written by Anisha Poobalan In theory, PDIA seemed like the most logical, straightforward way to go about solving a problem. A team is formed, they deconstruct the identified problem and then attack each causal area, learning and adapting as they go. Being in the field, meeting with the teams weekly, hearing about the obstacles cropping…Continue Reading Motivating teams to muddle through
written by Anisha Poobalan The PDIA team has been working in Sri Lanka for the past six months with five talented and motivated government teams. This work is challenging and demands hard work by government officials and yet through short, repeated iterations, real progress is achieved. The teams update a facilitator every two weeks while…Continue Reading Building capability: the true success of PDIA
Guest blog post by S. Nagarajan I recently joined the PDIA online course, inspired by attending the launch of the Building State Capability Book at the Center for International Development at Harvard University. A few weeks into the course, I was introduced to the typology of the capability required depending on the task. The task…Continue Reading Dealing with a wicked hard problem in India
Guest blog written by Susana Cordeiro Guerra Why is it that, despite the abundant resources invested and the largely favorable macroeconomic conditions that have prevailed until recently, middle-income countries have been unable to systematically deliver quality basic services, such as education and safety, to their citizens? Despite a wide variety of attempts to improve these crucial…Continue Reading Finding the Fringes of Formality: Organizational Capability in Street-Level Bureaucracies in Brazil
How does the government of Indonesia make its presence felt by all 250 million citizens across the sprawling archipelago? While decentralization provides district governments the authority to address local needs, effective execution of these functions relies heavily on the capacity of the local governments to analyze service gaps and drive more coordinated efforts to address…Continue Reading PDIA in Indonesia: The new frontline service delivery policy
Written by Michael Woolcock The frequency and sophistication with which case studies are deployed by social scientists has greatly expanded in recent years. The goal now is not merely to document or describe, but to diagnose, explain, interpret, and inform a basis for action. Professional schools across the disciplines – from medicine and engineering to…Continue Reading Making the case for case studies in development practice
The importance of thinking and working politically in programs concerned with governance and institutional reform is widely recognized – but shifting from thinking politically to working politically is proving a major challenge. The State Accountability and Voice Initiative (SAVI), a governance reform program in Nigeria, supports local partners and stakeholders not through the usual accountable…Continue Reading Rising to the challenge: Supporting PDIA in Nigeria
written by Salimah Samji How do you effectively monitor an 8 year, £83.5 million (around USD$135 million) challenge fund that partners with NGOs to improve the livelihood of 1 million beneficiaries? A daunting task indeed. The Economic Empowerment of the Poorest (EEP/Shiree) program is a partnership between the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the…Continue Reading EEP/Shiree: Using adaptive programming to monitor change in Bangladesh
written by Salimah Samji Most development practitioners think that they are working on problems. However, what they often mean by the word ‘problem’ is the ‘lack of a solution’. This leads to designing typical, business as usual interventions, without addressing the actual problem. Essentially, they sell solutions to specific problems they have identified and prioritized…Continue Reading How can we learn when we don’t understand the problem?
written by Salimah Samji International development experts often tell us that they cannot do PDIA because the project processes within their organizations do not allow for flexibility. The truth however, is that all development agencies have some sort of instrument that does allow for experimentation and flexibility. Here’s an example of how a Pay and…Continue Reading World Bank uses PDIA in Sierra Leone
