Fostering Local Leadership

Several development projects increase their self-sustainability by training, empowering, encouraging or collaborating with leaders in the communities they work with.

Local leaders help promote local participation, which allows people to have a say in their own development processes, take control of projects and tailor them to be relevant to their needs and interests. In addition, local engagement comes with valuable resources (material, knowledge, human, etc.), which can help initiatives create more comprehensive solutions to development problems while relying less on external resources.

Many initiatives take the time to identify current community leaders who –because of their stability, knowledge, connections or impact– could help promote, manage, develop, scale or even take charge of their projects. Others identify and train leaders or potential young leaders: they invite them to organize campaigns or activities, to join new organizations that represent their interests (such as parliaments or school governments, for example), and support them in creating or incubating entrepreneurship projects or organizations to engage in the solution of problems. In this way, these potential leaders are linked with both the rest of the community and the project, which promotes the initiative’s long-term sustainability. Others give leadership roles to people traditionally discriminated against in their communities (because of their skin color, social sector, gender, etc.), breaking stereotypes and promoting that all members of the community have the opportunities to express and work for their interests.