Listening Program Update

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27 October 2011

Welcome to the Listening Program Update!

Dear Colleagues,

We have been busy this past year since the last LP update and want to share what the Listening Program has being working on recently!

Perhaps the most significant publication we've produced this year is a report on “Feedback Mechanisms in International Assistance Organizations,” which is elaborated on below. We have also produced a number of Policy Briefs, which highlight perspectives from people in aid recipient societies on aid effectiveness principles and current debates in the lead up to the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness later this year. Finally, we are continuing work on the final publication for this phase of the Listening Program which will be released in 2012. This book will summarize the experiences of local people gathered across the Listening Exercises and suggest ways to improve international aid efforts.

Thanks for your interest in the Listening Program and let us know if you have any questions or feedback!

The LP team

How do agencies gather and utilize feedback? Read this new report!

Aid recipients want to share feedback. They want to tell aid providers their ideas and suggestions for making assistance more effective. They want acknowledgement that they have been heard. And most importantly, they want to see their feedback being utilized.

In over 20 Listening Exercises conducted around the world, many people told listening teams of their desire to provide feedback to—and hear back from—those who provide assistance in their societies. Many felt that despite the numerous assessments and evaluations they had participated in, they still did not feel they had been genuinely heard.

As a consequence, they thought that opportunities were missed to share important feedback on the effects of aid efforts, agencies’ performance, and other issues related to accountability and effectiveness.

These findings prompted the Listening Program to undertake a supplementary research project to learn how agencies gather, respond to and make use of recipient feedback. Our goal was to gather information on the types of feedback mechanisms used by international assistance organizations and the lessons that could be learned about their effectiveness. To do this, we spent several months reading numerous organizational policies, reports, articles, manuals and other documents and interviewed people from aid agencies about their experiences with feedback mechanisms.

This research, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, yielded our report, “Feedback Mechanisms in International Assistance Organizations.”

CDA invites you to read this report, to share it with your colleagues and partners, and to give us your thoughts and suggestions on how to improve the effective use of feedback mechanisms by donors, governments and civil society organizations in the future so that aid recipients' voices are heard.

Policy Briefs from CDA: Bringing local voices into international policy discussions

In preparation for publishing the findings from the Listening Program, CDA has identified the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF4), to be held in Busan, Korea in December 2011, as an important opportunity to bring the voices and recommendations of aid recipients to the attention of the international community. As a part of this mission, we have produced a number of Policy Briefts to highlight how lessons and findings from LP and other CDA programs relate to several of the issues to be discussed in Busan.

The Listening Project and Aid Effectiveness: Aid Recipient Perspectives on the Paris Declaration Read this brief to find out how the experiences and priorities identified by local people in aid recipient societies align with the Paris Declaration Principles on Aid Effectiveness. (June 2011)

Partnering with the Private Sector: Local Perspectives on Optimizing Development Opportunities This brief discusses evidence and lessons from CDA’s Corporate Engagement Program regarding principles for effective corporate engagement in development efforts. (Oct 2011)

Local Perceptions of International Engagement in Fragile States and Situations This paper presents feedback gathered by CDA’s programs on the applicability of the OECD Fragile States Principles and local perceptions of how they have been implemented. (July 2011)

The Listening Project and Development Effectiveness This document outlines six key issues that local people feel need to be addressed in order to make international assistance more effective in supporting their development.(Feb 2011)

The Listening Project and Good Humanitarian Donorship This brief outlines six key issues that local people feel need to be addressed in order to improve humanitarian donorship.(Feb 2011)

Issue Papers

Listening Project has produced three new Issue Papers this year, "Whose Development? Aid Recipient Perspectives on Ownership," "Perceptions of Aid in Places of Conflict" and "Dealing with Corruption."

These three and our other Issue Papers are available online by following these links:

Whose Development? Aid Recipient Perspectives on Ownership (English)
Perceptions of Aid in Places Affected by Conflict (English)
Dealing with Corruption (English)
The Role of Staffing Decisions (English)
International Assistance as a Delivery System (English) (French)
The Cascading Effects of International Agendas and Priorities (English) (French) (Spanish)
Structural Relationships in the Aid System (English) (Spanish)
"Discuss Together, Decide Together, Work Together" (English) (French)
The Importance of Listening (English) (Spanish)
Presence: "Why Being Here Matters" (English) (French)

Listening Program Impact Survey

At the beginning of this year, we asked you all to give us your feedback about how the Listening Program has influenced your work and your practice. Survey respondents told us about their efforts to listen more to those they aim to support. They also told us about obstacles to listening more and listening well. The summary of findings from the this survey are now available.

Thank you to everyone who completed the survey!

A few key impacts from survey respondents:

“We’re gaining trust of our partners as we learn to give them space to be listened to. There is mutual understanding and our relationships with community partners are strengthened.”

“[There is now] Greater ownership of project activities by beneficiaries and more positive impact of our work among beneficiaries.”

“Some of the learning that came out of the country listening exercise that I was involved in have been applied to the way I design and evaluate projects.”

“We incorporated this process into our institution’s training on Peace, Conflict and Development, and in our Fragile States training. We provided reports and discussed findings with relevant country programs staff and partners.”

“Staff involved gained greater understanding of how their programs were perceived in the wider community, which helped them develop and strengthen accountability mechanisms. Changes in organisational practice were made to reduce some internal costs.”

“We used the case studies to orient members to the need to push for bottom-up planning, programming and M&E.”

Thanks for reading!

Don't hessitate to contact the LP team if you have questions about the program, our future work, or anything else!