No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section expresses the sense of Congress that (1) locally led development and humanitarian response is linked to more efficient and sustainable outcomes vital to long-term self-reliance; (2) over multiple Administrations, the U.S. government has sought greater development outcomes through stronger local partnerships, including through “Country Ownership,” “The Journey to Self-Reliance,” and “Locally Led Development”; (3) relevant foreign assistance agencies should increase direct funding to local entities; (4) such agencies should enable local communities to exercise leadership over program priorities, design, implementation, and evaluation; (5) such agencies should ensure most awards, requests for proposals, and requests for applications outline expectations for implementers to elevate local leadership; (6) working with local partners requires more time, staffing, and resource flexibility than with traditional partners; and (7) increased flexibility is critical to respond to local priorities and leverage local capacities, including with respect to staffing, fund availability, program design, and acquisition and assistance processes.
This section directs the head of the relevant foreign assistance agency, to the extent feasible and appropriate, to localize the development and humanitarian assistance partner base by considering (1) supporting and funding existing effective local projects and initiatives; (2) simplifying and increasing access to U.S. foreign assistance resources for local partners, including those with established trust, accountability, and legitimacy; (3) setting realistic goals and timelines for sunsetting assistance to incentivize self-reliance; (4) offering matching grants and in-kind contributions to generate additional resources; (5) exploring government-to-government partnerships with guardrails and civil society consultation; (6) exploring other funding modalities and partnerships, including pooled funding and unsolicited projects; (7) diversifying award types and addressing Office of Management and Budget threshold constraints; (8) conducting regular consultations with local partners in local languages, including through translation services, workshops, and advertising in local media; (9) allowing multi-year, flexible, tiered, and milestone-based funding; (10) utilizing other transaction authority through innovation incentive awards; (11) supporting full cost recovery for local partners; (12) undertaking outreach campaigns accessible to all entities, including unregistered organizations; (13) strengthening oversight of capacity-building efforts by prime awardees; (14) ensuring sufficient acquisition and assistance personnel; (15) updating performance evaluation criteria to incentivize locally led development; (16) addressing delays in Negotiated Indirect Cost Rates (NICRAs); (17) providing seminars and documentation in local languages on indirect cost recovery options; and (18) informing awardees of de minimis indirect cost rate eligibility.
This section directs the head of the relevant foreign assistance agency to initiate, not later than 180 days after enactment, policy actions—including rulemaking if necessary—to institutionalize the actions described in section 4 within relevant agency rules and regulations (i.e., Foreign Affairs Manual, Foreign Affairs Handbook, Department of State Acquisition Regulation, and other strategies and policies), to the extent appropriate and feasible.
This section authorizes relevant foreign assistance agencies to accept applications or proposals in languages other than English if such acceptance eases the burden on local actors and the agency can effectively evaluate them. The section further directs agency heads to assess options for using local languages to support local partners with award solicitations, proposals, evaluations, management, closeout, and other partnership activities—including advising on applicable U.S. regulations, agency policies, and local rules—and to submit a report on the assessment to Congress within one year of enactment.
This section authorizes heads of relevant foreign assistance agencies to (1) increase the de minimis indirect cost rate under 2 C.F.R. 200.414 to 15% (from 10%) for local partners receiving assistance awards and establish the same rate for acquisitions under title 48, C.F.R., to local partners (with further increases permitted if recommended by subsequent Office of Management and Budget regulations); (2) exempt local partners from reporting requirements under the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (31 U.S.C. 6106 note) to allow a 180-day delay in obtaining a unique entity identifier and registration in the System for Award Management (no later than 30 days prior to the end of the award's period of performance); (3) limit competition for contracts and other acquisition instruments to local entities if doing so results in cost savings, strengthens local capacity, or enables more sustainable or quicker program delivery (with no award exceeding $25 million and total awards not exceeding 10% of the agency's annual appropriations); and (4) permit foreign entities to use national or international generally accepted accounting principles instead of U.S. GAAP for contracts or grants under chapter 7 of title 48, C.F.R., or chapter 7 of title 2, C.F.R. (following consultation with the Administrators of the General Services Administration and NASA and the Secretary of Defense).
This section directs the head of the relevant foreign assistance agency to submit to the appropriate congressional committees, not later than one year after the date of enactment of this Act, a review of public international organizations’ support for locally-led development that includes (1) an assessment of such organizations’ approaches and financing structures in supporting locally-led development and humanitarian response, and (2) an action plan for how the United States will use its position in those organizations to encourage greater focus on locally-led approaches.
This section requires the head of each relevant foreign assistance agency to submit to the appropriate congressional committees, and publish on the agency's website, an annual report on the agency's progress in advancing locally led development and humanitarian response—not later than one year after the end of the first fiscal year following enactment and annually thereafter. The report must include (1) the amount of funding implemented directly and indirectly by local partners (i.e., local and national nonprofit organizations, governments, and private sector entities) in the previous fiscal year across all development and humanitarian assistance programs; (2) an assessment of efforts to enable greater local leadership (e.g., via direct funding recipients, subrecipients, subcontractors, program participants, or affected community members); (3) an assessment of the use and impact of new authorities in sections 6 and 7; and (4) an assessment of organizations with agency-cognizant Negotiated Indirect Cost Rates (NICRAs) using provisional rates for over 48 months without finalization, including steps to reduce such extensions beyond 12 months.
This section directs the head of the relevant foreign assistance agency to submit to the appropriate congressional committees, not later than 180 days after enactment of this Act, a report on the recruitment and retention of contracting officers and grant officers at the agency, including recommendations to improve such recruitment and retention.
This section establishes definitions for terms used in the Act, including (1) "appropriate congressional committees," meaning the House Committees on Foreign Affairs and Appropriations and the Senate Committees on Foreign Relations and Appropriations; (2) "local partner," meaning an individual or sole proprietorship with principal place of business in the recipient country or region, or an entity incorporated there or in the same region that maintains autonomous leadership, has at least 51% of its board of directors from that country or region, and—for corporations—is at least 75% beneficially owned by such individuals; and (3) "relevant foreign assistance agency," meaning the department or agency primarily responsible for implementing U.S. foreign assistance under part I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.