Effectively Utilizing Feedback
Project Overview

CDA’s recent field visits to conflict affected settings highlighted a range of barriers that operational agencies face with feedback collection, validation, response and overall stakeholder engagement in such settings. Access, security, sensitivity around data collection, limited budgets for staff time in the field and weak data collection and analysis skills are key issues affecting many agencies.
Our collaborative learning process examines effective practices amidst operational and organizational challenges. We are learning what makes feedback loops effective in long-term development, humanitarian and peacebuilding programs.
Most Recent Publications
Staff
What are feedback mechanisms?
The importance of utilizing feedback
Key Lessons from Previous Projects
Humanitarian Feedback Mechanisms Research
Between 2012-2014, CDA partnered with the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP) to study the effectiveness of humanitarian feedback mechanisms. The research team conducted field visits to Darfur, Pakistan and Haiti to document effective feedback practices at the operational level in active emergency settings. The research led to the publication of three case studies, a literature review, a main research study, and practitioner guidance for operational agencies seeking to improve their feedback practices. [read more]
Access and Beneficiary Feedback Pilots
Between 2013-2014, CDA participated in a consortium with ITAD and Development Initiatives to evaluate the UK Department for International Development (DFID)-commissioned efforts of its Access and Beneficiary Feedback Pilots Programme. The Research and Impact Evaluation component was tasked to deliver evidence-based guidance to DFID on effective models for ensuring transparency and feedback loops. CDA managed the first evaluation of a feedback pilot implemented by the International Organization for Migration in a shelter program in flood-affected areas of Pakistan. [read more]
The Listening Project
CDA’s Listening Project organized teams of “listeners” across 20 countries and contexts to gather the voices, insights, and lessons from people both inside and outside the aid system. In the book Time to Listen CDA represents the lessons that have come forth through conversations with nearly 6,000 people. Using their words, their experiences, and their ideas, we describe why the cumulative impacts of aid have not met expectations and describe a way forward to make changes that, according to those on the receiving end, will lead to more effective results. [Read more]