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 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
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
(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
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
(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
(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
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
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
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
I wanted to honour the idea landscape that Jürgen Habermas left us for democracy, public debate, and evidence-informed policy and evaluation. Many of my senior colleagues trained in Germany are influenced by his work. For all others I produced a little Habermas Toolbox. A Tribute to a Philosopher Who Shaped How We Think About Science … Read more
The following references reflect a track record of Karsten Weitzenegger built over more than 30 years of consulting and evaluation work across Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Governance & Democracy Department Head AGEG Human Rights and Governance department leading expert services and policy dialogue role Department Head country Germany donor mixed including BMZ EU … Read more
