My postcard from Mexico

On a recent trip to visit our FHI 360 team in Mexico, I had the opportunity to learn about our innovative approach to civil society strengthening and the promise it has for helping us deliver on our principles of locally led development.??

Mexico offers us an opportunity to think creatively about what it means to work differently and be an organization that is facilitating — rather than always leading or directing work. Our approach, implemented through the USAID-funded Resilient Civil Society Activity (RSA), is focused on identifying local civil society organizations (CSOs) addressing key needs in under-resourced communities and supporting them in strengthening capacity.?

The RSA project currently supports almost 80 CSOs across Mexico, and I had the opportunity to meet with leadership and community participants from several of them. I was perhaps most inspired by our work supporting apiculture activities in the Yucatán communities of Sacalum and Teabo.??

Educampo, a local organization that works with groups of women harvesting honey from the abeja Melipona, also known as the “Mayan bee,” promotes the empowerment of Indigenous women, connecting them not only to a source of income but also to a network of support. FHI 360 provides organizations like Educampo with tools and training in a range of areas, including monitoring and evaluation, safeguarding, mental health, strategic planning and organizational development.?

While FHI 360 has only been working in Mexico for a few years, our experience in civil society strengthening spans decades. As we seek to advance locally led development efforts across a broad range of contexts, the ways we are working to strengthen and develop alliances with local organizations in Mexico are relevant to our work everywhere. Localization is not the same as locally led development (though the two terms are used interchangeably). In my view the former is challenging but more narrowly focused on preparing local entities to deliver services for the U.S. government; it is focused on compliance and strengthening of specific aspects of organizational operations. Locally led is far more nuanced and, it seems to me, more difficult.??

To be effective, we must be more than funders or the voice of the U.S. government. We must be thought partners. It is not about compliance checklists and audits. It is about partnerships based on a deep understanding of shared values and mission.?