CDA journey

From Do No Harm to today: 30 years of practical learning for international action

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

Shifting Power

Humanitarian Risk

For 30 years, CDA has been spearheading research on conflict sensitivity and do no harm, community engagement and accountability, and putting local leadership into practice across the humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding nexus. Our current work on humanitarian risk, environmental peacebuilding, and responsible INGO transitions stands on the shoulders of decades of evidence-informed research. And there's so much more to come.

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

Accountability to Affected Populations

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

Click on to begin the journey.

Do No Harm

Do No Harm

Do No Harm

The Do No Harm Project was formed in 1993 in order to help aid workers find ways to address human needs in conflict contexts without making the conflict worse. NGOs, experts, donors, and policymakers collaborated through the project to identify common patterns of interaction between aid and conflict. Do No Harm was originally developed for humanitarians working in contexts of conflict. Subsequent research on Do No Harm split into two branches: peacebuilding effectiveness and humanitarian response. As DNH was taken up, questions continued to surface around how we know we’re doing no harm and to who. This led to work on accountability to affected populations (and to partners) - international humanitarians working with individuals and local humanitarians.

Humanitarian Risk

Shifting Power

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

Accountability to Affected Populations

Corporate Engagement

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

Reflecting on Peace Practice

The Listening Project

Do No Harm

Accountability to affected populations

Accountability to Affected Populations

An effective feedback mechanism supports the collection, acknowledgement, analysis, and response to the feedback received. CDA has done extensive work on humanitarian feedback mechanisms, conducting case studies in Darfur, Pakistan, Haiti, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Nepal with partners like ALNAP, World Vision, and IFRC to document effective feedback practices at the operational level in active emergency settings. CDA’s research on understanding local perspectives on humanitarian effectiveness informed the development of UNOCHA’s 2015 report on humanitarian effectiveness and the recommendations for the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit. In 2017, CDA partnered with the International Rescue Committee to identify factors that enable feedback utilization in programmatic decision-making within humanitarian agencies.

Humanitarian Risk

Shifting Power

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

"CDA’s willingness to walk alongside an organization brings a unique insider-outsider perspective…CDA does not attempt to simplify field operations or institutional realities. Rather, they take time to gain actual field experience and explore a range of perspectives from communities, partners, and different levels of staff. This approach to collaborative learning has led to real-time strengthening of practice." Carla Benham, Accountability Advisor, World Vision UK

Accountability to Affected Populations

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

Do No Harm

Community engagement and accountability

Back

Accountability to Affected Populations

An effective feedback mechanism supports the collection, acknowledgement, analysis, and response to the feedback received. CDA has done extensive work on humanitarian feedback mechanisms, conducting case studies in Darfur, Pakistan, Haiti, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Nepal with partners like ALNAP, World Vision, and IFRC to document effective feedback practices at the operational level in active emergency settings. CDA’s research on understanding local perspectives on humanitarian effectiveness informed the development of UNOCHA’s 2015 report on humanitarian effectiveness and the recommendations for the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit. In 2017, CDA partnered with the International Rescue Committee to identify factors that enable feedback utilization in programmatic decision-making within humanitarian agencies.

Humanitarian Risk

Shifting Power

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

"CDA’s willingness to walk alongside an organization brings a unique insider-outsider perspective…CDA does not attempt to simplify field operations or institutional realities. Rather, they take time to gain actual field experience and explore a range of perspectives from communities, partners, and different levels of staff. This approach to collaborative learning has led to real-time strengthening of practice." Carla Benham, Accountability Advisor, World Vision UK

Accountability to Affected Populations

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

Do No Harm

Community engagement and accountability

Back

Community Engagement and Accountability

Effective community engagement helps to ensure that humanitarian organizations are more accountable to the people they serve. The Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement has developed a robust set of resources that seek to support National Societies to strengthen their practices of engaging with local communities; yet a variety of barriers and challenges still exist in institutionalizing a consistent approach that ensures that community engagement is an integral part of all responses. CDA has partnered with IFRC Africa, IFRC Global, the Kenya Red Cross Society, and IFRC Asia-Pacific to support the operationalization of community engagement and accountability across all programs and operations.

Humanitarian Risk

Shifting Power

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

Humanitarian Risk

Back

Accountability to Affected Populations

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

Do No Harm

Community Engagement and Accountability

Effective community engagement helps to ensure that humanitarian organizations are more accountable to the people they serve. The Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement has developed a robust set of resources that seek to support National Societies to strengthen their practices of engaging with local communities; yet a variety of barriers and challenges still exist in institutionalizing a consistent approach that ensures that community engagement is an integral part of all responses. CDA has partnered with IFRC Africa, IFRC Global, the Kenya Red Cross Society, and IFRC Asia-Pacific to support the operationalization of community engagement and accountability across all programs and operations.

Humanitarian Risk

Shifting Power

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

Humanitarian Risk

Back

Accountability to Affected Populations

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

Do No Harm

Humanitarian Risk

Our deep work with the humanitarian sector drew the attention of practitioners working on humanitarian risk. The HDP nexus requires local organizations to take on different risks than international organizations. In the push for localization, are we putting more harm on local organizations than what international organizations understand and assume? Are local organizations equipped for this? How is the nature of risk changing with the very complex dynamics of conflict, climate change, and global pandemics? InterAction came to CDA to understand how different categories of risk, identified by member organizations like IRC, DRC, and IFRC, interact with each other - to conduct systems research and analysis of drivers for and against strong risk management.

Humanitarian Risk

Shifting Power

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

Where to next?

Accountability to Affected Populations

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

Back

Do No Harm

Do No Harm

Humanitarian Risk

Our deep work with the humanitarian sector drew the attention of practitioners working on humanitarian risk. The HDP nexus requires local organizations to take on different risks than international organizations. In the push for localization, are we putting more harm on local organizations than what international organizations understand and assume? Are local organizations equipped for this? How is the nature of risk changing with the very complex dynamics of conflict, climate change, and global pandemics? InterAction came to CDA to understand how different categories of risk, identified by member organizations like IRC, DRC, and IFRC, interact with each other - to conduct systems research and analysis of drivers for and against strong risk management.

Humanitarian Risk

Shifting Power

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

Where to next?

Accountability to Affected Populations

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

Back

Do No Harm

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

In the early 2000s, RPP offered practical answers to the program’s core questions about effectiveness in the peacebuilding field. At its heart, RPP is about questioning assumptions, coupling analysis to everyday work, and demanding that we work toward a concept of peace that is greater than the success of individual programs.

• What works in peace programming?
• What are the effective roles for “outsiders” in promoting peace?
• Should peace practitioners be accountable for their contributions to “Peace Writ Large”?
• How can peace programs be measured or evaluated?
• What are the appropriate criteria for judging effectiveness?
• Can systems thinking tools assist in better conflict analyses and the more effective use of analysis in program design?

Humanitarian Risk

Shifting Power

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

"During a time of such profound change in the world, it gives me great comfort to know that CDA continues its focus on deep and creative learning at the highest levels, and constantly refines what best practices mean in a shifting peacebuilding and development landscape." Melanie Greenberg, Managing Director, Peacebuilding, Humanity United

Accountability to Affected Populations

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

Do No Harm

Policy and practice

Back

Reflecting on Peace Practice

In the early 2000s, RPP offered practical answers to the program’s core questions about effectiveness in the peacebuilding field. At its heart, RPP is about questioning assumptions, coupling analysis to everyday work, and demanding that we work toward a concept of peace that is greater than the success of individual programs.

• What works in peace programming?
• What are the effective roles for “outsiders” in promoting peace?
• Should peace practitioners be accountable for their contributions to “Peace Writ Large”?
• How can peace programs be measured or evaluated?
• What are the appropriate criteria for judging effectiveness?
• Can systems thinking tools assist in better conflict analyses and the more effective use of analysis in program design?

Humanitarian Risk

Shifting Power

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

"During a time of such profound change in the world, it gives me great comfort to know that CDA continues its focus on deep and creative learning at the highest levels, and constantly refines what best practices mean in a shifting peacebuilding and development landscape." Melanie Greenberg, Managing Director, Peacebuilding, Humanity United

Accountability to Affected Populations

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

Do No Harm

Policy and practice

Back

Influencing Donor and Organizational Policy

Demand for the Reflecting on Peace Practice lessons and framework grew rapidly, within both donor and policy circles and among practitioners hungry to work smarter and more effectively. In 2006, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC) asked CDA's help developing their global approach to evaluations of conflict prevention and peacebuilding activities. By integrating RPP evidence and analysis into the OECD DAC's core ways of working, CDA influenced dozens of other public and private donors and the practice of hundreds of local organization and INGO grantees in every global region. In 2022, the OECD DAC released its States of Fragility framework, which draws on the impact of this work to guide effective action in fragile contexts. And as of the same year, CDA has teamed with the US Institute for Peace to leverage learning from these and other global efforts as we advise the US Global Fragility Act implementation.

Humanitarian Risk

Shifting Power

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

Accountability to Affected Populations

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

Environmental Peacebuilding

Back

Do No Harm

Influencing Donor and Organizational Policy

Demand for the Reflecting on Peace Practice lessons and framework grew rapidly, within both donor and policy circles and among practitioners hungry to work smarter and more effectively. In 2006, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC) asked CDA's help developing their global approach to evaluations of conflict prevention and peacebuilding activities. By integrating RPP evidence and analysis into the OECD DAC's core ways of working, CDA influenced dozens of other public and private donors and the practice of hundreds of local organization and INGO grantees in every global region. In 2022, the OECD DAC released its States of Fragility framework, which draws on the impact of this work to guide effective action in fragile contexts. And as of the same year, CDA has teamed with the US Institute for Peace to leverage learning from these and other global efforts as we advise the US Global Fragility Act implementation.

Humanitarian Risk

Shifting Power

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

Accountability to Affected Populations

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

Environmental Peacebuilding

Back

Do No Harm

Environment-Fragility-Peace Nexus

Building on the RPP framework, CDA’s Environment-Fragility-Peace Nexus collaborative learning project is working with local actors to create RPP+ as a new systems-based analysis tool to examine context-specific environmental vulnerabilities and factors for/against peace and climate resilience.

Humanitarian Risk

Shifting Power

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

"After having read and heard so much about CDA's impact in the peacebuilding field, I finally had the pleasure of working with them on the nexus of environment, fragility, and peace. It was an honor for me to witness the fantastic team developing a tool for practitioners, putting demands and knowledge of local communities front and center. It is heartening to know that organizations like CDA make sure that local actors are central in finding solutions to all challenges across different fields!" Stella Voutta, Program Director, Peace, Robert Bosch Stiftung

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

Accountability to Affected Populations

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

Where to next?

Back

Do No Harm

Do No Harm

Environment-Fragility-Peace Nexus

Building on the RPP framework, CDA’s Environment-Fragility-Peace Nexus collaborative learning project is working with local actors to create RPP+ as a new systems-based analysis tool to examine context-specific environmental vulnerabilities and factors for/against peace and climate resilience.

Humanitarian Risk

Shifting Power

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

"After having read and heard so much about CDA's impact in the peacebuilding field, I finally had the pleasure of working with them on the nexus of environment, fragility, and peace. It was an honor for me to witness the fantastic team developing a tool for practitioners, putting demands and knowledge of local communities front and center. It is heartening to know that organizations like CDA make sure that local actors are central in finding solutions to all challenges across different fields!" Stella Voutta, Program Director, Peace, Robert Bosch Stiftung

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

Accountability to Affected Populations

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

Where to next?

Back

Do No Harm

The Listening Project

The Listening Project

CDA’s foundational listening methodology came out of a broad, systematic effort to listen to the voices of people who live in countries where international assistance has been given. Between 2005 and 2009, more than 125 international and local aid organizations joined the Listening Project in 20 aid-recipient countries to talk with nearly 6,000 people about their experiences with, and judgments of, international assistance. Listening Teams held conversations with people who represented broad cross-sections of their societies: local leaders and community members, government officials and civil society activists, teachers and students, farmers and business people, men and women, young and old, privileged and marginalized. Time to Listen represents the cumulative evidence of the Listening Project, and a deep recognition that proximate actors are doing incredibly impactful work that is under-recognized and under-celebrated.

Humanitarian Risk

Shifting Power

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

Accountability to Affected Populations

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

Stopping as Success

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Do No Harm

Accountability to affected populations

Back

Stopping as Success (SAS and SAS+)

The original Stopping as Success program explored where meaningful change might happen in locally led development within INGO and local organization relationships.

• Where are the examples of positive organizational and partnership transformations that might support the sector’s imagination on what is possible to actualize locally-led development and shifting power?
• What are the patterns that emerge from those examples?
• What resources/tools are needed to support the sector more widely to make meaningful transformative change?

SAS started answering these questions through case studies and tool development on responsible INGO transitions to local leadership. The next phase, SAS+, tested the work through accompaniment with partners in transition, revising resources, and sector-wide influencing.

Humanitarian Risk

Shifting Power

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

"CDA is more than just an important organization in our field. It is a resource and asset for the entire sector. I can’t think of many organizations which have had such an influence and impact on how our sector thinks about peacebuilding practice. Its outsized impact will continue to shape our field for years to come and CDA deserves our fullest support." Dylan Mathews, CEO, Peace Direct

Accountability to Affected Populations

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

Do No Harm

Shifting Power

Back

Influencing Donor and Organizational Policy

As part of the Local, Faith, and Transformative Partnerships Hub at USAID, the Stopping as Success program helped inform the agency's overall localization agenda. SAS+ is specifically listed as one of three illustrative learning activities in USAID's 2022-2026 Learning Agenda under Question 8: How can USAID more equitably engage local knowledge, assets, and practices and align programming with local priorities and metrics for success? During the final phase of the project, SAS+ is working to ensure the lessons learned on responsible transitions are embedded into USAID policy and organizational structures, and are widely available to any organization embarking on a leadership transformation.

Humanitarian Risk

Shifting Power

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

Where to next?

Accountability to Affected Populations

Back

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

The Listening Project

Do No Harm

Do No Harm

Corporate Engagement

CDA’s Corporate Engagement Program (CEP) was established in 2000 to promote the development of positive, constructive relationships between companies and the local communities where corporate operations take place, with particular attention to conflict contexts. The program worked with individual companies, multilateral institutions, industry associations, and civil society to advance best practices in the areas of corporate social responsibility and conflict sensitive approaches to community engagement and social investment. Between 2000 and 2009, CDA conducted 40 field assessments, primarily within the extractive industry, involving over 2000 individual and group consultations. While CEP’s focus was on extractive industries, the tools, frameworks, and guidance from the program are immediately applicable to companies from a broad range of industries that operate in complex environments and conflict zones around the world.

Humanitarian Risk

Shifting Power

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

Accountability to Affected Populations

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

Getting it Right

Back

Do No Harm

Getting it Right

The lessons derived from the Corporate Engagement Program are presented in Getting It Right: Making Corporate-Community Relations Work. Many of the field assessments captured the experiences of companies in challenging operating environments like Nigeria, Colombia, Sudan, and Myanmar. After the book’s publication, CEP continued to implement and test its lessons through field visits and consultations in relation to extractive company locations around the world. Getting it Right presents a framework for company managers to analyze the consequences of their decisions for communities, as well as practical management options for improving corporate impacts.

Humanitarian Risk

Shifting Power

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

UrbanSMEs

Accountability to Affected Populations

Back

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

Do No Harm

Small and medium-sized enterprises in fragile urban contexts

Humanitarian Risk

Shifting Power

Environmental Peacebuilding

SMEs in fragile urban contexts

In much of the world, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the primary providers of employment and livelihoods. This is particularly true for large cities in LMICs – places that host an increasing share of the world’s population. Many of these same cities are also affected by significant violence and insecurity. SMEs are often victims of violence and crime. They may also engage in violent activities themselves, including by collaborating with criminal organizations or laundering money. In partnership with the University of Oslo, Universidad de los Andes, University of Stellenbosch, and Peace Research Institute Oslo, CDA is exploring the ways in which violence affects SMEs and how SMEs affect violence. The project compares these dynamics in seven cities struggling with different forms of violence: Bogotá and Medellín, Colombia; San Salvador, El Salvador; Caracas, Venezuela; Beirut, Lebanon; Kampala, Uganda; and Cape Town, South Africa.

Community Engagement & Accountability

Stopping as Success

Getting it Right

Policy and practice

Accountability to Affected Populations

The Listening Project

Reflecting on Peace Practice

Corporate Engagement

Where to next?

Back

Do No Harm

Do No Harm