From top-down to locally led: the CSO Research Ecosystem model

It is increasingly acknowledged that development should be ‘locallyled’, taking the starting point that national and local actors are bestplaced to achieve timely, appropriate and effective outcomes.Approaches of ‘localisation’, ‘decolonisation’ and ‘shifting the power’ thatseek to fundamentally transform power relations have gained tractionwithin international development and humanitarian action. When itcomes to evidence-based working, however, civil society organisations(CSOs) in the Global South are still often approached from a deficit per-spective, deemed to lack the necessary expertise for quality researchand in need of ‘having their capacities built’ by their Northern counter-parts. This top-down approach severely limits the space for nationaland local CSOs to work from their own contextual understandings anddelegitimises research that these organisations can do, thereby disqual-ifying relevant knowledge and capacities. This article puts forward theCSO Research Ecosystem as a facilitation model for locally led research,thereby enabling a more inclusive understanding of evidence withinthe context of development partnerships. Presenting insights from casestudies in India, Uganda and Jordan, this article shows how the CSOResearch Ecosystem model can be used to address questions aroundaccountability, ownership and resources, and advance locally led CSOresearch in transnational development partnerships.