Guest blog written by Andrew McIntyre Public policy is hard. Mitigating climate change as biodiversity continues to decline, tackling growing wealth inequality, and building a healthy, pluralistic society in the face of rising authoritarian populist movements across the world are just some of the most significant problems facing governments in 2019. These problems are complex,…Continue Reading Improving Roadside Ecology in Calgary
Introducing our new Practice of PDIA Podcast Series
written by Salimah Samji One of the core values of the Building State Capability (BSC) program is to make our tools and approach publicly available for use by development practitioners who are in the weeds of implementing public policies and programs. In the same vein, we have: Enabled an open access title of our Building…Continue Reading Introducing our new Practice of PDIA Podcast Series
The Mozambique School Lunch Initiative
Guest blog written by Cara Myers It was March of 2016 and the rains had completely failed for a second year in southern Mozambique. Farming families had no crops. Children were missing school to dig up river roots to eat. Teachers were sending students home because they were “too hungry to learn anything.” Even in…Continue Reading The Mozambique School Lunch Initiative
The Big Stuck in State Capability and Premature Load Bearing, Some New Evidence
written by Lant Pritchett In the book Building State Capability one of the explanations of the very slow progress shown in acquiring effective and capability administration in developing countries was that the adoption of “best practice” from countries with different and higher capability administration actually made it more difficult to build capability. The attempts to…Continue Reading The Big Stuck in State Capability and Premature Load Bearing, Some New Evidence
PDIA for Delivery Facilitation
written by Matt Andrews We at the Building State Capability program (BSC) have been working directly with governments for over a decade now; focused on helping agents in those governments build their capability to deliver for citizens and society. We are not consultants. We do not write purely academic papers, offer technical advice, or work…Continue Reading PDIA for Delivery Facilitation
Views of public policy implementation success and failure: Sharing my thoughts
written by Matt Andrews There are many views on what constitutes success and failure in public policy implementation. I have been chewing on these a lot over the last couple of years as I try to make sense of the challenges of implementation and of knowing when implementation is going well or not. Here are…Continue Reading Views of public policy implementation success and failure: Sharing my thoughts
Going Back in order to go Forward (South Africa)
Guest blog written by Lolo Isabelle Balindile Manzini, Xolani Innocent Mthembu, Katerina Nicolaou-Manias, Godfrey F. Phetla, Vijay Valla It sounds counter-intuitive to go back over and over again in order to go forward. Going back to the drawing board to re-examine, re-assess, review, refine and revise the problem statement and its root causes is one…Continue Reading Going Back in order to go Forward (South Africa)
Why do public policies fail? Categorizing the challenges
written by Matt Andrews Governments—and other public policy organizations—undertake many different tasks, implementing a diverse set of policies and projects. Many of these policies and projects are not considered successful. My recent blog post noted that failure occurs more often than anyone would likely consider optimal. There are many reasons for policy failure, and my…Continue Reading Why do public policies fail? Categorizing the challenges
Can States Promote Game Changing Growth?
written by Matt Andrews This post relates to the working paper, ‘Who Wins in the World Economy and English Football?’ The Question: ‘Can We Get Game Changing Growth?’ Governments are interested in addressing many problems. In our experience at Building State Capability (BSC), the number one problem always centers on the word ‘growth’. However, the problem is…Continue Reading Can States Promote Game Changing Growth?
How often do public policies really fail? A question to help you escape the policy futility trap
written by Matt Andrews Last week I blogged about the ‘public policy futility trap’ in which countries get stuck when a negative feedback loop institutionalizes itself in the public policy domain. Experiences of past policy failure erodes the confidence (of citizens and public officials) to deliver in future, which undermines the potential for positive future…Continue Reading How often do public policies really fail? A question to help you escape the policy futility trap