Category: Latin America & Caribbean

Building The Wave

Wave crashing

Written by Lant Pritchett My main objective is to cross-post this Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) blog, Learning From What We Do and Doing What We Learn: What We Gain from a Solution-Search Approach to Building State Capacity by Susana Cordeiro Guerra, manager of Institutions for Development (IFD) at IDB. But in doing so, would like…Continue Reading Building The Wave

Promoting Child Development by Improving Care Quality in Public and Private Institutions in Mexico

Adults and children hold hands on a beach in Mexico at sunset

Guest blog by Miriam Gastélum Aispuro When I got accepted for the IPP Harvard Program, I was happy relief. I thought, “WOW,” we will finally have the answers to the problems we are trying to solve in the Foundation. The course started and after weeks of learning, discussions and lectures, I realized that my thoughts…Continue Reading Promoting Child Development by Improving Care Quality in Public and Private Institutions in Mexico

Exploring Labor Market Challenges in Bogotá, Colombia

Team photo

Guest blog by Soraya Mohideen, Shunta Takino, Michaela Tobin, Akinobu Toyoda, Andres Valenciano Writing a team constitution seemed like a tedious step, but it was vital and something that we recognized as beneficial in other contexts. The process of developing a constitution got every team member to think about what a well-functioning and effective team…Continue Reading Exploring Labor Market Challenges in Bogotá, Colombia

Tackling Traffic Congestion in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Traffic congestion at night

Guest blog by Romeo Ramlakhan, IPP ’22 “Good luck with that!” Those where the exact same words an elected official in City Hall told me in the early days of my tenure as Chief of Staff in the City of Santo Domingo in 2020, as we were discussing municipal policy agenda-setting for the coming years….Continue Reading Tackling Traffic Congestion in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Using PDIA to Implement Health Priorities for the Presidential Election in Argentina

A prescription bottle with pills spilling out

Guest blog by Adolfo Rubinstein, IPP ’22 Having been minister of health of my country during the previous administration (2017-2019), I felt fairly confident in my own policy-making abilities but, at the same time, I realized that policymaking is not an abstraction. It should get to policy implementation and hopefully policy impact. However, as we…Continue Reading Using PDIA to Implement Health Priorities for the Presidential Election in Argentina

Learnings from LEG & Exploring Growth Challenges in El Salvador

Guest Blog by Abdi Aguirre, LEG ’22 When I enrolled in the Leading Economic Growth Program of the Harvard Kennedy School, I thought that I was clear about the economic challenge I wanted to address along the course. As part of the admission process, they ask you to write some lines about it, so I believed…Continue Reading Learnings from LEG & Exploring Growth Challenges in El Salvador

Tackling corrupt taxation practices in Trinidad & Tobago through PDIA

Guest blog by Amrita Deonarine, IPP 2021 I came across this methodology of Problem-driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) in 2020 at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic when global energy prices plummeted, triggering supply shocks, demand shocks, and a health crisis all at the same time. The consequences of this triple whammy almost severed the revenue…Continue Reading Tackling corrupt taxation practices in Trinidad & Tobago through PDIA

Driving Financial Inclusion in Peru using PDIA Approach

Guest blog by Jennifer A. Infantas, IPP 2021 When we think about designing public policies, we need to understand the needs that we are trying to solve and who will be our target beneficiaries. But what about having the responsibility to implement those policies? Probably it might be as hard or even more complicated, challenging,…Continue Reading Driving Financial Inclusion in Peru using PDIA Approach