The Local Systems Position Paper describes the key approaches USAID will use to translate systems thinking into systems practice. It focuses on ways USAID can better understand and engage local systems to support them in producing more sustainable results. Systems thinking is a mindset and set of tools that we use to understand how systems behave and produce certain results or outcomes. Systems practice is the application of systems thinking to better understand challenges and strengthen the capacity of local systems to unlock locally led, sustained progress. The shift from systems thinking to systems practice is driven by a desire to integrate systems practice throughout the Program Cycle and increase our capacity to actively and adaptively manage programming in ways that recognize complexity and help make our programs more effective and sustainable. These approaches will be utilized alongside and within the context of USAID’s policies and guidance, including technical guidance for specific sectors, as well as evidence and lessons learned from partners around the world. Systems thinking is a long-standing discipline that can serve as a powerful tool for understanding and working with local systems. It has been a consistent component of USAID’s decades-long commitment to locally led development and humanitarian assistance. USAID uses systems thinking to better understand the complex and interrelated challenges we confront – from climate change to migration to governance – and the perspectives of diverse stakeholders on these issues. When we understand challenges as complex systems – where outcomes emerge from the interactions and relationships between actors and elements in that system – we can leverage and help strengthen the local capacities and relationships that will ultimately drive sustainable progress. Recognizing this, in 2014, USAID released the Local Systems Framework, outlining ten principles to help USAID staff, partners, and local stakeholders place local systems at the center of all of our efforts to promote sustainability. Since then, development and humanitarian actors have embraced systems thinking as a concept and reiterated its importance in other policies, strategies, and tools, across sectors and regions. When USAID released its Localization Vision and Approach in 2022, it included local systems practice as a core component of adapting policies and program practices. Building on the success of the Local Systems Framework, this position paper reiterates USAID’s commitment to systems practice and presents six approaches that will help USAID strengthen and further embed systems practice in all of our work

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