Commentary by Andrew Friedman and Rachel George

Published January 8, 2026

This analysis is Part II of a three-part series covering the need and urgency to center rightsholders in the future of U.S. foreign assistance. In a moment of tremendous flux, these commentaries offer analysis and recommendations for a new model rooted in local consultation and input from those most impacted by foreign assistance. Read Part I of the series here.

Introduction

In folding the functions of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) into the Department of State, Secretary of State Marco Rubio promised future foreign assistance programs would only be those "that align with administration policies-and which advance American interests." This belies an important reality: Foreign assistance has always been about U.S. national interest. From the Marshall Plan's role in countering communist expansion in Europe to President John F. Kennedy's insistence that development assistance was necessary to prevent economic collapse that would endanger U.S. security and prosperity, U.S. aid has long been explicitly strategic.

This approach has followed bipartisan policy priorities, with foreign assistance trends echoing the most pressing foreign policy concern of the time, be it the Cold War, the Vietnam War, Afghanistan, or Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. President Donald Trump's own recent National Security Strategy touts the value of soft power and influence as one of the United States' "world-leading assets, resources, and advantages" for achieving national security goals.

A key critique of the foreign assistance ecosystem, as presented in the first part of this series, has been its resistance to a more local agenda, which has inhibited efficiency and sustainability. Foreign assistance grounded in national interest would seem to stand in contrast. However, that is simply not the case. Directing foreign assistance to local organizations and working on local priorities advances the national interest in a number of ways. This commentary lays out the difficulties that have arisen in determining local priorities where development and diplomacy agencies have been merged, and the importance of doing so for the national interest.

Reorganization and Localization

Among the long-standing debates about the foreign aid system has been those concerning ways to "right-size" the relationship between foreign aid and institutions focused on security and diplomacy. For years, many large Western donor countries administered foreign assistance through dedicated agencies, with some separation from the diplomatic bureaucracies. But today, integrated approaches are more common, following mergers in New Zealand (2009), Australia (2013), Canada (2013), and the United Kingdom (2020).

Efforts to fold the few remaining aid programs from the now shuttered USAID into the U.S. Department of State provide the most recent and most consequential of these changes to date. The trend is clear among Western donor agencies that autonomous aid administration is becoming a vestige of history rather than a norm for the twenty-first century.

Reformers insist that integrating development and diplomacy into connected global affairs bureaucracies can enable more connected and coherent foreign policy formation, to help foreign aid better serve the national interest. Critics warn that such approaches can undermine aid expertise, reduce development spending and its prioritization in favor of security goals, and politicize aid.

What does this trend towards mergers, brought to a crescendo by the current U.S. reforms, mean for the localization of aid? In theory, mergers could advance localization agendas, building on evidence that localized aid is more effective aid. Aid experts have long identified local ownership, partnership, and access as critical components for efficient and productive development aid. As mentioned in the first installment of this series, the foreign assistance ecosystem has "suffered deep structural critiques from the design of its programs to the efficiency of the overall model and the resistance to a more local agenda." But around the world, mergers have tended to undermine the skills, relationships, and ways of working that enable locally led development to serve the national interest. Mergers can work for both locally-led development and the national interest, but it is important to avoid these common pitfalls.

In Australia, the country's 2013 merger blended development staff into teams with components spread throughout the agency. Of 16 senior executive officers who departed post-merger, 13 were former AusAID staff. As one review put it, "the disappearance of up to 2,000 years of development experience . . . is starting to show at all levels-program quality and management; reputation with partners; and ability to lead and influence others." The merger process ultimately undermined relationships with local partners, rendering the new, merged agency's ability to effectively partner and influence in its priority neighbors in the Pacific diminished.

The United Kingdom's 2020 merger saw similar losses as senior development officials and teams departed and dispersed across diplomatic portfolios. Mark Lowcock and Ranil Dissanayake highlight these concerns, saying, "As currently structured, the [merged Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office] is unable to rebuild the development expertise that was lost with the merger."

An additional risk stems from the subordination of local development priorities post-merger. In Canada, the merged agency following 2013 struggled to balance its commitment to support women's rights with competing trade and foreign policy agendas. The same agency tasked with prioritizing the rights of women and girls delivered controversial arms trade deals with Saudi Arabia.

Without space for productive counterpoint, merged agencies often limit internal decisionmakers' exposure to balanced assessments of policy trade-offs-particularly perspectives grounded in local knowledge that would typically emerge through an interagency process. As a result, local input and priorities are frequently deprioritized. Post-mergers, localization agendas tend to become ad hoc and bottom-up from development professionals scattered across the agency rather than being driven by high-level policies.

Local Engagement, Local Priorities, and the U.S. National Interest

While the integration of development and diplomacy agencies in other countries has procedurally impeded the inclusion of locally defined priorities, this should not be mistaken for a substantive distinction between national interests and locally defined priorities. Put differently, while it may become harder to ensure local priorities are heard and included in development conversations in merged agencies, this does not mean that the two are necessarily separate or that meaningful localization can't be delivered in an integrated approach. There are many reasons why the connection between greater inclusion of local actors, both procedurally and in implementation, greatly benefits donor countries' national interests. We highlight three here.

Context

The most significant gain from increased inclusion of local voices and local actors in designing and delivering development cooperation is an improved understanding of the in-country context. The understanding of local needs, wants, and stakeholders provided by civil society partners is of unmatched value to informed policymaking.

Take Georgia, a former Soviet state in Central Asia. Local civil society organizations such as Civic IDEA have conducted substantial research and investigation into the tightening authoritarianism of the ruling Georgia DREAM party for years. Chief among these efforts has been to expose the expanding influence of the PRC, including both soft power and surveillance diplomacy. Taken together, this engagement aims to build a "police state" while "counterbalancing and diminishing Western influence." The organization's work is not limited to the PRC, and has highlighted potential for expansive Russian sway in Georgia, including through energy dominance if the United States disengages, and Iranian evasion of international sanctions through Georgian intermediaries.

With this context laid bare, both houses of the U.S. Congress have introduced versions of the "Mobilizing and Enhancing Georgia's Options for Building Accountability, Resilience, and Independence" (MEGOBARI) Act. The MEGOBARI Act aims to "counter the influence of the Chinese Communist Party, the Iranian Regime, and the Russian Federation in the nation of Georgia" through potential sanctions on malign actors and greater engagement with the country. Amid the ongoing debate on this bill and other policy options, the former defense minister and current board member of Civic IDEA, Tinatin Khidasheli, was invited to testify on these issues in front of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, where she spoke of the soft power efforts of Russia in Georgia, contextualized alongside "why Georgia matters to America."

No actors are better suited to investigate the role of strategic competitors in countries than local civil society. Their deep, long-term connection to communities is a critical lifeline for informing effective policies and interventions.

Long-Term Relationships and Trust

Personal relationships and trust built over long periods of time are invaluable in international diplomacy. Diplomatic engagements are not one-offs, but complex sets of interactions that reflect diverse interests and subject areas. Diplomats may find themselves discussing the fate or freedom of political prisoners in one conversation, a multibillion-dollar commercial deal in another, and seating protocol surrounding a state dinner in yet another, all within a few hours. These interactions can build or damage trust, and can lead to productive long-term relationships, or more fraught, piecemeal, and transactional interactions that respond to individual issues but do not improve long-term relationships and engagement.

This is no truer in the government-to-government diplomatic sphere than it is in the person-to-person one. Relationships between countries and civil society span multiple years and engage across a multitude of platforms, from funding to conversations concerning policy and context, to both successes and disappointments from decisions. Relationships with civil society must be crafted in a way that can remain and move forward even in the face of disagreements and disappointments, as they will exist on both sides. While government-to-government relations are largely centralized, the civil society environment in a country is diffuse, involving large numbers of stakeholders. These relationships outside of government, fostered through trusted networks with civic actors, can be vital lifelines to ensuring that policies and decisions the United States seeks to promote are not formed in isolation, but rather informed by a detailed engagement around their implications with grassroots actors who advocate for or push back against policy change. This is particularly relevant in an era of closing civic space internationally.

This is not only valuable for the context these relationships provide, but also in moments of great upheaval, citizens turn to those they trust. These are often prominent civil society actors. Take, for example, the recent ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh by a student movement that shied away from hierarchical leadership. The movement turned to elder statesman of the country's civil society, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, to serve as the interim government's chief adviser. A similar story can be told at the collapse of the Soviet Union and regime change in Eastern Bloc states, when Polish Trade Unionist Lech Walesa was elevated to the country's presidency. These moments, when there is a fog of change and little is known, are precisely when longstanding relationships are the most important for the continuation and future of U.S. engagement and the advancement of U.S. interests, including stability and peace, key focus areas of the new National Security Strategy. Without long-term local engagement, there is no trust or contact in these pivotal moments.

Access

The "3D" approach to foreign policy, including defense, diplomacy, and development, creates different but mutually reinforcing and beneficial partnerships among U.S. foreign policy agencies involved. While the military often partners with foreign militaries for readiness and coordination, and the Department of State's diplomatic corps works most often with foreign governments, the development community is often the de facto partner to a country's civil society. By merging these functions into one agency, there is a risk that access to civil society and local populations, including gatekeepers and decisionmakers outside of government, will be lost.

With the newfound focus on commercial diplomacy, these ground-level connections are more important than ever. Take mining operations, for example. Without local consultation and a social license to operate, mining investments are at risk of disruptions from local populations. In Peru's Las Bambas mine, operations were halted for multiple periods over eight years, totaling 400 days, because the local populations protested changes to the operations without agreed-upon consultation. Development diplomats, given civil society's role in implementing development work, are often the embassy employees who foster connections to ensure successful operations. In a roundtable at CSIS earlier this year, one corporate representative remarked that with the elimination of nearly all of these roles in the U.S. government, they would not even know who to make contact within a country with substantial mining resources for this type of engagement.

With the blending of diplomatic and development priorities, the lack of access could deepen. For instance, when Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade narrowed its geographic portfolio post-merger to focus on the Indo-Pacific, to align more strongly with the country's geopolitical interests, it did so at the expense of efforts in regions like Africa and Latin America. Experts interviewed about these changes suggested that this has strengthened activities on migration and climate within the Indo-Pacific region but weakened agendas following drains in agency expertise and networks outside of the region. The elimination of nearly 10,000 positions within USAID, along with others involved in development work at the Department of State, likely echoes this experience. Separate development efforts in these regions allow for the long-term relationship-building that is invaluable in ensuring future access in the event of changing priorities or situations requiring rapid reactions, such as natural disasters.

The throughline of these three areas is that local priorities undergird diplomatic and national security interests. In the situations above, working with local organizations as they counter authoritarianism, work to expose the connections between authoritarian actors across borders, and trace the malign efforts of some of the United States' most prominent strategic competitors, sets the ground for productive future engagement even in the midst of upheaval and chaos. Finally, access to local gatekeepers allows prominent individuals to convey the needs of the community to outside actors while the U.S. diplomatic apparatus can ensure the smooth and successful long-term implementation of its goals, be they commercial, peacebuilding, or any others.

Recommendations

• Codify localization as a policy under the Under Secretary for Foreign Assistance
  
  The Department of State should adopt a clear, department-wide policy requiring the systematic inclusion of local perspectives in the design of development and humanitarian programs, particularly in fragile or strategically significant contexts. Responsibility for advancing locally led development should be centered within the Under Secretary for Foreign Assistance, where remaining development expertise resides, to ensure local priorities are integrated early in policy formulation and monitored for their efficacy.
  
  The proposed bipartisan Locally Led Development and Humanitarian Response Act would require reporting on progress to advance localization, including funding, which is laudable, but that approach is merely examining the symptoms rather than attempting a cure.
• Protect and rebuild development expertise and partnerships
  
  The United States should actively preserve and revitalize development skillsets and long-standing relationships with local partners to prevent short-term, politically driven decisionmaking from undermining long-term national interests.
  
  Rebuilding development expertise within the U.S. government-and relationships with local partners once cultivated through development work-will take time, but it is essential to ground U.S. policy in on-the-ground knowledge and to protect long-term national interests.

Conclusion

Development efforts, and their invaluable addition to national security, require local voices to ensure sustainability. In the mergers between development and diplomatic agencies in countries such as Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, how those voices and priorities are raised has been a significant casualty, both through the loss of development practitioners and the loss of connections. It is vital that these skillsets and access points are not allowed to atrophy but instead are revitalized in order to protect the long-term national interest of the United States and its partners.

Andrew Friedman is the director and senior fellow in the Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Rachel George is a lecturer in international relations at Stanford University and a research fellow with the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security.

This commentary is made possible through generous support from Humanity United.

Commentary is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

© 2026 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.

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