From May 2017 to February 2022, LTI 3 sought to prevent further deterioration in political and security conditions in Libya while preserving as much space as possible for eventual political compromise, unified civilian leadership, reconciliation, and positive political transition. The program worked in strategic communities where stability is most fragile while seizing windows of opportunity…
Haiti needed a functional justice system for its citizens to emancipate economic development and lift Haiti out of extreme poverty To do so, JSSP used strategies with various stakeholders to adopt a modernized Haitian penal procedural code, replacing the outdated 1835 version. Legislations to accompany the code, such as the laws on prosecutors, and the…
More than 2 million Venezuelans have migrated to Colombia since 2016, fleeing social, economic, and political hardship in search of employment and essential services. This massive population influx, coupled with sizeable numbers of Colombian returnees displaced by 50 years of armed conflict, has acutely strained public and private services and systems, particularly in urban areas…
Dr. Peter Vaz is a local governance and capacity building specialist with more than 20 years of experience in decentralization, multi-sectoral governance, local government transformation, and institutional capacity-building. He joined the Chemonics’ Democracy and Governance Practice from a recent field assignment in Vietnam where he served as chief of party for the USAID Strengthening Provincial…
Tomas Bridle previously served as the global practice lead for Chemonics’ democracy and governance practice. He has more than 20 years of experience designing and implementing democracy and governance programming worldwide, including as a senior advisor for USAID’s Center of Excellence for Democracy, Human Rights and Governance. where he supported anticorruption and accountability, elections, civil…
People-centered justice (PCJ) is a rule of law approach that relies on the perspectives, needs, strengths, and expectations of the justice user to improve the quality of justice and reduce barriers to service delivery. It is an approach designed to fill the gaps of traditional, institution-focused programming that has left an estimated 5 billion people…
For years, public confidence in Colombia’s justice system has been troublingly low, particularly in rural areas that lack sufficient government presence. Citizens in these areas interact with a justice system that is unresponsive to their needs and has a limited capacity to meet local requirements. Opportunities to improve citizens’ trust in the justice system are…
Olga Ponamarova (she/her/hers) is a gender and social inclusion specialist with more than 10 years of experience in project management working with and within civil society organizations and humanitarian response and development projects in Ukraine. Olga worked for the USAID-funded Democratic Governance East project as a gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) specialist contributing to…
Strengthening the rule of law, establishing an independent judiciary, and combating corruption have been priorities for many Ukrainians since independence in 1991, and have increased in importance following the Euromaidan and Revolution of Dignity in 2014. Despite popular support and political will for sweeping reforms, the establishment of new judicial bodies, and the reform of…
We’d like you to meet Karina Perez Jvostova! Karina is Chemonics’ monitoring, evaluation, and learning specialist for USAID’s Violence Prevention and Reduction Activity in Mexico. In this video, she shares her path to global development, what she learned as an UNLEASH ambassador, and advice for those interested in working in the development sector. Posts on the blog represent the…
The intractable challenges associated with effective, sustainable, fully financed service delivery and community improvement require a more comprehensive approach to financing. Budget shortfalls, misused public funds, and the absence of innovative and responsive policies also erode trust in democratic systems in a world increasingly contending with nondemocratic movements. This blog post examines the merits of…