The Listening Project

CDA Collaborative Learning Projects, best known for Do No Harm, its peace and conflict impact assessment tool, launched LISTEN in 2007. Under this initiative, the "receipients" of international aid, rather than its "providers", voice their views on international aid. Reports on listening exercises with wide ranges of informers in 13 countries can be downloaded from the CDA site. They are useful background information for appraisal or strategic planning exercises - and they remind us of the importance of seeking and keeping in contact with people beyond the microcosm of international aid systems.

Reflecting on Peace Practice - an application

In early March, the German Welt friedens dienst (WFD or "World Peace Service") celebrated its 50th anniversary with an international conference in Berlin. Guest Mary B. Anderson, President of the Collaborative for Development Action (CDA), shared critical reflections on peace work and, in a workshop, demonstrated the importance of defining one's notion of peace and one's theory of change before engaging in such work. The CDA Reflecting on Peace Practice research into the work of some 200 NGOs suggests that effective peace work addresses all four quadrants of the grid above (from CDA's Confronting War, 2003). The grid is not a planning tool but can be used to screen ideas for activities that better flow from a rigorous conflict analysis.