Cross-Cutting Practices
Guidance on what to build, evidence of what it delivered, and the capability to carry it on.
Three practices run across all five practice areas: knowledge of the development and humanitarian field deep enough to shape bankable projects and quality portfolios, the monitoring and evaluation that shows whether those programs deliver, and the training that leaves the capability with the client.
Knowing the field. Proving the results.
A good idea is not yet a program. It becomes one when it is designed to the standards of the institution that will finance it, coordinated with everyone else working in the same space, and built with the evidence to show later whether it delivered.
These three cross-cutting practices are the connective tissue of our work. The first is our knowledge of the development and humanitarian field — its financing windows, appraisal standards, coordination architecture and the political realities of fragile settings. Clients come to us for guidance on how to develop projects and programs, and on how to build quality portfolios: operations that are properly designed, coherent with one another, and capable of being implemented.
The second is monitoring and evaluation. We build the results frameworks, indicators and theories of change that make performance visible, and we conduct independent evaluations for UN agencies, development banks and bilateral donors. The two are deliberately linked: the same understanding of what a financier requires at appraisal is what makes an evaluation useful at the end.
Neither sits in a silo. Both are applied by all five practices — governance reform, human rights and mobility, inclusive services, private sector, and capital markets — because every assignment eventually has to be designed, financed, coordinated and accounted for.
Generate the evidence, grow the capability, transfer the ownership.
Advising on what to build, evaluating what was built, and leaving the capability behind are the same knowledge applied across a program’s life. Open any one for what it covers and where we have done it.
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Bankable Projects and Programs
Guidance on how to develop projects and programs, and how to build and manage a quality portfolio.
Bankable Projects and Programs
Guidance on how to develop projects and programs, and how to build and manage a quality portfolio.
Clients rely on us for guidance on how to develop projects and programs, and on how to assemble those individual operations into a portfolio that holds together. That advice rests on knowing the development and humanitarian field from the inside: how governments and donors coordinate around a national plan, how financing windows appraise proposals, what a development bank or climate fund requires before it will commit, and how bilateral cooperation adapts when a country becomes unstable.
We advise in two directions. For governments, we help prepare projects and programs that meet the standards of the institutions expected to finance them, and help build the coordination machinery through which external support is managed. For donors and development organizations, we advise on the quality and coherence of their portfolios — whether their approach to programming in fragile and conflict-affected settings is realistic, conflict-sensitive and capable of adapting when the context shifts, and whether the operations within it are designed to deliver.
Guidance on project and program development · portfolio quality and coherence · aid management and donor coordination · alignment with national development plans · financing-window and appraisal requirements · concept notes and funding proposals · budget-support review · fragile and conflict-affected programming · political-economy analysis · risk management and Do No Harm · adaptive programming · institutional readiness for implementation
A financier does not fund an idea. It funds a case that has already answered its own hardest questions.
What problem is this operation actually solving, and for whom?
Analysis a financier will accept: technical, economic, institutional and political.
Components, sequencing, costs and the institutions expected to deliver them.
The standard of the financing window, met before submission rather than after.
Coordination machinery, readiness to implement, and a results framework that holds.
Aid management and coordination ahead of the 8th Five-Year Plan
CGA assisted the international community and the Government of Bangladesh in developing suitable coordination mechanisms ahead of the 8th Five-Year Plan — the architecture through which external assistance is aligned with national planning priorities, so that development partners and government work from a shared set of objectives rather than parallel programs. The work was carried out through facilitated sessions with the Economic Relations Division and the Local Consultative Group, and left an agreed set of recommendations rather than an external report.
A bankable climate-adaptation program, approved and under implementation
Contracted by CAF, CGA delivered a program for the Government of Peru that the Climate Adaptation Fund approved and that is now under implementation, jointly managed by MINAM and PRODUCE. A full worked example of what makes a program bankable: climate-vulnerability analysis and adaptation measures, value-chain and market analysis, producer-organization strengthening, access to microcredit and risk-insurance products, and a monitoring framework with climate-resilience indicators.
Assessment of Belgian Cooperation’s approach in fragile and conflict-affected areas
CGA assisted C-Lever in a comprehensive multi-country evaluation of Belgian bilateral cooperation’s approach to programming across 13 fragile and conflict-affected countries, and led the Guinea country case study. Findings informed Belgian strategic adjustments and adaptive programming for FCV contexts.
Assessment of SNV’s approach in fragile and conflict-affected areas
C-Lever, supported by CGA, evaluated SNV Netherlands Development Organization’s approach to operations in fragile and conflict-affected states — organizational capacity, programming approaches, risk-management systems and institutional adaptations — delivering recommendations on risk-management frameworks, staff security protocols, partnership strategies and monitoring systems adapted to volatile environments.
Economic governance and program preparation in Somalia
A linked body of work preparing and reviewing governance and economic-governance programs in a post-conflict federal setting: the external mid-term review of the EU’s programmatic budget support to governance reforms, the mid-term review of the State and Resilience Building Contract alongside support to Somalia’s progress through the HIPC debt-relief process, and the final evaluation of Support to Stability Program II.
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Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
Evidence on whether programs deliver: results frameworks and theories of change, performance-monitoring systems, and independent evaluation for UN agencies, development banks and bilateral donors.
Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
Evidence on whether programs deliver: results frameworks and theories of change, performance-monitoring systems, and independent evaluation for UN agencies, development banks and bilateral donors.
We design the systems that make performance visible and we conduct the independent evaluations that test it. That includes results frameworks and logical frameworks, theories of change, indicator sets, data-collection and reporting arrangements, and corporate performance-monitoring systems — as well as mid-term and final evaluations conducted against OECD-DAC criteria.
Our evaluations are designed to be used. We work in environments where data is thin, attribution is genuinely difficult and programs operate across several agencies at once, and we translate findings into decisions clients can act on: what to keep, what to redesign, and what a realistic contribution claim looks like.
OECD-DAC evaluation · mid-term and final evaluations · logical frameworks and theories of change · results and performance frameworks · indicator design and data quality · corporate performance-monitoring systems · multi-agency and joint evaluation · quality assurance · evaluation in volatile and low-data environments · learning and knowledge products
External Review of IFAD’s NEN Region Corporate Performance Monitoring System
CGA carried out the external review of IFAD’s Near East and North Africa regional corporate performance monitoring system, assessing monitoring frameworks, indicator quality, data-collection systems and reporting mechanisms. It recommended improvements for results-based management — optimized scorecards, guidance for automation, revised workflow arrangements, and measures to build country-office capacity and improve data quality across the regional portfolio.
Joint evaluation for IOM, UNHCR, UNDP and UNICEF
CGA is conducting a joint evaluation on behalf of four UN agencies in Serbia, assessing performance across the agencies’ combined engagement. Multi-agency evaluations of this kind require a single evidence base and a causal logic that all participating agencies can use, rather than four parallel exercises.
Logical framework and theory of change for the Joint Program on Local Governance III
As Lead Quality Advisor, CGA reviewed and rebuilt the logical framework and theory of change for the third phase of the UN system’s flagship multi-agency local governance program, converting a fragmented set of agency objectives into a coherent causal chain usable by all five participating agencies. CGA had previously led the final evaluation of the program’s second phase.
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Training and Capability Transfer
Political economy analysis for development bank staff, institutional training programs, and partnerships with universities and technical institutes.
Training and Capability Transfer
Political economy analysis for development bank staff, institutional training programs, and partnerships with universities and technical institutes.
Analysis that only we can repeat is of limited use. Where an institution will need to apply a method again and again, we teach it — so the capability stays with the client after the assignment closes.
Our training is built from live assignments rather than generic curricula. Political economy analysis is the clearest example: CGA applies it in fragility assessments and country strategy work for multilateral development banks, and teaches the same method to the staff who will use it in their own operations. We work the same way with governments and local institutions, and maintain partnerships with universities and technical and vocational institutes that extend training beyond the life of a single project.
Political economy analysis training · curriculum and module design · case-based and participatory methodology · training of trainers · institutional and staff capacity development · securities-regulation and market-participant training · municipal and local-government training · TVET and university partnerships · training materials, manuals and tools · post-training application support
Producers, families and local officials at the close of a community workshop in Huánuco, Peru. Capability transfer begins with the people expected to run the program once the assignment ends.
CGA joined mayors and national federations at the Annual Conference of Municipalities on sustainable education and Latin American municipalism.
Working with municipal officials to strengthen the routines, tools and capacity that keep reforms running long after an assignment ends.
Feedback gates and community consultations ground our climate-adaptation work in the realities of the people expected to use it.
Skill-based training on Political Economy Analysis within the context of fragility in Africa
CGA designed and delivered a three-day skill-based training program on political economy analysis for African Development Bank staff drawn from country and regional offices across the continent, built for practitioners who would go on to apply PEA in their own fragility assessments, country strategies and operations. Sessions covered formal and informal institutions, elite bargains and patronage networks, reform champions, veto players and spoilers, extractive resources and fragility, and the Bank’s own approach to fragility.
Capacity building for rural municipal administration and local governance
A modular training program for officials of small rural municipalities, run as three-day intensive workshops covering planning and budgeting, internal controls, procurement, revenue collection and reporting, environmental and disaster-risk responsibilities, human resource management, intergovernmental coordination, and participatory governance. Participants kept manuals, templates and checklists for continued use.
Training for government agencies
Working through our institutional partner SMD Policy Management Group, CGA supports training for government agencies — building the capability of the ministries and agencies expected to carry reform forward once an assignment ends. The arrangement mirrors the way we work with C-Lever on evaluation: a local partner leads and holds the client relationship, with CGA supplying method and technical depth.
Diplomado en Gestión Pública — a two-year professional diploma for local government officials
CGA partnered with CIAPE to design the curriculum for and deliver a two-year Diplomado in public management for municipal officials across Latin America, taught online. The modular structure progresses from the fundamentals of public administration to advanced local governance, with competency frameworks, case studies, practical tools and capstone projects applying the material to real governance challenges in participants’ own municipalities.
Academic and technical institute partnerships
CGA maintains partnerships with universities and technical and vocational institutes that extend training capability beyond the life of a single assignment, giving clients a route to sustained professional development rather than a one-off workshop.
Todd Andrews
Responsible for how CGA delivers: methodology, quality assurance and the standards our evaluations and program designs are held to.
Todd is responsible for the preparation of bankable projects and programs and for the monitoring and evaluation work CGA conducts for UN agencies, development banks and bilateral donors, holding both to a consistent standard of method and evidence. He served eighteen years as a USAID Foreign Service Officer, directing strategy, program design, budget and evaluation across four continents.
As Director of the Program Strategy and Coordination Office in Serbia he guided strategy, project design, budget and evaluation for programs across the Western Balkans, covering judicial and electoral reform, post-conflict reconciliation, safe migration and economic growth, and served as acting Mission Director as needed. In Bangladesh he led a program office of twenty-seven staff, coordinated the response to the Rohingya refugee crisis and finalized a five-year, $922 million country development cooperation strategy. As Chief of the Learning Division at USAID’s Democracy, Human Rights and Governance Center of Excellence he led a team of political science methodologists building agency-wide learning agendas. He closed his USAID career coordinating the agency’s engagements under the Indo-Pacific Strategy across fifteen countries, overseeing all monitoring and evaluation for the Asia region.
- Country strategy and program design
- Monitoring, evaluation and learning agendas
- Portfolio quality and performance analysis
- Donor coordination and government relations
A United States citizen. Holds an MA in Political Science from George Washington University, where he completed doctoral studies in international relations and comparative politics, an MA in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago’s Committee on International Relations and a BA in International Affairs and German from Florida State University. Member of the Project Management Institute and a graduate of the Federal Executive Institute Advanced Leader Program.