From Innovation for Localization to Local Philanthropy, Localization and Power

n 2021, five organizations – Save the Children Denmark, Network for Empowered Aid Response (NEAR), West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI), STAR Ghana Foundation (SGF) and the Global Fund for Community Foundations (GFCF) participated in an ambitious and experimental joint project.The aim of the project was to "test durable, locally rooted funding mechanisms" in Somalia and Ghana, with the broader purpose of contributing – by demonstration – to efforts within the international humanitarian aid and development sector to transform and localize aid. The purpose of this learning report, curated by the GFCF, is to capture some of the main insights and reflections ofthe participating organizations and to consider the broader implications of and lessons from the project. It focuses on the experiences of those involved and the larger question of how unorthodox configurations of actors and new and different kinds of partnerships might contribute towards transformative change within the international aid system.