Guest blog by Sonia Umu Karim, IPP ’23
One of my favourite quotations, which I came across during my secondary school years and which has kept me going through many frustrating ups and downs working on public sector reforms in Sierra Leone is by Henry David Thoreau; it goes “All endeavour calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil.” As I look back at the past 5 plus months of trying to make progress on critical challenges with public sector pay using the tools and techniques I’m learning in the Implementing Public Policy course, this quote by Thoreau, who coincidentally attended Harvard College, becomes more and more apropos. The Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) approach to addressing complex policy problems, which I’m learning in this IPP course, promotes taking short action steps informed by a careful construction, deconstruction and sequencing problem analysis technique. The short action steps enable implementers and policy makers to make progress, but with less risk and more opportunities for reflection, learning, adaptation and iteration, before scaling up.
I enrolled in the Implementing Public Policy course in May 2023 because I was at an impasse; I have been working on public sector reforms in Sierra Leone for over ten years and we seem to be avoiding the biggest elephant in the room affecting public sector productivity and performance. Whilst Sierra Leone has made considerable progress over the years in establishing fairly robust governance, public administration and service delivery structures and systems, there has been very little traction on establishing a structured system for removing the huge pay imbalances and for paying public servants a living wage, which would likely entail some rationalization of personnel, as well as putting a halt to the arbitrary setting of salaries and conditions of service by subvented agencies, all actions that pose significant political and economic risks for politicians (‘Big Ps’) and civil service leaders (‘small ps’) authorizers. From my very first online class with Matt and Salimah when the former stated, “…it could be we don’t know what we’re doing, here are ideas that we have…” I was intrigued, no relieved, that I did not have to have all the answers to solve my policy challenge. Instead over the course of these five plus months I have had an opportunity to unpack and assess my policy problem using various lenses, including through the lenses of work colleagues, supervisors, and civil service and political stakeholders. In constructing and deconstructing my problem, I have gained a better understanding of the numerous uncertainties /unknowns we are dealing with in trying to tackle pay reform, some of which greatly increase the risks and make possible solutions much more difficult to employ.
During our in-person week at Harvard in June, I had an amazing breakthrough working through my numerous Fishbone diagrams with our group TA, Kriti. I finally understood that successfully addressing pay reforms did not necessarily mean finding solutions to all the various factors I had listed in my initial Fishbone diagram, but that rather, each small action that we undertook and made progress on was success. As a result, I modified my problem statement and Fishbone diagram, focusing on improving the legal and regulatory framework as an entry point for tackling pay reform. Returning back to Sierra Leone after an exhilarating week of soaking up positive energy and shared passion for improving lives and livelihoods from my course mates and the IPP faculty and staff, (the amazing breakfast avocado in the HKS cafeteria was positively inspirational in itself!), I have put two lessons in action – one, I give/show grace (this being the greatest lesson I learned from Matt!) to my work colleagues, bosses, and especially my political authorizers, who I have come to regard as teammates rather than adversaries on this journey; and two, I celebrate the small steps we take forward as wins, and this positive outlook has improved my outlook on our chances of making some meaningful improvements in pay reform, and has further strengthened my resolve to stay the course. Doing the Triple A problem sequencing exercise at various intervals during the course period has made me much more aware of my and others’ values given our different levels of authority, ability and acceptance. Knowing that all of us working on pay reforms have some level of authority, ability and acceptance which can be tapped into, has given me much more confidence in the ideas that are being generated. Because my work on pay reform has always taken place at the very highest levels of policymaking, at the level of the Presidency and Cabinet, I have been pleasantly surprised at the valuable insights gleaned from expanding my scope of engagement and communicating my learning and leads gains to other stakeholders, including those not in the public sector. In closing, I will say that the PDIA approach is not a magic bullet for developing and implementing public policy solutions; however, in my case, it has provided me with a more nuanced and positive understanding of policy making and how to tackle pay reforms and has empowered me to stay the course and tramp the last mile(s).
This is a blog series written by the alumni of the Implementing Public Policy Executive Education Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. 47 Participants successfully completed this 7-month hybrid program in December 2023. These are their learning journey stories.