written by Kate Bridges and Michael Woolcock In Malawi, efforts at institutional reform have been numerous, earnest and longstanding. Since 1966, there have been more than three times as many World Bank projects with ‘institutional reform’ content as there have been in any other thematic or sectoral category. In a recent paper, we argue that these…Continue Reading Why do we persist so long with a reform approach that does not solve problems?
My PDIA Journey
Guest blog by Awa Touray The reality of public service is that you are often bogged down with routine tasks that don’t often allow you the room to innovate and initiate. So, in an environment that is very reactionary, the Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) project provided an exciting avenue to be proactive in tackling public…Continue Reading My PDIA Journey
Getting things done: PFM reform in Africa
written by Tim McNaught We recently wrote about the closing workshop we held in December, in collaboration with CABRI, for the Building PFM Capabilities in Africa program. There is now a summary event page on the CABRI website with all of the presentations from the seven participating country teams. During the workshop, each team presented…Continue Reading Getting things done: PFM reform in Africa
Learning to improve Sri Lanka’s business and investment climate using PDIA
written by Peter Harrington This past week, the Building State Capability (BSC) program published two new papers about our work doing PDIA-in-practice in Sri Lanka. The first paper is about working to improve Sri Lanka’s business and investment climate, and is the subject of this blog post. The second is about working to promote foreign…Continue Reading Learning to improve Sri Lanka’s business and investment climate using PDIA
PDIA and PFM in Africa
written by Salimah Samji We just held our final workshop for the Building PFM Capabilities in Africa Program, in collaboration with CABRI, in Johannesburg from December 11-13, 2017. Teams from Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa, The Gambia, and The Kingdom of Lesotho, participated in this program….Continue Reading PDIA and PFM in Africa
Building PFM Capabilities in Africa
written by Tim McNaught For the past 30 years, governments across Africa have been implementing public financial management (PFM) reforms with mixed results. While budgets, laws and processes have improved, they are often not effectively implemented (Andrews 2010). Technical solutions, commonly copied from upper-income countries, do not always take into account the local context and can…Continue Reading Building PFM Capabilities in Africa
Sequencing in the construction of State capacity: Walk before you can run
Guest blog by Ajay Shah In thinking about the State, there are two useful principles: We should embark on things that we can do (i.e. don’t take on things that we don’t have the ability to do); and We should walk before we run (i.e. do simple things, achieve victory, then move on to a…Continue Reading Sequencing in the construction of State capacity: Walk before you can run
How did China Create “Directed Improvisation”?
written by Lant Pritchett Yuen-Yuen Ang, a Professor of Political Science at University of Michigan came to speak at Harvard the other day and I was lucky enough to hear her presentation. Her most recent book is How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, which is an original and insightful take on what is perhaps the…Continue Reading How did China Create “Directed Improvisation”?
Motivating teams to muddle through
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
Building capability: the true success of PDIA
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