Localisation: “How does this initiative tie up to national policy?”

As all politics is local, so too is sustainable development. National policy frameworks often miss the mark, leaving people behind in a world that thrives on diversity.

I have worked on subnational development projects for the past 12 years, and every time I describe our work, I am asked this question – usually by donors and international organisations. This seemingly simple question carries weighty assumptions. The most obvious is that sustainable change happens at scale only when organized and executed through national frameworks. The less obvious assumption is that local efforts are inherently incomplete or secondary, mere appendages to the broader national agenda. Over the years, I’ve come to see this thinking as a fundamental flaw in how we conceptualize development. Sustainable change, I have learned, is intensely local.

Just as all politics is local, so too is sustainable development. While vital in setting the stage, policies crafted in national capitals often fail to account for the diversity, nuance, and complexity of the communities they are meant to serve. They are broad brushstrokes applied to a canvas of endless detail, leaving gaps that no single policy can fill. And because these policies tend to view communities as homogenous entities, the most marginalized—those who fall outside the average or the norm—are frequently left behind. This is not just a problem of implementation; it is a problem of perspective, a matter of lens. The national policy lens is useful, even necessary, but it is incomplete. It is a lens that must be supplemented with another that focuses on the distinct, specific, and deeply contextual realities of local communities.

My lens on localisation

Ranil Dissanayake, in his paper on the challenge of localisation, makes some very important points about the problems in making localisation a reality. First, he says, the definition of localisation and, more importantly, what is being localised is not agreed upon. My view is that we localise the agency. We localise the ability of people in villages and states or counties to make developmental decisions that are important to them. That would mean money, knowledge, and other resources flow to the most local structures to make development possible. This would, by necessity, be organised under the organised chaos theory because no two villages or counties are alike. The context will always vary.

Secondly, he says that we should agree on why we are localising. In my view, the answer to that lies in decolonising development. Essentially, this means reimagining and restructuring global development practices to prioritize the leadership, knowledge, and agency of historically marginalised or colonised communities. It challenges power imbalances, rejecting top-down, donor-driven models favouring locally led, culturally contextualized approaches emphasising equity and mutual respect.

Let me explain. In rural Kilifi, I recently had the opportunity to engage with communities on why many projects fail. For example, I went to a village called Garashi, where I counted 24 projects that had been started by international organisations that had collapsed as soon as these organisations left. One project was a water tank hoisted high up in the air to serve the community by ensuring they have access to clean water closer to their homes. The water tank had developed a leak, and the community did not feel that it was in their place to repair it because “it isn’t our water tank. It is {insert donor name}’s project, and we have to wait for them to come and fix it.”

In that same community, I saw fishponds and goat-rearing projects established to strengthen women’s income generation abilities, which projects failed when the well-meaning organisation’s programme lapsed. The women ate the fish and sold the goats. Why? “We don’t say no to money, but that is not the project we would have designed for ourselves.”

Of course, it is important to acknowledge, as Amjad Saleem says, that decolonisation is not just about improving the status quo but shifting power back to the people concerned and reorganising the structures, politics and processes of society to be driven by the people directly, away from the eurocentric approach established by the colonisers.

The Flaws of the National Policy Lens

National policies are designed with scale in mind. They aim for efficiency, uniformity, and measurability, all necessary to justify public spending and achieve broad objectives. However, in their quest for scale, these policies often oversimplify the challenges they seek to address. The assumption is that what works for one region can be scaled up and applied across the board. However, this ignores the diversity of lived experiences within a country.

Take, for instance, a national electrification policy that aims to bring power to rural communities. Such a policy might prioritize extending the national grid, an approach that works well in densely populated areas but falters in remote regions where infrastructure costs outweigh the benefits. In one community, a microgrid powered by solar energy might be the best solution; in another, a small hydroelectric plant could meet local needs more sustainably. A one-size-fits-all approach to electrification misses these opportunities and risks alienating the communities it aims to serve.

Data, too, plays a role in perpetuating this gap. National-level data aggregates information, smoothing out anomalies and erasing nuance. Policies based on these aggregates inevitably fail to capture the complexity of local realities. For example, a healthcare policy that relies on national averages might allocate resources to regions with high population densities, overlooking sparsely populated areas where health facilities are equally critical but far less accessible. In this way, the broad lens of national policy can inadvertently deepen inequalities, even as it seeks to address them.

In fact, in recent days, I have been preoccupied with the data that is not collected in rural and remote communities such as the one I live in. In northern Kilifi, for example, there are many stories of women who give birth on the road enroute to a maternity facility – because it is far from their homes and they have to travel on motorbikes on very uneven dirt roads. When the baby must come, it must come. So they stop the bike, and on the side of the road, they deliver the baby. If the baby does not survive the ordeal, they go back home and bury it. That birth is not recorded. I met Sidi, a 32-year-old woman who had had 16 full-term deliveries in her lifetime but had eight children. Only 10 of the deliveries were recorded. Most of the deliveries were at home or away from the hospital, and they disposed of the bodies. Better recording of such cases would mean better local policies on maternity healthcare to ensure facilities are closer to the women who need them.

Sustainable Development is Local

If national policies are the skeleton of sustainable development, local action is its beating heart. Development thrives when it is rooted in the specificities of place—when it understands and responds to a community’s unique challenges, resources, and aspirations. Context matters, and ignoring it is often why top-down initiatives falter.

In one rural village I worked with, a renewable energy initiative exemplified the power of local adaptation. The national government had promoted solar energy through subsidies, but the initiative gained traction only after community leaders were involved in designing a system that met their specific needs. By incorporating local knowledge and addressing practical concerns, the project succeeded and became a model for neighbouring communities. This success was not due to the policy alone but to how it was contextualised and owned at the local level.

Context matters and assumptions about civil society capacity in aid-recipient nations should be considered with as much nuance as anywhere else. As donors increase direct funding to local institutions, they must align the size of awards, choice of instrument, and funding timelines with local needs to ensure success.

Patrick Sambaga, Country Director (left), Transcultural Psychosocial Organization Uganda

Communities are not passive recipients of development; they are innovators in their own right. When given agency, they can adapt solutions in ways that outsiders cannot. In arid regions, for example, grassroots-led water management programs have emerged as lifelines, combining traditional knowledge with modern techniques to conserve scarce resources. These programs succeed not because they align perfectly with national water policies but because they are deeply attuned to local realities.

However, the disconnect between national policies and local implementation remains a persistent challenge. Top-down frameworks often impose rigid structures that leave little room for local adaptation. Subnational governments, civil society organizations, and local actors frequently find themselves constrained by policies that do not reflect their circumstances. The result is a fragmented approach to development, where the promise of national policies fails to translate into meaningful change on the ground.

Bridging the Gap

The question, then, is not whether national policies are necessary—they are—but how they can be made more responsive to local realities. One solution is to strengthen subnational governance. Strengthening subnational governance is about more than just transferring responsibilities; it’s about equipping local governments with the tools they need to succeed. Local governments must be empowered with the resources, authority, and capacity to adapt national policies to their unique contexts. This isn’t decentralisation for its own sake but a deliberate effort to build a responsive system where local actors can effectively address the needs of their communities without being bogged down by bureaucratic inefficiencies. When subnational governments are adequately resourced, they are better positioned to plan, implement, and monitor initiatives that reflect the realities on the ground.

A critical aspect of this approach is the flow of funding. More money should go directly to subnational governments because they are inherently closer to the people they serve. Their proximity to projects and initiatives fosters a natural accountability to citizens who can see, feel, and evaluate the impact of governance decisions in their everyday lives. This closeness creates a feedback loop where citizens can demand better performance and hold their leaders accountable, which is often more challenging at the national level due to the distance—both literal and figurative—between governments and the people.

Another complementary solution lies in empowering local Community-Based Organizations (CBOs), grassroots organizers, and mobilizers. These entities are uniquely positioned to understand and navigate local dynamics. Strengthening them involves ensuring they have the necessary knowledge, technical support, and financial resources not only to advance local development efforts but also to act as watchdogs over subnational governments. By equipping these groups to hold local authorities accountable, we create a dual layer of governance: one that delivers and one that ensures delivery. Together, these measures can bridge the gap between policy and practice, bringing us closer to truly localised and effective development.

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