We hosted Dan Honig a few weeks ago to discuss his new book published by Oxford University Press. Here are some highlights….Continue Reading New Book: Navigation by Judgment
Watch our new PDIA video!
We have been told many times that the acronym PDIA is clunky and that it doesn’t easily roll off the tongue. Matt Andrews’ response to that has been, “it doesn’t matter what you call it, it matters that you do it.” BUT in order to do it, you need to first understand what it is. We are…Continue Reading Watch our new PDIA video!
Taking stock of our achievements in 2017
written by Salimah Samji The Building State Capability (BSC) program had a very busy 2017. We are a small team of doers who are constantly testing, learning, reflecting, and adapting our approach – essentially PDIAing our way forward, often while charting new waters. …Continue Reading Taking stock of our achievements in 2017
Democratizing PDIA knowledge one practitioner at a time
written by Salimah Samji We now have 569 development practitioners in 64 countries who have successfully completed a version of our free PDIA course. Since we began our online journey in November 2015, we have learned, iterated and adapted our course three times, essentially PDIA-ing our way forward. More than 80% of each cohort has…Continue Reading Democratizing PDIA knowledge one practitioner at a time
Building State Capability: Review of an important (and practical) new book
Guest blog by Duncan Green Jetlag is a book reviewer’s best friend. In the bleary small hours in NZ and now Australia, I have been catching up on my reading. The latest was ‘Building State Capability’, by Matt Andrews, Lant Pritchett and Michael Woolcock, which builds brilliantly on Matt’s 2013 book and the subsequent work…Continue Reading Building State Capability: Review of an important (and practical) new book
PDIA Course: Alumni are already practicing what they learned
written by Salimah Samji We offered 4 free PDIA online courses between November 2015 and June 2016. They were well received and 365 people, living in 56 countries, successfully completed the courses. In January 2017, we surveyed the 365 PDIA course alumni to learn whether (and how) they are using PDIA in their day-to-day lives. 113 (31%) of…Continue Reading PDIA Course: Alumni are already practicing what they learned
Download the new PDIA book for free
written by Salimah Samji We are delighted to inform you that our PDIA book entitled, “Building State Capability: Evidence, Analysis, Action” was just published by Oxford University Press. The book presents an evidence-based analysis of development failures and explains how capability traps emerge and persist. It is not just a critique, it also offers a way of…Continue Reading Download the new PDIA book for free
Doing development differently: two years on, what are we learning?
On 17 November 2016, ODI, in collaboration with the Building State Capability program at Harvard University, convened a private workshop bringing together a number of actors from academia, civil society, and donors, to look at how the adaptive development agenda has been put into practice throughout the world. We attempted to draw out some lessons…Continue Reading Doing development differently: two years on, what are we learning?
The “PDIA: Notes from the Real World” blog series
written by Salimah Samji We are delighted to announce our new PDIA: Notes from the Real World blog series. In this series we will share our lessons from our PDIA experiments over the past five years, on how to facilitate problem driven, iterative and adaptive work . We will also feature some guest blog posts from…Continue Reading The “PDIA: Notes from the Real World” blog series
The PDIA Anthem
Need help decoding the acronym PDIA? Check out the PDIA anthem. This Anthem uses the Instrumental from Mos Def – Mathematics. It was made by a very talented student as part of an assignment for Matt Andrews course entitled Getting Things Done in Development. We had never imagined that we could write a song about…Continue Reading The PDIA Anthem