Highlights

Why the Localisation Pay Gap Matters

Across South Sudan’s aid and peacebuilding sector, national professionals often:

• lead complex dialogue and mediation processes;

• navigate political, conflict and community dynamics that outsiders cannot easily access; and

• sustain long-term relationships with communities.

Yet despite this, remuneration structures frequently undervalue this expertise relative to international roles. This creates three systemic risks:

• Capacity drain: High-performing national staff move to international agencies for better pay and security.

• Distorted authority: Decision-making power remains tied to international roles, even where technical leadership is local.

• Fragile localisation: Programmes may be locally delivered, but institutions remain financially and structurally dependent.

For POF, localisation is not credible unless it addresses these structural imbalances directly.

Our Approach: Making Equity Measurable

To move from principle to practice, POF introduced a clear and transparent metric: the Localisation Pay Gap (LPG).

What is the Localisation Pay Gap?

The LPG measures the difference in total remuneration between international and South Sudanese personnel:

Localisation Pay Gap (LPG)
= 100% × (Average international remuneration − Average South Sudanese remuneration)
÷ Average international remuneration

This approach, adapted from gender pay-gap reporting models, allows us to:

• quantify equity, rather than rely on anecdote;

• track progress year-on-year; and

• benchmark performance against comparable organisations.

We do not assess the pay gap in isolation. It is reviewed alongside:

• the proportion of international vs national inputs; and

• the share of total programme resources channelled through national organisations.

Together, these indicators show whether localisation is happening structurally, not only operationally.

Core Principles Guiding Our Practice

National Staff Are Experts

All POF personnel—South Sudanese and international—are treated as professionals accountable for technical quality. Remuneration reflects role, responsibility and expertise, not nationality.

Equity Is Built into Budgets

Fair pay is not an HR afterthought. It is a budgeting principle from programme design, including provision for competitive national salaries and core organisational costs.

Pay Equity Strengthens Institutions

Competitive remuneration supports staff retention, leadership continuity, and the development of strong finance, HR, governance and risk systems within national organisations.

We Measure What Matters

Localisation must be demonstrable. We use transparent, quantitative indicators to hold ourselves accountable for structural change.

Progressive Reduction of the Gap

Our objective is not immediate parity in all contexts, but clear year-on-year reduction of the pay gap, with justification for any remaining differentials.

How We Are Performing

A Low Localisation Pay Gap

POF’s localisation pay gap stands at 17.7%, significantly lower than most comparable international programmes in South Sudan. This reflects our commitment to treating South Sudanese professionals as experts and remunerating them accordingly.

Majority of Resources Flow to National Organisations

Over 54% of total programme expenditure is channelled through national NGOs—well above sector norms and internal targets. This means that funding is not only local in delivery, but local in institutional ownership.

Limited Reliance on International Inputs

Only 14.4% of total technical input days are provided by international staff. International expertise is used selectively, to complement—not substitute—national leadership.

Sector Leadership on Localisation

By publicly reporting on the localisation pay gap, POF is contributing a practical accountability tool to the wider sector. Our approach provides a benchmark that donors and partners can use to assess localisation across programmes.

What This Means for Peacebuilding in South Sudan

Peacebuilding depends on trust, legitimacy and long-term accompaniment of communities. National organisations are best placed to deliver this work. But without equitable remuneration and institutional funding, these organisations remain structurally fragile.

By aligning pay equity with organisational strengthening, POF is building:

• stronger national leadership;

• more resilient institutions; and

• peacebuilding systems that can sustain impact beyond the life of external funding.

This is localisation not as a slogan, but as structural transformation.

Looking Ahead

POF will continue to:

• track and publish the localisation pay gap;

• reduce reliance on international inputs as national capacity strengthens;

• increase the proportion of funding managed by national organisations; and

• advocate for sector-wide adoption of transparent localisation metrics.

We believe that fair pay is not a cost—it is an investment in the credibility, effectiveness and long-term sustainability of peacebuilding in South Sudan.