Op-ed by Grace ter Haar, TRANSFORM programme lead at Unilever and Jessie Coates, global corporate responsibility markets leader at EY.
Across global development, there is growing recognition that solutions are more likely to succeed when they are shaped by the people and organisations closest to the challenge. As support for localisation in development grows, so does the opportunity to strengthen the role of local communities, entrepreneurs and enterprises in shaping decisions and solutions.
This raises an important question: how can organisations shift decision-making closer to local actors while maintaining accountability for results, risk and funding?
Positive impact
Over the past decade, TRANSFORM – an impact accelerator led by Unilever, the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the global EY organisation – has supported more than 160 impact enterprise and research projects across 19 countries.
In 2023, we took a significant step towards local decision-making, moving from consulting counterparts in Africa and Asia to giving them decision-making roles and responsibility.
Supported by teams based at TRANSFORM’s global headquarters in London, our in-country colleagues led the end-to-end enterprise sourcing process. They co-developed funding briefs that reflected local priorities while drawing on global guidance, used local networks and channels to reach diverse audiences, shortlisted applicants, and selected the final enterprises for support.
In line with our ambitions, this approach resulted in a materially positive outcome: 88% of enterprises selected through local panels had at least one local founder, compared to 53% selected through global panels.
In South Asia, Pragyal Singh, partner at the global EY organisation and a member of the selection panel, reflected that the local process allowed TRANSFORM to “tap directly into EY India’s networks” and saw a “wave of inspiring, locally rooted innovators step forward”.
Elsewhere, Ravi Durwas, former South Asia Lead for TRANSFORM at Hindustan Unilever, likewise noted that “the local TRANSFORM team was well connected to the government ecosystems within India, so they could open a lot of doors” and help align projects with national priorities.
In West Africa, meanwhile Tristan Eagling, climate, nature and food security adviser at FCDO Ghana and a member of the regional selection panel, observed that some of the enterprises supported “probably wouldn’t have got through a London panel” as they wouldn’t have understood the ecosystems in which they operate.
Drawing on our experience, we share several practical lessons.
Activating local leadership
When public funds or corporate investment are involved, concerns about accountability, consistency and risk can make organisations reluctant to devolve authority.
Our experience suggests these concerns can be addressed through programme design. One of the most important lessons was to establish clear decision-making boundaries from the outset. Global teams defined the overall strategy, thematic priorities and selection criteria, while local teams led sourcing, assessment and funding decisions within that framework. This gave local colleagues meaningful authority while ensuring decisions remained aligned with the programme’s objectives.
We also found that accountability was strongest when robust processes were combined with local knowledge. Due diligence drew on shared standards and frameworks but was informed by in-country assessment and site visits.
Similarly, performance measurement combined programme-wide indicators with metrics tailored to individual projects. This provided consistency across the portfolio without forcing organisations operating in different contexts into the same model of reporting and delivery. Crucially, these systems were supported by ongoing dialogue between local and global teams.
The shift towards decentralisation highlighted the importance of clear governance, strong communication, and well-defined roles and responsibilities.
Working with enterprises as partners
Decentralising decision-making is important, but so too is building strong partnerships with the organisations that programmes support.
Organisations closest to implementation are often best placed to identify what needs to change in order for a project to succeed. For example, in Indonesia, waste enterprise Alner designed its refill model around the needs of informal retailers, including limited space, low margins and different purchasing patterns. It opted for a low-tech, manual system that shopkeepers could actually use, enabling the model to scale to more than 1,400 refill stations.
In Kenya, meanwhile, Gwiji adapted its model in response to how women cleaners access work and income in informal settlements, decentralising training to community locations and shifting from monthly to daily payments. These changes improved training participation and completion rates and enabled women to access more reliable income opportunities.
Programmes therefore need mechanisms that allow these insights to shape delivery as projects evolve, ensuring support remains responsive to local needs and opportunities throughout implementation.
At TRANSFORM, every project was supported by a dedicated project lead from Unilever who worked closely with the enterprise throughout delivery. Their role was to build a trusted partnership, helping projects adapt as new insights emerged and connecting them to the expertise, networks and support needed to respond.
This approach proved particularly valuable when working with Powered by People, a platform that helps small-scale artisans access global markets. Through ongoing engagement, the team identified barriers that had not been anticipated, including challenges around product photography and pricing.
Rather than treating the original project plan as fixed, additional support was introduced, including professional photography to improve product presentation and a pricing calculator to help artisans value their products more effectively.
The value of partnerships
Activating local leadership requires capabilities that rarely sit within a single organisation. Shifting decision-making closer to local teams, maintaining accountability, and providing the tailored support needed as projects evolve all place different demands on programme partners.
TRANSFORM’s core organisations together set the overall mandate and defined what success looked like, but each brought different strengths. FCDO introduced standardised processes and reporting, helping to ensure accountability and consistency.
Meanwhile, Unilever and the global EY organisation contributed commercial expertise, due diligence and hands-on support, alongside the capacity to work closely with enterprises throughout delivery. Importantly, they also helped translate standardised processes into approaches that reflected local contexts and needs.
Ultimately, the partnership created an environment where local leadership and accountability reinforced one another rather than competing for priority. As TRANSFORM concludes in 2026, these lessons and more have been captured in a playbook designed to help others apply them in practice.
Learn more at https://transform.global/
Note: The views reflected in this article are the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the global EY organisation or its member firms.
