H.R. 6196

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 6196 Introduced in House (IH)]

<DOC>

119th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 6196

To authorize and encourage the United States to pursue a model of 
locally led development and humanitarian response and expand engagement 
with local actors and increase its local partner base.

_______________________________________________________________________

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

November 20, 2025

Ms. Jacobs (for herself and Mrs. Kim) introduced the following bill; 
which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

A BILL

To authorize and encourage the United States to pursue a model of 
locally led development and humanitarian response and expand engagement 
with local actors and increase its local partner base.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ``Locally Led Development and 
Humanitarian Response Act''.

SEC. 2. PURPOSE.

The purpose of this Act is to encourage the United States to pursue 
a model of locally led development and humanitarian response and expand 
engagement and partnership with local actors.

SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) locally led development and humanitarian response is 
linked to more efficient and sustainable development and 
humanitarian outcomes, and is vital to building long-term self-
reliance;
(2) over multiple Administrations, the United States 
Government has sought to achieve greater development outcomes 
through stronger local partnerships, including through 
``Country Ownership'', ``The Journey to Self-Reliance'', and 
``Locally Led Development'';
(3) the relevant foreign assistance agency should increase 
the proportion of direct funding to local entities, including 
by increasing the amount of development and humanitarian 
assistance to such entities;
(4) the relevant foreign assistance agency should ensure 
its programming enables local communities to exercise 
leadership over priorities, project design, implementation, and 
measuring and evaluating results of such programs;
(5) the relevant foreign assistance agency should ensure 
most awards, requests for proposals, and requests for 
applications outline expectations for implementers to elevate 
local leadership and hold implementers to account for elevating 
local leadership;
(6) working with local partners requires more time, 
staffing, and flexibility of resources than traditional 
partners, including extended availability of funds and 
additional staff resources; and
(7) increased flexibility is critical to respond to local 
priorities and leverage local capacities, including with 
respect to staffing, availability of funds, program design, and 
acquisition and assistance processes, among other areas.

SEC. 4. WORKING WITH LOCAL PARTNERS.

(a) In General.--To the extent feasible and appropriate, the head 
of the relevant foreign assistance agency should localize the 
development and humanitarian assistance partner base by considering--
(1) supporting and funding existing effective local 
projects and initiatives;
(2) simplifying and increasing access to United States 
foreign assistance resources for local partners in humanitarian 
and development sectors, including local partners who have 
relations, agency, or power structures in place that have 
produced, or can produce, strong trust, accountability, and 
legitimacy in the communities or networks such partners work 
in;
(3) setting realistic goals and timelines for sunsetting 
assistance and adhering to existing agreement totals and 
timelines to incentivize self-reliance and encourage exit plans 
with appropriate notice;
(4) exploring offering matching grants and in-kind 
contributions to ensure that United States Government 
investments in local partners are helping generate new 
resources of their own from other donors;
(5) exploring government-to-government partnerships with 
adequate guardrails and oversight, in consultation with local 
civil society, with select countries where feasible and 
practical to enhance foreign governments' ability to deliver 
good governance, service delivery, and public goods that 
benefit local communities;
(6) exploring other types of funding modalities and types 
of partnerships with local and national actors, including 
support for pooled funding mechanisms and unsolicited projects;
(7) diversifying award types to streamline performance 
requirements and working with the Office of Management and 
Budget to address threshold constraints that pose a barrier to 
effectively supporting local partners;
(8) ensuring staff of the relevant foreign assistance 
agency is able and encouraged to conduct regular consultation 
with local partners in local languages of the host countries 
relating to policies and programs, including making available 
solicitations for acquisitions and assistance and accepting 
submissions in local languages, video format, or verbal 
presentations, including by--
(A) investing in translation services;
(B) hosting workshop-based engagements; and
(C) advertising solicitations in local trade 
publications, local media including newspapers and 
radio, local community centers, and local online 
forums;
(9) allowing and promoting multi-year, flexible, tiered and 
milestone-based funding for new programs and to bring 
successful programs to scale;
(10) utilizing ``other transaction authority'' through 
innovation incentive awards for local and national actors;
(11) supporting consistent and unimpeded access to full 
cost recovery for local partners implementing United States 
foreign assistance activities;
(12) undertaking outreach campaigns and engaging with local 
actors, formally and informally, to raise awareness about 
opportunities, as well as how to apply for and manage awards in 
compliance with applicable Federal regulations and the relevant 
foreign assistance agency policies, and ensuring such 
engagement is accessible to all entities, including 
unregistered and informal organizations;
(13) strengthening oversight of capacity strengthening 
components of awards to ensure United States and international 
awardees are making good-faith efforts to strengthen local 
organizations' capacities, including independent and external 
evaluations to evaluate the mentorship process and regular 
feedback loops;
(14) ensuring there are sufficient acquisition and 
assistance personnel;
(15) soliciting feedback on and updating, as necessary, 
performance evaluation criteria to create greater workforce 
incentives for the relevant foreign assistance agency personnel 
to champion locally led development;
(16) addressing internal delays and recipient organization 
issues that result in the required extension of provisional 
Negotiated Indirect Cost Rates (NICRAs);
(17) conducting seminars and providing documentation in 
local languages on NICRA, the de minimis indirect cost rate, 
and other options for indirect cost recovery relevant to the 
award type; and
(18) ensuring that acquisition and assistance personnel 
communicate to awardees who do not submit for a NICRA that they 
are eligible for the de minimis indirect cost rate.

SEC. 5. INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF ACTIONS DESCRIBED IN SECTION 4.

Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this 
Act, the head of the relevant foreign assistance agency shall initiate 
policy actions, including rulemaking if necessary, to institutionalize 
the actions described in section 4 to the extent appropriate and 
feasible within all relevant foreign assistance agency internal rules 
and regulations, including the Foreign Affairs Manual, the Foreign 
Affairs Handbook, and the Department of State Acquisition Regulation, 
as well as other relevant strategies and policies.

SEC. 6. AUTHORITY TO ACCEPT APPLICATIONS, PROPOSALS, AND CONTRACTING 
AGREEMENTS IN LOCAL LANGUAGES AND LOCAL LANGUAGE SUPPORT.

(a) In General.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the 
relevant foreign assistance agency is authorized to accept applications 
or proposals in languages other than English if such acceptance eases 
the burden of a local actor working with such agency and such agency is 
able to effectively evaluate such applications or proposals.
(b) Local Language Support.--
(1) In general.--The head of the relevant foreign 
assistance agency shall conduct an assessment of options to 
enable such agency to utilize local languages to support local 
partners with award solicitations, proposals and applications, 
evaluations, management, close out, and other types of 
partnerships, including advising local partners on applicable 
United States regulations and the relevant foreign assistance 
agency policies and local country rules and regulations common 
in such activities.
(2) Report.--Not later than 1 year after the date of the 
enactment of this Act, the head of the relevant foreign 
assistance agency shall submit to Congress a report on the 
assessment described in this subsection.

SEC. 7. MODIFICATIONS RELATING TO THE CODE OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS AND 
OTHER REQUIREMENTS.

(a) Increase in the De Minimis Indirect Cost.--The head of the 
relevant foreign assistance agency is authorized to--
(1) increase the de minimis indirect cost rate provided for 
in section 200.414 of title 2, Code of Federal Regulations, or 
any successor regulations, by 5 percentage points for local 
partners receiving assistance awards from the agency; and
(2) establish a de minimis indirect cost rate at the same 
rate provided for in paragraph (1) for acquisitions awarded 
under title 48 of the Code of Federal Regulations to local 
partners, and to increase this threshold further should 
subsequent Office of Management and Budget regulations 
recommend doing so.
(b) Exemption for Local Entities.--The head of the relevant foreign 
assistance agency is authorized to exempt local partners, as needed, 
from the reporting requirements of the Federal Funding Accountability 
and Transparency Act of 2006 (31 U.S.C. 6106 note; Public Law 109-282) 
to allow for a 180-day delay in obtaining a unique entity identifier 
and registration in the System for Award Management. This delay shall 
be no later than 30 days prior to the end of the award's period of 
performance.
(c) Local Competition Authority.--Notwithstanding any other 
provision of law, the head of the relevant foreign assistance agency 
(or their designees) may award contracts and other acquisition 
instruments in which competition is limited to local entities if doing 
so would result in cost savings, strengthen local capacity, or enable 
the agency to deliver programs or activities more sustainably or 
quickly than if competition were not so limited. Such authority may not 
be used to make acquisition awards in excess of $25,000,000 and shall 
not exceed more than 10 percent of the amounts appropriated to the 
relevant foreign assistance agency each fiscal year.
(d) Use of National or International Generally Accepted Accounting 
Principles.--The head of the relevant foreign assistance agency, in 
consultation with the Administrator of the General Services 
Administration, the Secretary of Defense, and the Administrator of the 
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is authorized to allow 
foreign entities to use national or international generally accepted 
accounting principles instead of United States Generally Accepted 
Accounting Principles (GAAP) for contracts or grants awarded under the 
chapter 7 of title 48, Code of Federal Regulations or chapter 7 of 
title 2, Code of Federal Regulations.

SEC. 8. REVIEW OF LOCALLY-LED DEVELOPMENT IN PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL 
ORGANIZATIONS.

Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, 
the head of the relevant foreign assistance agency shall submit to the 
appropriate congressional committees a review of public international 
organizations' support for locally-led development, to include the 
following elements:
(1) An assessment of how such organizations' approaches and 
financing structures support locally-led development and 
humanitarian response.
(2) An action plan for how the United States will use its 
position in such organizations to encourage greater focus on 
locally-led approaches.

SEC. 9. ANNUAL REPORT.

Not later than 1 year after the end of the first fiscal year 
following the date of the enactment of this Act, and annually 
thereafter, the head of the relevant foreign assistance agency shall 
submit to the appropriate congressional committees and publish on the 
agency's website a report on the agency's progress to advance locally 
led development and humanitarian response, to include the following 
elements:
(1) The amount of funding implemented directly and 
indirectly by local partners, including to local and national 
nonprofit organizations, local and national governments, and 
local and national private sector entities, in the previous 
fiscal year, including all development and humanitarian 
assistance programs.
(2) An assessment of how the agency is enabling more local 
leadership of foreign assistance programs, including recipients 
of direct funding, subrecipients and subcontractors to an 
international implementing partner, participants in an agency 
program, or members of a community affected by such 
programming.
(3) An assessment of how the relevant foreign assistance 
agency is using new authorities granted in sections 6 and 7 and 
an assessment of the impact of these authorities on such 
agency's ability to work with local partners and communities.
(4) An assessment of how many organizations with a 
Negotiated Indirect Cost Rate (NICRA) cognizant to the relevant 
foreign assistance agency are utilizing provisional NICRAs for 
over 48 months without a final NICRA and steps that such agency 
can take to reduce the extension of provisional NICRAs beyond 
12 months.

SEC. 10. REPORT ON CONTRACTING OFFICERS.

Not later than 180 days after the enactment of this Act, the head 
of the relevant foreign assistance agency shall provide a report to the 
appropriate congressional committees on the recruitment and retention 
of contracting officers and grant officers at such agency and 
recommendations to improve contracting/agreement officer recruitment 
and retention.

SEC. 11. DEFINITIONS.

In this Act:
(1) Appropriate congressional committees.--The term 
``appropriate congressional committees'' means--
(A) the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the 
Committee on Appropriations of the House of 
Representatives; and
(B) the Committee on Foreign Relations and the 
Committee on Appropriations of the Senate.
(2) Local partner.--The term ``local partner'' means--
(A) an individual who is a citizen or lawfully 
admitted permanent resident of and have his or her 
principal place of business in the country or region 
receiving United States foreign assistance with which 
the individual is or may become involved;
(B) a sole proprietorship that is owned by such an 
individual that meets the requirements of subparagraph 
(A); or
(C) an entity that--
(i) is incorporated or legally organized 
under the laws of, and have its principal place 
of business in, the country served by the 
program with which the entity is involved or in 
a country within the same region as the program 
with which the entity is involved;
(ii) determines its own autonomous 
leadership and governance structures, sets its 
own strategic direction, priorities, and 
programmatic focus, and makes independent 
financial decisions separately from an 
international organization;
(iii) if it has a Board of Directors, has 
51 percent or more board directors who are 
citizens or lawfully permanent residents of 
such country or a country within the same 
region; and
(iv) if it is a corporation, is 75 percent 
beneficially owned at the time of application 
by individuals who are citizens or lawfully 
admitted permanent residents of that same 
country.
(3) Relevant foreign assistance agency.--The term 
``relevant foreign assistance agency'' means the department or 
agency designated as primarily responsible for implementing the 
United States foreign assistance under part I of the Foreign 
Assistance Act of 1961.
<all>