Checklist: Support local leadership and ownership

Use this checklist to assess whether your approach aligns with Principle 4: Support local leadership and ownership across programme design, implementation, and partnership management.

Apply it when designing programmes, selecting partners, and managing grants.

☐ Are local media organisations and media development actors meaningfully involved in defining priorities, objectives, and approaches from the outset?

☐ Do partnership structures enable local actors to hold decision-making roles, including as lead partners where appropriate?

☐ Are financial resources and budget control shared in a way that reflects local leadership and responsibility?

☐ Are eligibility criteria and application processes accessible to local actors, including those without prior donor experience?

☐ Are compliance and reporting requirements proportionate to partner capacity and context, and adapted where needed?

☐ Are there mechanisms in place to support partners in building compliance and financial management capacity over time?

☐ Do programme timelines and processes allow for meaningful consultation and co-decision, rather than token participation?

☐ Are roles and responsibilities across consortia structured to avoid systematic subcontracting of local actors?

☐ Does the intervention support local actors to progress from sub-grantee to direct funding recipient over time?

☐ Are risks, responsibilities, and visibility requirements shared fairly across partners, without transferring disproportionate burden to local actors?

☐ Does the approach contribute to strengthening long-term institutional capacity, sustainability, and leadership?

Common risk flags

• Local actors engaged only at implementation stage, not in design or decision-making

• Partnership models where local actors are subcontracted without influence over strategy or resources

• Compliance and reporting requirements that exclude smaller or first-time applicants

• Concentration of financial control and decision-making with international implementers

• Short-term capacity-building activities without long-term institutional strengthening

• Lack of pathways for local actors to access funding directly over time

• Consultation processes that are symbolic rather than decision-shaping

• Disproportionate risk transferred to local partners without corresponding authority or support

Download and print the checklist from here:

Checklist - Support local leadership and ownership.pdf

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