Five Hurdles to Localizing Global Development —and How NGOs Can Help Overcome Them

By Pape Amadou Gaye, President and Chief Executive OfficerNovember 27, 2019Just 20 years ago, we could hardly imagine an AIDS-free generation. And the idea that poor countries would no longer rely on foreign aid to care for their people was inconceivable.But today, I believe both are in sight.The entire field of global health and development is shifting. Major funders, such as the U.S. government, are pushing ahead with an approach called localization, wherein countries manage their own foreign aid, mobilize their own public and private revenues, and eventually become self-reliant.This is what so many of us in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have spent our careers working toward. But it will change how we do business.As NGOs adapt to localization, they can also help transform our outdated model of development and move us toward the goal of universal health coverage, including services that are affordable, accessible and acceptable to all, no matter their social status or where they live.NGOs can help localization succeed. But we will have to overcome five big challenges to do it.1. An Outdated Model Today’s development model favors a top-down approach— large global associations identify the big issues, set the global agenda, and pass those priorities down to individual countries (the sustainable development goals are a great example). This approach has brought us incredible progress. In 25 years, we went from a staggering 1.9 billion peo...
Source: IntraHealth International - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Leadership and Governance Policy & Advocacy Source Type: news