Recently, the U.S. Agency for International Development published 14 "good practices" to define what a locally led program looks like as part of its push for half its projects to be locally led by 2030.

We spoke to local community leaders to find out what they think. While many are optimistic, some have argued that they haven’t seen much change just yet and expressed concern about whether these indicators will translate into action. For one thing, USAID’s localization guidelines do not specify whether local people can voice whether they believe a program is locally led or not.

On the topic of involving local communities in development initiatives, we also published an opinion piece outlining how decolonization must be applied to organizational design, the distribution of money, and how skill sets are valued.

Additionally, this week, the U.S. Senate passed a $95 billion emergency funding bill. While much of it is military spending, it includes about $10 billion in humanitarian aid. It now heads to the House of Representatives.

Advocates are pushing the House to approve it, though its future is uncertain as political tensions continue.

For this week’s episode of our This Week in Global Development podcast series, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with Nicole Goldin, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, as well as Devex Business Editor David Ainsworth to discuss these stories.

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