written by Matt Andrews What do you do if your government has been pursuing reforms for years, with apparent success, but your economy is still not growing? What do you do if the constraint seems to be the limited capacity of government organizations? What do you do if this capacity remains stubbornly low even after…Continue Reading Helping REAL Capacity Emerge in Rwanda using PDIA
Everyone agrees that building the rule of law is important. But building the capability of a justice system is a long and difficult process, often susceptible to isomorphic mimicry. In this video, Michael Woolcock, uses an example of legal systems in Cambodia to illustrate how the arbitration council had to learn how to negotiate together…Continue Reading BSC video 31: Crawling together in Cambodia
Solving problems that matter ensure that you are doing something contextually relevant. In this video, Matt Andrews, uses an example of civil service reform in Uganda to illustrate how constructing local problems is the entry point to begin the search for solutions that ultimately drive change. You can watch the video below or on YouTube….Continue Reading BSC video 25: Real problem driven reform
The systems and structures in development are focused heavily on form and not function. In this video, Michael Woolcock uses examples in Uganda and Melanesia to illustrate what happens when you focus excessively on the form and ignore the function. You can watch the video below or on YouTube. If you are interested in learning…Continue Reading BSC Video 17: Isomorphic Mimicry in Uganda and Melanesia
Mimicry is an effective strategy for governments to get short-term support from external development organizations. However, it is an ineffective strategy for building long-term capability. In this video, Matt Andrews uses the lack of fiscal rules in Argentina as an example to illustrate that mimicry does not lead to change. You can watch the video…Continue Reading BSC Video 16: Isomorphic Mimicry in Argentina
Guest post written by Jeffrey Hammer I was recently at a conference in Lahore, Pakistan sponsored by the International Growth Centre where the keynote address was given by Shahbaz Sharif, the Chief Minister of the province of Punjab, Pakistan (100+ million people). While fun to see old friends and colleagues, the conference was a little depressing in…Continue Reading The Chief Minister Posed Questions We Couldn’t Answer
written by Lant Pritchett The period between the end of the American Civil War and the end of World War II saw a transformation of America with the rise of dominant large organizations in both the private economy and public life. The economic historian Alfred Chandler’s in The Visible Hand and Scale and Scope documents…Continue Reading You cannot Juggle without the Struggle: How the USA historically avoided the “Tyranny of Experts”
written by Salimah Samji. Anyone who has ever worked in India knows how hard it is to implement programs. The sheer size of the country makes it impossible for anyone but the government, who is the only one with infrastructure and reach, to provide public services to its citizens. Currently, every district administers typically 100+…Continue Reading PMRDF: an Innovative State Capability Experiment in India
written by Matt Andrews Governments often face unenviable tasks that border on the impossible, given particularly thorny political and administrative complexities. Commentators typically deride governments when they fail in their initial attempts to address such tasks. They pen new laws that are less than many had hoped for, and call public agencies inefficient (or worse)…Continue Reading PDIA and Obamacare
Problems are key to driving change. In this video, Matt Andrews, uses two examples about HIV in Pakistan, to illustrate how constructing local problems using data can be used to mobilize stakeholders to search for solutions that ultimately drive change. You can watch the video below or on YouTube. If you are interested in learning…Continue Reading BSC Video 9: Constructing Problems to Drive Change
