Guest blog by Daniela Espinosa Alarcón, Gabriela Suarez Buitron, Luis Fernando Ochoa, Verónica Villavicencio Pérez This is a team working at the National Secretariat of Higher Education and Technology in Ecuador. They successfully completed the 15-week Practice of PDIA online course that ended in December 2018. This is their story. Developing strategies based on identifying the…Continue Reading Higher Education Access in Ecuador
INOVASI’s experience with PDIA to solve the wicked hard problem of basic education in Indonesia
written by Mark Heyward During the first half of 2018, a group of 21 development practitioners from the Innovation for Indonesia’s School Children (INOVASI) program and partners, formed cross-program groups and completed the intensive, 15-week online course conducted by the Building State Capability program at Harvard’s Centre for International Development, called ‘Practice of PDIA; Building…Continue Reading INOVASI’s experience with PDIA to solve the wicked hard problem of basic education in Indonesia
Best Practice is a Pipe Dream: The AK47 vs M16 debate and development practice
written by Lant Pritchett At a recent holiday party I was discussing organizations and innovations with a friend of mine who teaches at the Harvard Business School about organizations and is a professor and student about technology and history. I told him I was thinking about the lessons for the development “best practice” mantra from…Continue Reading Best Practice is a Pipe Dream: The AK47 vs M16 debate and development practice
How can we learn when we don’t understand the problem?
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?
Common Core Math: when the how undermines the what
written by Salimah Samji Without the how, the what remains fiction — often compelling fiction. Development is littered with examples of projects/reforms that have failed because no one systematically thought through how the project/reform would actually be implemented given the local capacity and context. The common assumption is that if you design a technically sound…Continue Reading Common Core Math: when the how undermines the what