David Aled Williams
Current projects
Support to Norad's Department of Climate, Nature and the Private Sector
Conflict Enclosures
U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre
Completed projects
Support to International IDEA's Money in Politics Programme
Norad Evaluation of REDD+ Civil Society Support
Congo Basin: How Deforestation Affects Precipitation Patterns
Targeting Natural Resource Corruption (TNRC)
Norad Governance and Transparency Section: Theory of Change
Green economy, low carbon development and international climate change policy
Third Independent Review of the Indonesia-Norway Cooperation on REDD+
Corruption and the illegal caviar trade
Corruption and Commodity Trading
Reducing corrupt practices in environmental decision-making
Workshop on anti-corruption in the Albanian public sector
REDD Integrity
Using Corruption Risk Assessments for REDD+ - An Introduction for Practitioners
Seminar on corruption and anti-corruption in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Natural resources, corruption and trust
Workshop on building civil society for anti-corruption reform in Macedonia
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Journal Articles
Books and Anthologies
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Reports
CMI Reports
U4 Publications
Other Publications
Conference Papers/ Presentations
Newspaper Op-Eds
Newspaper Articles
Popular Presentations and Lectures
Blog posts
U4 Workshops
Political scientist focused on the politics of natural resources, extraction, and carbon governance
Williams' PhD is from the Department of Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. The thesis combined ethnography in Central Sulawesi and Jakarta with satellite and survey data, producing a political ecology of REDD+ in Indonesia. He was a visiting researcher at Tadulako University, Central Sulawesi, during his PhD.
He is author of the monograph: The Politics of Deforestation and REDD+ in Indonesia: Global Climate Change Mitigation (Routledge 2023). His research is published in The Journal of Development Studies, Political Geography, Energy Policy, Environmental Impact Assessment Review, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, and Energy Research and Social Science.
He is co-editor of three books: Anti-Corruption in a Discordant World: Contestation, Abuse, and Innovation (Routledge 2026); Corruption, Natural Resources and Development: From Resource Curse to Political Ecology (Edward Elgar 2017); Corruption, Grabbing and Development: Real-World Challenges (Edward Elgar 2014).
He is co-convenor of the special issue Political Ecology of Resource Corruption in the journal Political Geography, with Dr Achiba Gargule (Feinstein International Center, Tufts University). He co-edits the first Edward Elgar Research Handbook on Corruption and the Environment with Rebecca Dobson Phillips (Sussex Centre for the Study of Corruption) and Rosa Loureiro Revilla (U4-CMI).
Williams' main research interest is the uneven politics of natural resource-driven economic development, particularly corruption, neoliberal environmentalism, hypercapitalist growth, Indigenous Peoples' rights, green energy transitions and inequality. Geographically, his primary field focus is Indonesia and Southeast Asia, but he has also had assignments across Africa, Latin America, and South Asia.
Williams has served as project lead/PI at CMI for longer-term research projects funded by Norad and USAID, as well as shorter reviews and evaluations. He coordinates U4's thematic work on Corruption and Anti-Corruption Efforts in Natural Resources and Energy Sectors.
Williams serves as a member of the board of Transparency International Norge and as a deputy member of the board for the Faculty of Landscape and Society at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU).
In 2025, Williams joined the Norwegian government's delegation to the UN Convention against Corruption Conference of States Parties in Doha as an academic expert.
Williams was previously Senior Research Coordinator at Transparency International in Berlin where he led TI's first policy position and working paper series and worked on projects in Asia-Pacific. He also holds an MA in International Relations from the University of Kent (UK).
Citations to Williams' publications can be found here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LtiAVRQAAAAJ&hl=en