CDA Perspectives
The CDA Perspectives Blog is maintained by CDA colleagues, with guest authors welcome to share reflections, present information, and invite conversation on themes relevant to CDA’s areas of focus. On the blog, we share personal experiences of working towards improving impacts of interventions in contexts of conflict and fragility, and findings from collaborative learning projects. In most cases, we discuss issues related to CDA’s key practice areas. In addition to our staff contributors, we invite colleagues and partners to share their experiences and host blog series.
Download our guest post submission guidelines and blog policy. Email Hasi Edema to contribute.
Check out CDA’s other blog series, From Where I Stand, a virtual collaborative learning project prioritizing the lens of local leaders as experts in the global movement to shift power in aid policy and NGO practice.
Do No Harm: Meta-Trends
Share this article World Vision Shares Internal Learning Process on their Conflict Sensitivity Programming In this blog post, World Vision's Associate Director for Peacebuilding Programming, Dilshan Annaraj, and Associate...
Corruption : résister à tout prix ?
Share this article Resisting corruption is not easy, not even when supported by a collective effort. The Kuleta Haki Network, now numbering more than 100 individuals, has made progress but not without sacrifice. Florence Liégeois...
The Biggest Paradigm Error in Tackling Corruption, Not Dealing with Organized Crime
Share this article International organizations, donors and policy analysts have, over the past few years, recognized how organized criminal networks impede and undermine development and democracy. When offering potential remedies,...
First: Prevent the Misallocation of Funds. Then: Strengthen the Rule of Law
Share this article I have argued elsewhere that corruption causes two distinct types of harm. It has a primary impact – the effect of a particular corrupt transaction in terms of misallocating public goods or misspending public...
Embedding Social Norms for Effective Anti-Corruption Interventions
Share this article In this post Ben Cislaghi draws our attention to two points that might contribute to our thinking about norms and corruption. The first is that social norms are not an on/off switch: their strength varies as the...
Why the International Community’s Efforts to Reform Police and Justice in the Central African Republic Might be Making the Situation Worse
Share this article In this post Cheyanne Scharbatke-Church shares evidence to support why if we want citizen security and criminal justice to be a reality in the future in the Central African Republic, now is the time to integrate...
Pity the Man Who Stands Alone
Share this article In this post Cheyanne Scharbatke-Church shares findings on how: (1) Acts of jealousy and revenge fuel the manipulation of the criminal justice system in the Central African Republic, and (2) how favoritism is a...
How the Séléka/anti-Balaka crisis has been gas on the fire of corruption the Central African Republic
Share this article In this post Cheyanne Scharbatke-Church shares findings from our new research examining corruption in the criminal justice sector in the Central African Republic (CAR). The systems analysis and findings discussed...
Reflections on Using Most Significant Change in An Anti-Corruption Program
Share this article In this post, Cheyanne Scharbatke-Church and Sandra Sjogren reflect on their experience using Most Significant Change (MSC) in monitoring an anti-corruption program. We discuss the fit to our context, question why...
Why We Need to Kill the ‘Corruption is Cancer’ Analogy
Share this article In this post Professor Paul Heywood gives three reasons to why the analogy of corruption as cancer is not just misplaced, but positively unhelpful for efforts to combat corruption. When Pope Francis recently...
The value of a stereotype: Women resisting corruption
Share this article How we almost discredited an important piece to understanding the dynamics of resisting corruption in Democratic Republic of Congo, when we were uncomfortable with what we heard from participants in our gender...
Research Methodology for Identifying Social Norms that Catalyze Corruption
Share this article We believe that social norms are one of the causes of resiliency in corruption systems which is why they require more attention in anti-corruption programming. Not separate programing necessarily; rather an...
Anti-Corruption Awareness Raised – but to what effect?
Share this article In this post Dr Caryn Peiffer discusses her research on the impact of anti-corruption awareness raising programs. Findings, she argues, defy intuitive assumptions. Corruption is the talk of the town. It is a...
When Discussing Political Corruption
Share this article In this post, Kelsey Goodman draws out key lessons from a survey of research on political corruption. Researchers and policymakers would be well-served to “get specific” when talking about types of political...
CDA Welcomes New Executive Director Polly Byers
Share this article We are pleased to announce that Polly Byers will become CDA Collaborative Learning Projects' Executive Director on October 16, 2017. Polly brings her energy and enthusiasm to CDA to complement her strong...