study relies on a mixed-methods approach: a review of academic and grey literature, 15 semi-structured key informant interviews, and a frequency-impact survey among the interviewees. In doing so, localisation is conceptualised as involving primarily (1) the devolution of power and resources from the international non-governmental organisation (INGO) level to the LNGO level, and (2) the utilisation, appreciation, and strengthening of local capacities. Unintended effects can be positive, neutral, or negative, as well as anticipated or unanticipated, and are determined against the backdrop of the project’s stated intended effects (Jabeen 2018, 264–265). Both concepts are examined in detail in the literature review.

First, reviewing the localisation and unintended effects discourse provides necessary contextualisation and conceptualisation. The methodology section then describes this study’s mixed-methods and case-study approach. The five unintended effects are subsequently positioned in a frequency-impact classification and described in detail. The limitations and recommendations for development practitioners are discussed, followed by concluding remarks.

Literature review

Localisation discourse

The localisation debate has been raised since the 1960s, commencing with calls for participatory development, and evolving into questions of ownership during the 2000s (Vij 2023, 173). The 2016 WHS is considered to have been the prime catalyst of the donor localisation discourse in recent times (Barakat and Milton 2020, 147; Manis 2018, 2; Sundberg 2019, 254). At the WHS and in its Grand Bargain agreement aimed at enhancing humanitarian aid effectiveness, major donors and humanitarian agencies committed to making humanitarianism “as local as possible and as international as necessary”, to investing in local capacities, and to allocating 25 per cent of funding to local actors directly by 2020 (Barakat and Milton 2020, 149; Manis 2018, 2; Robillard, Atim, and Maxwell 2021, 12–13; Roepstorff 2020, 285–286). In practice, direct funding to local actors amounted to a meagre 3.1–4.7 per cent of total humanitarian funding in 2020, although adding subcontracts to the equation would paint a somewhat less dismal picture (Robillard, Atim, and Maxwell 2021, 21). The humanitarian localisation debate spilt over into the development realm, with many development donors and agencies claiming localisation to be a priority (OECD 2005, 3, 8; OECD 2008, 2–4; Wong and Guggenheim 2018, 2).

The concept of “localisation” remains disputed (Robillard, Atim, and Maxwell 2021, 13; Roepstorff 2022, 614). A considerable caveat is that the localisation debate presupposes the norm to be international aid that would benefit from greater local involvement, whereas the norm may be local efforts being eclipsed by international interventions. Arguably, the localisation debate as such retains internationally over locally led interventions as the focal point of development. “Decolonisation” and “locally led” development are accordingly deemed more appropriate by some to avoid neo-colonial or West-centric practices (Barbelet et al. 2021, 26; Robillard, Atim, and Maxwell 2021, 14). At the root of this discussion is the fundamental question: what is the purpose of localisation?

Ranging between the polar ends of donor-serving cost-effectiveness and transformational decolonisation, Robillard, Atim, and Maxwell (2021, 19–20) categorise the pursuit of localisation into pragmatic (e.g. cost-effectiveness, sustainability) and ideological (e.g. equity, agency) motivations. However, in aspiring to benefit local communities, pragmatic objectives such as project sustainability and ideological ones such as local agency enhancement often coalesce, obfuscating this distinction. The following two leading schools of thought on the intended effects of localisation can, instead, be discerned at the operational level: organisation- and community-oriented localisation. In the former type, donors and INGOs mostly localise for the sake of cost reduction, either directly as LNGOs typically operate at a lower cost than INGOs, or indirectly through local capacity-building with the prospect of cost-reducing devolution (Barbelet et al. 2021, 10; Huang 2022, 556; Manis 2018, 2, 6; Roepstorff 2020, 286). The latter localisation type takes the improvement of the conditions of local communities as the point of departure. First, this can relate to the effectiveness of development projects and humanitarian response, as LNGOs are considered to possess greater access and knowledge of the local context and needs (Barbelet et al. 2021, 10; Erdilmen and Sosthenes 2020, 18; Goodwin and Ager 2021, 3; Manis 2018, 2, 5; Robillard, Atim, and Maxwell 2021, 19; Roepstorff 2020, 287). Second, localisation can entail the fostering of local capacities for the benefit of development sustainability (Erdilmen and Sosthenes 2020, 18; Huang 2022, 556; Manis 2018, 5; Robillard, Atim, and Maxwell 2021, 17). Third, it is seen as a tool to address power asymmetries by reinforcing Southern agency (Barakat and Milton 2020, 150; Erdilmen and Sosthenes 2020, 7; Goodwin and Ager 2021, 3; Robillard, Atim, and Maxwell 2021, 20). Some consequently argue for transforming the international cooperation system to fundamentally eliminate power asymmetries (the “transformation perspective”; Robillard, Atim, and Maxwell 2021, 17). At present, the international development community predominantly aims at including local actors more proactively in the existing system (the “inclusion perspective”).

The variety of localisation intentions renders the definitional gamut equally diverse. This study follows the prevailing inclusion perspective, as unintended effects depend on how localisation is being implemented rather than how it ought to be implemented according to transformationists. The conceptual ambiguity of localisation can then be surmounted by determining its most common manifestations from the discourse. As discussed, they constitute (1) enhancing local agency, decision-making power, and ownership to reduce power asymmetries; (2) increasing direct funding to LNGOs for cost-effectiveness; (3) investing in local capacities to bolster project sustainability; and (4) valuing local knowledge and access for effective project design and delivery. In assessing the unintended effects of localisation, these key intended effects serve as the backdrop.

Unintended effects discourse

As development projects constitute “purposive action”, academics and monitoring, evaluation, and learning practitioners tend to focus on intended effects (Bamberger, Tarsilla, and Hesse-Biber 2016, 155–156; Merton 1936, 894). Therefore, the body of literature addressing unintended effects methodically remains alarmingly slim (Jabeen 2018, 263). Two large studies show that only 15 per cent of 340 evaluations by USAID between 2009 and 2012, and 16 per cent of 644 evaluations by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Policy and Operations Evaluation Department between 2000 and 2020 addressed the unintended effects of aid (Hageboeck, Frumkin, and Monschein 2013, 88; Koch et al. 2021, 16). Smaller studies by Search for Common Ground, the United States Government Accountability Office, and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation report 25, 28, and 46 per cent, respectively, although the latter did not systematically test for and exclude false positives (De Alteriis 2020a, 56; Lemon and Pinet 2018, 253–254; Wiig and Holm 2014, 12). Alongside resource concerns, donors may exclude unintended effects from Terms of Reference for evaluations because they are not keen to report project outcomes that they have missed. By failing to consider these effects consistently, the international development community not only falls short of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee guidelines for evaluations, but especially risks overlooking negative consequences, which disproportionately affect marginalised groups (Bamberger, Tarsilla, and Hesse-Biber 2016, 156; Koch et al. 2021, 2–3).

After having been coined by Merton in 1936 (895), the concept of unintended effects and the corresponding terminology have largely crystallised over time (Davidson et al. 2022, 2). It is now commonly understood that unintended effects can be both anticipated and unanticipated, and that they do not have to be negative (Baert 1991, 203; Barrett 2006, 1; De Zwart 2015, 286; Dijkstra 2018, 225–226; Jabeen 2018, 264–265; Leenstra 2018, 221; Lemon and Pinet 2018, 253). In fact, Koch et al. (2021, 14) found that the reported distribution of negative and positive unintended effects of aid is relatively balanced. Naturally, whether an effect is perceived as positive, neutral, or negative is in the eye of the beholder: the donor and the local communities may have diverging implicit objectives against which the effect is measured, which could explain why local communities remain inadequately consulted about Theories of Change (ToCs) (Keijzer and Lundsgaarde 2018, 211–212; Koch and Schulpen 2018, 204; Wiig and Holm 2014, 6).

At the project level, this study considers, the unintended effects definition of “any effect outside of the logical framework or going against the direction of the original ToC” is suitable owing to its clarity in application, given sufficient local participation in planning and evaluation (Lemon and Pinet 2018, 254). This understanding is at odds with the “no effect” subdivision of neutral effects as described by Jabeen (2018, 265), who argues that a project not having its intended effect constitutes an unintended effect due to the “waste of valuable resources”. Along this line of reasoning, any imperfect achievement of project objectives ought to be classified as an unintended effect for its inefficiency. The inclusion of the “no (or partial) effect” subdivision, in contrast to Lemon and Pinet’s definition, is not only obfuscating, but also leaves the realm of side effects to enter that of project efficiency and effectiveness, which is a disparate type of project outcome altogether.

Theoretical divergence also remains on whether unintended effects only result from avoidable human error (the “plannability school”) or are inevitable by-products of development projects (the “unplannability school”) (De Zwart 2015, 286; Koch 2024, 3). This study recognises that the complex nature of the international development system does not allow for all outcomes of localisation to be anticipated, which inevitably limits the scope of the typology. It applies to humanitarianism especially, as emergencies are, by nature, hardly predictable. However, tools such as unintended effects typologies can increase the anticipation and subsequent avoidance of unintended consequences, or prepare practitioners for a dilemma between unavoidable ones.

Two types of classifications of unintended effects can be distinguished in international development: abstract characteristics and operational outcomes. Jabeen (2018, 264–265) identifies four dimensions of characteristics: (1) knowability: anticipated or unanticipated; (2) value: positive, neutral, or negative; (3) distribution: participants, non-participants, or the system; and (4) temporality: simultaneous or afterwards. On the other hand, Koch et al. (2021, 6) provide a non-exhaustive, outcome-based typology of the ten most common unintended effects of international cooperation, such as migration and marginalisation impacts. The latter type is used in this study, as it is particularly informative in practice.

Methodology

The study adopts a mixed-methods approach, primarily relying on qualitative sources. First, initial interviews with experts and scans of the literature revealed the five most significant unintended effects. The typology is then tested on the case of the Just Future program through a review of academic and grey literature, 15 key informant interviews, and a frequency-impact survey among the interviewees. Such mixed-methods approaches add robustness to development research (Davidson et al. 2022, 10). The interviews are a valuable means for verifying, falsifying, and contextualising the unintended effects emerging from the literature. The frequency-impact matrix ultimately systematises their relative importance.

The Just Future program is a security and justice development program of six Northern and Southern organisations funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs at a total budget of 49.5 million euros over the course of 2021 to 2025 (Cordaid et al. 2020, 9, 106–107). It operates in Afghanistan, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Niger, and South Sudan. Structured along the three ToC outcomes “people-centred security”, “access to justice”, and “inclusive political decision-making and peace processes”, the program carries out country-specific activities such as training police officers in how to deal with sexual and gender-based violence cases, training judges in how to conduct trials and formulate judgements, and organising town halls (Ibid., 170–173, 183–220). Capacity-building through training and advocacy through dialogue between decision-makers and constituents are cornerstones of the Just Future program’s pathways of change. The program has been selected for its localisation intentions of equitable partnership, knowledge exchange, local capacity development, and inclusive decision-making within a structure of North and South comprising International and National Steering Committees supported by National Secretariats (Ibid., 106–107, 236–237). In tandem with capacity-building, Southern partners progressively assume leadership of the National Secretariats and obtain equal decision-making power over developing and approving strategies, implementation plans, and budgets in the Steering Committees (Ibid., 236–247). By identifying unintended effects against the intended ones outlined in a project’s ToC (Lemon and Pinet 2018, 254), the aforementioned localisation aims constitute the backdrop of the intended effects in this case study.

In terms of the literature, academic publications and grey literature available through the research facilitator Cordaid have been compiled employing the search terms “localisation”, “decolonisation”, “locally led development”, “shifting power”, “shift-the-power” along with “unintended”, “unanticipated”, “unexpected”, “unforeseen”, “unpredictable”, “surprising”, and using the snowball method via the selected works and the interviewees. Texts are included if they address unintended effects of aid localisation rather than the failure to achieve intended effects, are non-speculative, and are published in English or French.

The key informant group is composed of seven Cordaid staff members and eight informants from partner organisations, including nine from the Global North and six from the Global South.² However, staff from the Global North also work in the Global South and vice versa, which nuances this strict dichotomy. The interviewees’ roles range from NGO director to project coordinator, expert, researcher, and project officer. The interviews lasted approximately an hour on average and were conducted online via Microsoft Teams or in person between July and November 2022. All interviewees consented to participate and their responses were treated anonymously. The transcripts have been analysed using NVivo 1.7.1.

The scope of the unintended effects typology is restricted to the five most significant unintended effects to allow for sufficient depth, verification, falsification, and contextualisation in the interviews. They have been selected on account of their (1) frequency of mentions in the literature and interviews; (2) impact on local communities; and (3) relevance for NGOs.

Results

The five main positive and negative unintended effects emerging from the literature and interviews are the competition, administration, value, civic space, and climate effects. Based on the survey, they have been classified within the frequency-impact matrix below (Figure 1), which merits a detailed account of the first four effects. Subsequently, the fifth and other effects are briefly discussed.

Figure 1. Frequency and impact classification of each unintended effect.

Competition effect

Definition: when localisation creates or amplifies adverse competition between NGOs

The literature identifies that the current INGO–LNGO partnership system favours a select group of dominant LNGOs (Roepstorff 2020, 292; Roepstorff 2022, 618). These LNGOs, generally located in the capital or another major city, can meet the strict donor requirements. Since localisation involves reallocating both power and funding, it reinforces this select group of larger national LNGOs and eclipses smaller grassroots LNGOs. Roepstorff (2022, 618), for instance, describes how “competitive humanitarianism” resulted in only a few larger humanitarian LNGOs in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, being selected by INGOs to address the Rohingya crisis, further enabling them to grow in terms of size and power. This competition perpetuates hierarchy, which localisation seeks to resolve, at the expense of local communities. The INGO–LNGO hierarchy is replaced by a large LNGO–small LNGO one. It should be noted that such a renewed hierarchy can engender tensions between LNGOs regarding who will be selected as the INGO’s local partner(s) (Ibid., 625).

The interviewees overwhelmingly confirm the competition effect favouring dominant LNGOs (interviewees 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15). A project coordinator recalls that leading activists at established civil society organisations (CSOs) are favoured over community-based organisation (CBO) activists and that CBOs are crowded out or even “swallowed” by other LNGOs (interviewee 15). Another interviewee states that they do not know any truly local organisations, as the local organisations with minimal organisational capacities are not included in projects (interviewee 1). The primary issue concerns a loss of local community embeddedness and the ensuing wastage of legitimacy, leverage, representativeness, and innovative local initiatives. Therefore, interviewees criticise pursuing the financial and organisational capacity-building of CBOs as a method to ensure their inclusion in projects; it risks transforming LNGOs from being constituency-driven to becoming donor-driven (interviewees 4, 5, 6). An LNGO executive describes this process as the “hijacking of grassroots organisations”, some of which do not even own a bank account (interviewee 5).

Competition also exists between LNGOs and local INGO offices if the LNGOs match or reach their capacity level (interviewees 4, 7, 10). In fact, by investing in local capacity-building, Cordaid has nurtured its competitors (interviewee 10). Yet the accompanying fear of adverse resource and staff effects for the INGO is considered to be beside the point, as LNGOs gradually taking up the reins is at the core of localisation (interviewees 4, 7, 10).

Administration effect

Definition: when localisation increases administrative burdens

Due to donors’ low risk appetite and mistrust of local capacities (Goodwin and Ager 2021, 1; Manis 2018, 8), LNGOs face greater administrative scrutiny from donors and partner INGOs in terms of compliance and due diligence – a disparity that is thought to have been catalysed by the perceived risk of the Grand Bargain localisation commitments (Barbelet et al. 2021, 51–52). INGOs take a “zero-tolerance approach to fraud, corruption and aid diversion” (Ibid., 52), and in the United Kingdom, press coverage of financial mismanagement by suppliers prompted Secretary of State Patel to increase the mandatory due diligence checks on local partners and their delivery chains for fear of public backlash (DFID 2017; Goodwin and Ager 2021, 8). Scholars are critical of the subsequent tendency of international donors and INGOs to prioritise organisational over operational capacity-building of LNGOs to meet donor requirements (Howe and Stites 2019, 11; Robillard, Atim, and Maxwell 2021, 23).

A Northern expert illustrates the stringency towards LNGOs by stating that donor requirements are “ramped up” as soon as an incident occurs (interviewee 1). Another interviewee even classifies such practices as an “apartheid of thinking at Northern organisations” in which LNGOs are pictured as corrupt (interviewee 5). A Southern LNGO executive confirms that their organisation faces greater due diligence checks and paperwork due to the risk aversion of donors towards LNGOs (interviewee 7). The consensus is that localisation produces disproportionate donor-driven administrative burdens (interviewees 1, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 15). Rather than operational capacity-building, interviewees argue that LNGOs should receive technical assistance from INGOs or larger LNGOs in meeting donor requirements, be asked about their needs, and be enabled to share risks with INGOs and donors (interviewees 5, 8, 10, 13). Alongside donor-driven red tape, the interviewees recognise localisation itself as demanding supplementary administration, because it is time-intensive to co-create projects, and it generates cumbersome reporting and contracting bureaucracies (interviewees 4, 8, 11, 13).

Value effect

Definition: when localisation reduces project alignment with the organisation’s mission, vision, and values

The academic community does not take an unequivocal stance on the extent of value alignment between INGOs and LNGOs. Various scholars posit that the traditional humanitarian values of impartiality, neutrality, and independence are not held in equally high regard by LNGOs, as they operate within the respective local context (Barakat and Milton 2020, 150; Goodwin and Ager 2021, 4; Manis 2018, 7; Roepstorff 2020, 288). However, others highlight that achieving full impartiality, neutrality, and independence is unreasonable to expect from LNGOs, and that INGOs must also be critical of their own politics (Barakat and Milton 2020, 150).

Grey literature suggests apparent value (application) differences between Cordaid and its local partners. The latter are claimed to work more hierarchically (Cordaid et al. 2020, 70), and have scored an average of 5.8/10 in a survey on exercising conflict sensitivity and respecting the “do no harm” principle (Cordaid 2021a, 12). Another survey finds that, among local staff, less than a third prioritise further training on gender-based violence, and only three out of 47 on LGBTQ+ issues (Cordaid 2022). While several interviewees argue that the fundamental values pursued by INGOs and LNGOs are identical (interviewees 2, 3, 6, 7, 9), the widely supported opinion is that in terms of gender-related, LGBTQ+, and religious minority rights, INGOs and LNGOs regularly operate based on significantly divergent values. For instance, local partners in multiple countries are described as not believing in “LGBTQ+ stuff” and being reluctant to promote LGBTQ+ and gender-related rights due to the lack of acceptance culturally and by authorities, even having to fear for their lives when addressing such sensitive topics (interviewees 2, 11, 15). In rebuttal of worries over value erosion, interviewees have expressed the hope that localisation provides an opportunity for value enrichment: achieving truly shared values that motivate both the INGO and the local partners (interviewees 4, 8). Regarding humanitarian values, the interviewees indicate that this is not a matter of ideological difference, but of local partners facing greater obstacles in upholding humanitarian principles than international actors because of their embeddedness in the community as opposed to entering from a distance (interviewees 1, 4, 10, 15). According to a project coordinator, some LNGO staff also only feel comfortable with the authorities of certain regions owing to their ethnic, social, and political backgrounds (interviewee 15). As such, they concur that full impartiality, neutrality, and independence may be less reasonable to expect from LNGOs.

At a fundamental level, scholars and Southern interviewees in particular have raised the question of whose values should inform development aims (interviewees 6, 7, 10, 12; Roepstorff 2020, 292). They argue that the local community’s values should prevail as part of genuine (community-oriented) localisation. NGOs work for the local communities, after all. If localisation concerns shifting agency and power from Northern to Southern NGOs, they reason it should not only entail shifting “operational” agency, but “value” agency as well.

Civic space effect

Definition: when localisation shrinks civic space in which NGOs navigate

According to scholars, LNGOs typically face greater political and community pressure and restrictions than INGOs in their work due to their greater involvement in the local community, causing localisation to shrink civic space (Goodwin and Ager 2021, 4; Manis 2018, 2, 16; Roepstorff 2022, 615, 619). For instance, local actors fear targeting on grounds of their ethnicity and risk becoming party to conflicts (Manis 2018, 2, 16). Localisation hence restricts the overall lobby and advocacy scope through devolution to constrained LNGOs.

Within Just Future, this picture pained by scholars is reified by project documentation, which states that LNGOs “need support to weather pressure” from the Taliban (Cordaid 2021d, 2). The interviewees predominantly agree that INGOs enjoy greater operational freedom (interviewees 2, 5, 7, 8, 10, 14, 15). In South Sudan, for instance, state authorities regularly freeze the bank accounts of LNGOs for allegedly violating regulations on the freedom of expression (interviewee 15). Local Cordaid partners have also faced threats, and some CSO staff have been temporarily evacuated (Ibid.). Such political and community pressures are particularly prevalent in fragile and conflict-affected states, which comprise Cordaid’s focal areas of operation (interviewee 10).

However, various interviewees underscore that the extent to which LNGOs endure greater pressure than INGOs depends on the country and regime, the thematic area, and the organisations concerned (interviewees 3, 4, 9, 11, 15). Whereas restrictions on humanitarian access were typically limited in Afghanistan for both INGOs and LNGOs, the lobby and advocacy space for LNGOs in South Sudan was considered troubling, especially when relating to national security or politically sensitive issues (interviewees 11, 15). Meanwhile, possible pressures on Dutch INGOs depend on the bilateral relationship with the country of operation (interviewee 9). Moreover, it is widely argued that LNGOs navigate more effectively within restricted civic space and are less frequently than INGOs perceived as potentially colluding against the state, increasing the willingness of governments to engage and compromise with them (interviewees 4, 5, 14, 15). Hence, the exact effects of localisation on civic space ought to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Other effects

The initial interviews and literature scans also reveal a climate effect of localisation reducing pollutive travel. This effect is only discussed briefly since the interviewees have classified it as relatively minor and less frequent. As the narrative proposal outlines, the Just Future program minimises long-distance travel and relocates in-person meetings from the Global North to regional hubs (Cordaid et al. 2020, 80). The interviewees are mostly united in their opinion that localisation decreases air travel between offices and partners as LNGOs become the project leads (interviewees 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15). An expert recalls that at the time of joining their INGO, program officers would fly to the Global South on five or six occasions a year to monitor projects, which is no longer the case (interviewee 10). However, travel will only phase out partially, as in-person contact remains valuable (interviewees 10, 11). The effect is additionally moderated by the prior transfer of project monitoring to INGO country offices (interviewees 5, 13). A research partner asserts that the flight reductions also benefit localisation, as the INGO will not look over the LNGO’s shoulder as closely (interviewee 12).

Alongside a climate effect, literature and interviewees have suggested other potential unintended effects: the re-marginalisation of local communities through Northern-driven localisation agendas (Barbelet et al. 2021, 10, 60; Cordaid 2021b, 7; Cordaid 2021c, 3; interviewees 4, 7, 12, 13), project quality erosion if relying on insufficient local capacities (Barbelet et al. 2021, 44; Barakat and Milton 2020, 150; interviewees 6, 10), and improved project sustainability through local engagement (Goodwin and Ager 2021, 6; Manis 2018, 4–5; Roepstorff 2022, 621–622). These potential effects have not been explored in further depth to limit the scope of the research. Yet, as with any potential unintended effect, they are important to consider when planning, monitoring, evaluating, and learning.

Discussion

All unintended effects described above have been substantiated by literature and interviews, and contextualised in a frequency-impact matrix. This leads to a plausible overview of the unintended effects that can be anticipated upon localising development aid. By expanding the category of unintended but anticipated consequences (De Zwart 2015, 295), practitioners can address these effects in their projects, in line with the aforementioned plannability school of thought (Koch 2024, 3). In doing so, two limitations of this study relating to external and internal validity should be noted.

Limitations

External validity

The generalisability consideration is twofold. First, despite the interviewee diversity, the single Just Future program case likely does not capture all the relevant unintended effects of localisation. As interviewees have indicated, the civic space effect depends strongly on the country and its regime. Similarly, Northern and Southern values regarding sexual and reproductive health and rights, for instance, do not diverge equally across development contexts (Ilkkaracan 2015, 268). Due to the unique characteristics of each development setting, operational effects typologies can, in fact, never be exhaustive. They instead serve informativity, experience sharing, and discussion. Second, the translation of this study’s findings is limited by the current international development community’s predisposition towards the “inclusion perspective” that seeks to better include local actors, without transforming the international development system altogether as aspired to by proponents of the “transformation perspective” (Robillard, Atim, and Maxwell 2021, 17). What would have been the unintended effects of such a fundamental transformation in development thinking and practice? Although one can speculate, and overlap with the unintended effects found in this study may be expected, it is impossible to know until it happens.

Internal validity

One may similarly wonder what the state of affairs would have been in the absence of localisation. This study does not constitute a counterfactual analysis that systematically accounts for potential omitted or confounding variables (Sekhon 2004, 288). Value differences between INGOs and LNGOs may well emerge without enhancing Southern agency and disproportionate LNGO scrutiny without the transfer of new administrative responsibility. This spuriousness limitation of causal inference is mitigated to a certain extent by the interview design, in which the relationship between the suggested unintended effects and the program’s localisation features is explicitly inquired about.

Recommendations for practitioners

The typology provides a tool for practitioners to address possible blind spots of their organisation- or community-oriented localisation in their planning, monitoring, evaluation, and learning cycle. Essentially, the category of unintended but anticipated effects is expanded (De Zwart 2015, 295), enabling the mitigation of negative effects and the capitalisation on positive ones. As an initial step, a number of recommendations for INGOs are made below (Table 1).

Table 1. Recommendations by unintended effect.

Unintended effect	Recommendation
Competition effect	(1) Provide technical assistance to smaller LNGOs and CBOs, enabling them to meet donor requirements;* (2) Negotiate risk-sharing with donors to limit onerous risk burdens for LNGOs; (3) Analyse not only INGO–LNGO but also large–small LNGO power disparities.
Administration effect	(1) *Idem; (2) Eschew bureaucratic structures and processes of implementing localisation.
Value effect	(1) Pursue value enrichment: achieving shared values between INGOs and LNGOs through deliberate, open dialogue; (2) If necessary, decide whose values will inform project design.
Civic space effect	(1) Prepare sufficient funding and expertise to support LNGOs’ human rights defenders with physical and legal protection; (2) Connect LNGOs to relevant embassies or consulates.
Climate effect	Monitor projects as locally as possible.
All effects	(1) Invest time and funding in participatory planning, monitoring, evaluation, and learning; (2) Negotiate greater ToC flexibility with donors.

Adaptive management and technical assistance provision are particularly pertinent, as they tackle multiple unintended effects simultaneously. Alongside including anticipated unintended effects in ToCs, unanticipated unintended effects by nature require adaptive management. Upon identifying an unanticipated unintended effect, for instance, by means of participatory monitoring within or beyond the project community, ToC flexibility in terms of project design and contracting is critical in responding to the effect. A reflective and flexible mindset at INGOs and donors becomes all the more important when localising aid, as changing local contexts will increasingly inform project decisions.

At an aggregate level, the competition and administration effects warrant the provision of technical assistance to smaller LNGOs – particularly CBOs – enabling their comprehensive inclusion into the project cycle to avoid what an LNGO executive describes as the “hijacking of grassroots organisations” (interviewee 5). Technical assistance will reduce the significant but not inevitable risk for smaller organisations of becoming trapped between missing the boat administratively and losing local embeddedness. In tandem, not only will North–South power asymmetries be addressed, but the power dynamics within the country of operation as well.

In the future, NGOs can benefit from conducting additional case studies and experimenting with different localisation configurations to expand this study’s typology and enhance its translation to different project contexts. Practitioners and scholars may also wish to apply the unintended effects lens to other understudied practices to devise typologies for a range of aid realms and spark experience sharing.

Conclusion

In 2016, the Grand Bargain agreement catalysed and concretised the decades-old aim to localise aid. As the unintended effects of localisation had not been assessed systematically to date, this study offers a typology of the five most significant unintended effects of the localisation of development and tests it using the case of the Just Future program, based on academic and grey literature, 15 semi-structured interviews, and a frequency-impact survey.

The study most frequently and impactfully finds that localisation risks perpetuating hierarchies, as INGOs favour partnerships with larger LNGOs that manage to meet donor requirements, at the expense of CBOs (the competition effect), risks disproportionately increasing local administrative burdens due to donors’ low risk appetite and mistrustful perceptions of local capacities (the administration effect), and risks diverging from certain values, such as gender-related and LGBTQ+ rights, that many INGOs prioritise and regard as universal (the value effect). To a lesser extent, localisation risks shrinking civic space for NGO projects due to LNGOs’ greater exposure to political and community pressure (the civic space effect), and has the potential to reduce climate impacts of aid by operating closer to the project communities (the climate effect). Based on a single case study, these findings may be limited in their generalisability across development contexts and types of localisation, and do not account for the effects that would have transpired had localisation not occurred.

The typology nonetheless serves to increase informativity, experience sharing, and discussion on the unintended effects of localisation. This study also offers recommendations for addressing each effect, in which adaptive management and providing technical assistance to LNGOs are found to be key. Systematically considering unintended effects in essence helps practitioners to do more good and no harm in their projects.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the informants, partner organisations, and critical readers for their valuable time and effort spent on making this study possible. Special gratitude is extended to Cordaid and the Just Future program for facilitating the research, including the notable support of Dianne van Oosterhout and Koen Faber.

Disclosure statement

Both Cordaid and the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs have granted full academic independence to the researchers.

Data availability statement

The data collected for the study are available upon request.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This study was commissioned by Cordaid without grant funding.

Notes on contributors

Dirk-Jan Koch

Dirk-Jan Koch is Special Professor of International Trade and Development Cooperation at the Radboud Universityand Chief Science Officer at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Axel Rooden

Axel Rooden reads Development Studies (MPhil) at the University of Cambridge. He has researched the unintended effects of localisation and digitalisation in development projectsat Cordaid.

Notes

1 This article bears some similarities to the authors’ internal report for Cordaid on the unintended effects of localisation as it served as the groundwork for this publication.

2 In line with Kloss (2017, 8), the Global South is understood as a fluid set of countries that have been subalternised within the international development system by a set of dominant countries: the Global North. Casting aside reductionist abstractions such as the Brandt line (Ibid., 3), our power-centred categorisation for the localisation debate recognises that country classifications must suit the subject matter.

Appendix

Table A1. List of interviewees.

Interviewee	Position	Organisation
1	Expert	INGO
2	Expert	INGO
3	Project Staff	LNGO
4	Expert	INGO
5	Executive	LNGO
6	Researcher	Research Institute
7	Executive	LNGO
8	Expert	INGO
9	Project Coordinator	LNGO
10	Expert	INGO
11	Project Staff	LNGO
12	Researcher	Research Institute
13	Expert	INGO
14	Expert	INGO
15	Project Coordinator	INGO

Note: The experts worked at Cordaid and partner NGOs on localisation, monitoring and evaluation, security and justice, gender, climate, and political relations. The areas of expertise are not attributed to the individual interviewees to ensure their anonymity.