Governance & Democracy

What Europe can learn from business environment reform in the Western Balkans

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The European Union and the Western Balkans are not separated by a simple divide between good and bad regulation. Across countries, governments have adopted regulatory impact assessment, public consultation, digital services and administrative simplification. The more consequential difference lies in consistent implementation across the full regulatory cycle. EU Member States generally have stronger systems for … Read more

When Evidence is a Matter of Survival: How Evaluation Must Defend Our Democracies

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Fewer than 30 per cent of people worldwide live in a democracy now, down from half twenty years back, and with fake news running riot, evaluation isn’t just paperwork anymore, it’s a proper shield for democracy. Van der Knaap says it’s a two-way street: democracy needs solid, independent evaluation to keep governments honest and accountable, … Read more

Learning from Ukraine means going Digital Skills First

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Most digital government strategies start in the wrong place. They begin with services: portals, apps, dashboards. Ukraine started with people. That is the gap most donor strategies have yet to close. Ukraine flips this logic and treats digital literacy as a universal competence, similar to reading, writing or basic civic education. Diia.Education, Ukraine’s national digital … Read more

Values-Driven Causal Pathways Evaluations: Strengthening Rigor and Quality

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Values-driven causal pathways evaluations treat rigor not as control and replicability, but as how well evidence makes complex systems change visible in context. They centre evaluator reflexivity, methodological transparency, and diverse evidence, guided explicitly by values like equity, complexity, and learning utilisation. Inclusive, participatory practice and rubrics-based criteria such as triangulation, plausibility, transferability, and representativeness … Read more

Seeds, Sovereignty and Europe’s Responsibility

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Report from the EU Food Justice Forum, Brussels, 9 June 2026 In a world where multinational agribusinesses increasingly treat food systems as financial markets, smallholder farmers from Zimbabwe, rice breeders from the Philippines and EU parliamentarians gathered in a Brussels conference centre on 9 June 2026. The civil society-organised EU Food Justice Forum placed one … Read more

From Aid Shock to Resilient Systems: Civil Society Sustainability in a Shifting Development Finance Era

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(TL;DR) This issue paper by the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI) argues that the 2025 USAID stop-work order was not merely an external shock but the predictable consequence of deeply entrenched dependency mindsets within West African civil society organisations (CSOs). The paper diagnoses five limiting thought patterns that hinder resource mobilisation and long-term sustainability, … Read more

Evaluation Insights: EU Recovery and Resilience Facility

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Series Evaluation Insights for Policy and Programming (TL;DR) The EU Recovery and Resilience Facility, the EU’s EUR 723.8 billion pandemic recovery instrument, is broadly on track at its halfway point. By end 2023, EUR 225 billion had been disbursed and roughly 75% of planned milestones met, with economic modelling projecting a GDP boost of up … Read more

Why local knowledge matters for cities

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(TL:DR) Local knowledge is a city’s hidden strategic asset: when municipalities, communities, universities and businesses connect what they already know, they can drive transformative learning, social innovation and more resilient urban development, instead of relying mainly on imported expertise. The article concludes that urban practitioners should start with mapping existing knowledge, value qualitative methods, design … Read more

Decentralization in Africa: Time for a Strategic Reset

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(TL;DR) Germany has invested heavily in decentralization in Africa and achieved real improvements at the local level, but national power structures remain largely centralized, so a strategic reset is needed to align future support with political realities, focus on fewer but stronger programs, and embed decentralization more smartly in democracy, service delivery, and sector reforms. … Read more

Rebuilding Trust Before Rebuilding Walls: Social Cohesion Lessons from Irpin, Ukraine

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Physical reconstruction alone will not restore Ukraine. Evidence from war-torn Irpin shows that without deliberate investment in civic trust, bricks and mortar risk becoming monuments to elite capture rather than pillars of democratic recovery. The German Platform for the Reconstruction of Ukraine recently hosted the event Reconstructing Trust: Social Cohesion and Recovery in War-Torn Irpin. … Read more

Voice, Rights, and Credibility: Karsten Weitzenegger and ver.di’s Media, Journalism and Film Group

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Behind every well-researched article, every policy brief, and every expert commentary stands a professional who deserves both recognition and protection. As a specialist journalist for politics and economics (Fachjournalist für Politik und Wirtschaft), Karsten Weitzenegger is a member of ver.di — Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft, organised within the Fachgruppe Medien, Journalismus und Film. What is ver.di? ver.di … Read more

United for a Just Transition: Karsten Weitzenegger and the Society for International Development

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Society for International Development

Development work is as much about ideas and networks as it is about projects. Karsten Weitzenegger is a member of the Society for International Development (SID), one of the oldest and most respected global networks of development professionals, thinkers, and advocates working toward a more equitable and sustainable world. What is SID? Founded in 1957, … Read more