Resolving Nigeria’s inability to export locally made autos to the African market under AfCFTA

Guest blog written by Francis Anatogu

My Expectations of IPP Online Course
As the Head of the Secretariat of the National Committee for the implementation of the AfCFTA for Nigeria, I was conscious of the national debate that stalled Nigeria’s entry into the Continental Free Trade Area and the eyes of the entire country on what we were doing. I also could not ignore the catalogue of previous failed attempts to implement other bilateral, regional and global treaties and trade agreements. With COVID-19 pandemic, negotiations stalled, and our emerging implementation plan was no longer realisable and yet we needed to keep going. We adapted using digital channels but then the question remained, “how do we reach our grassroot audience?” Furthermore, coming from the private sector, how do I navigate through the civil service hierarchies and rigid organizational walls to promote inter-agency collaboration without being perceived as a threat.

So, I signed up for the IPP course, to: (a) learn how successful countries implemented policies; (b) understand the additional requirements, tools and practices for implementing a public policy versus implementing a transformation project for an organization, (c) evaluate what we were doing at the Secretariat of Nigeria’s National Action Committee on AfCFTA against what we are supposed to be doing; and (d) gain a credible toolkit to help me guide my team and the wider interventions execution teams.

Key Learning and Takeaways
What didn’t I learn from the IPP Course? Every aspect of the Course touched a deeply nagging concern that executives and policy implementation practitioners can understand.

First, I learnt about the limitations of the classic project management “planning and control” methods in dealing with complex problems. Because public policy problems are multi-faceted with many unknowns and uncertainties, you can only plan so far in advance. I also learnt about balancing functionality and legitimacy, the quest for results as we see them at execution level and the risks as our principals and key stakeholders see them, which determines the level of trust and support we get.

The second lesson was to focus on understanding and framing the policy challenge. Interestingly, it added a new dimension to the “move off the solution” lesson I learnt from a Sales Effectiveness course I attended years ago. It also brought back the Fishbone Diagram, a very practical tool used extensively for incidents root cause analysis in the oil and gas and manufacturing intensive organizations.

It was very reassuring to note that I was not alone in dealing with issues of ownership of actions and interventions and it provided guidelines on building multi-agent leadership. The two key takeaways are that no single agency can solve a public policy implementation challenge and leadership happens at every level. So, refocusing on mobilizing others is critical to success.

The Course also challenged me to think through why I was leading the charge on my policy implementation. Beyond the formal position, why am I taking the risks of providing leadership despite the unknowns and uncertainties and the sheer effort of mobilizing others? How does it affect me? How does it affect my community? If not now, when?

The most striking and perfectly timed aspect of the course is the four-part series (the 4Ps) focused on building practitioner’s capacity to deal with the personal leadership challenges to be expected during a policy implementation challenge.

First part focused on perception and leadership – understanding how perceptions impact on how we process information. Second is projection – understanding how the stories we tell about where we think things are going in the future tells a story about who we think we are as leaders and impacts on our ability to mobilise and sustain support of others. The third element is about People – the emotional impact that we have on others as leaders, as well as what we go through as we engage with a variety of leadership activities. Simply, we are still humans and our mental health counts too! The fourth element is the Process – the process of engagement and accountability to achieve optimal results, prevent problems of group think, hidden gem and herd behaviour.

In summary the IPP course provided me with the tools to structure my struggles, manage my mental health through delegation and time management and influencing others by building trust.

About my Implementation Challenge
It was difficult but after a few iterations, I was able to narrow down my implementation challenge from implementing the AfCFTA for Nigeria to a specific problem of “resolving Nigeria’s inability to export locally made Autos to the African market despite existing combined assembling capacity of 447,000 unit per annum.

Nigeria launched her Automotive Industry Development Plan (NAIDP) in 2014 which attracted the interest of leading international carmakers and led to the resumption of small-scale vehicle assembly in the country. Currently there are 31 licensed producers of cars, trucks, and buses in Nigeria, however only about seven companies are assembling, and the local content is estimated at an average of 5% compared to the 40% envisaged under the AfCFTA. Furthermore, due to a host of challenges, auto makers are now moving to neighbouring Ghana and setting up assembly plants there with plans to export the vehicles to Nigeria under ECOWAS Trade Liberalization Scheme and AfCFTA.

My problem deconstruction exercise followed interviews with the ten (10) most active local producers, and it identified issues of (i) unfavourable policy and regulatory environment, (ii) low demand for new cars and (iii) inability to meet the AfCFTA rules of origin requirements.

At the root of the unfavourable regulatory environment are the policy inconsistency evidenced by the unexpected reduction in tariff for new car imports from 35% to 5% in 2020, absence of a regulatory framework backed by an Act of the legislature, to control importation of used cars and safeguard manufacturing and export incentives.

At the root of the low domestic demand for locally produced new cars are low purchasing power of local consumers, lack of affordable financing schemes (single digit interest loans) limited promotions and after sales services by local producers, perception of lower quality compared to global competitors and low enforcement of executive order to promote local content in government procurement.

At the root of the challenge to meet the 40% rules of origin requirement for AfCFTA are underdeveloped local raw materials and components value chains, and low local demand for new cars to attract OEMs.

Key Progress and Insights
Engagements with the local producers and the automobile development agency yielded the minimum requirements to attract OEMs, additional industry and development agencies connections and access to regional sector development studies on priority components to realize the AfCFTA rules of origin. The identified approach will achieve scale by focusing on products required by new cars as well as imported second-hand vehicles.

Engagement with our principals and public sector agencies revealed short-term effort to correct the inconsistencies in the 2020 finance act and the longer-term effort to pass an auto sector development act. It also revealed a gap in our assessment of the size of the solution spaces which triggered a return to the drawing boards.

It was intriguing to observe that there are many teams in several agencies working in silos to address the Auto Sector. Significant amount of time was spent building trust and clarifying mandates of relevant stakeholders and subsequently an agreement was reached to set up a multi-agency (private/public) forum to collectively drive the interventions within this policy challenge.

Yet another achievement was the identification of provisions in existing laws which can be explored to fund production incentives and consumer purchase schemes. An unexpected positive twist was the establishment of a new Council to enforce compliance to the executive orders to promote local content in public procurements which will improve offtake of locally produced vehicles. We have also commenced sensitization of subnational government on the auto-sector development and to pull them into a planned guaranteed offtake scheme.

Applying PDIA beyond the IPP Course
I have introduced PDIA to my team implementing e-commerce for MSMEs programme. By focusing on the problem, we have refined the root causes and refocused the implementation. Through multiple engagements, the team has secured funding and established a multi-agency implementation team.
I have also commenced a learning programme to build the competence of my core team at the Secretariat to handle complex problems using PDIA process as well as redesign our performance management templates to track learning in addition to progress and outcomes.

Concluding Words of Wisdom
It was comforting to note that most practitioners faced similar challenges irrespective of subject matter or clime. Essentially, we are all dealing with a chameleon the size of an elephant. With the PDIA toolkit we can tackle the problems in byte sizes, build the capacity of our core and multi-agency teams so we can distribute the load, manage the team, the program and ourselves better and influence others more effectively.

This is a blog series written by the alumni of the Implementing Public Policy Executive Education Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. Participants successfully completed this 6-month online learning course in December 2021. These are their learning journey stories.

Understanding Implementing Challenges: PDIA to address inconsistent regulation in UAE telecom and digital authority

Guest blog by Dr. Naser Salmeen

I am currently working as a Policy Enforcement Manager in the telecommunication and digital regulatory authority (TDRA) in the UAE. My role with (TRDA) specifically focuses on developing related enforcement policies and processes, and assessing the compliance of concerned departments within TDRA’s issued regulatory enforcement framework. Additionally, according to my role I am required to develop, maintain and execute regular internal policy audits to ensure the implementation of the regulatory instruments. This position will liaise internally and externally with relevant departments and authorities as needed. I have been in this role for more than 7 years now! I believe that one of the most significant challenges in TDRA is the development of a “Regulatory Enforcement Framework” that can be implemented and maintained on regular basis organizational wide and across various internal departments. Although the framework of policy enforcement is already developed and in use, it still needs some improvements in order to cope with the rapidly changing environment and address emerging environmental challenges such as Covid19 pandemic. Key questions like how to design and implement a “Sustainable Policy Enforcement Framework” that is agile and robust to implement any newly introduced regulation effortlessly, cost effectively and with agility. When I joined the program for IPP, I thought that it can help TDRA explore several options to solve many managerial and operational challenges related to strategic regulation and enforcement e.g. compliance management and risk control challenges in uncertain time e.g. Covid19. Furthermore, the program can help me defining key success factors of strategic policy enforcement and regulations according to best practices, the TDRA will be able to define the appropriate regulatory enforcement KPIs in a regulatory or risk-control setting. TDRA may need to implement a “risk-based approach” to regulation and learn how to deal with novel, emerging, or invisible risks. Moreover, the TDRA may benefit from the defining strategy to distribute risks between the regulatory authority versus telecom operators and other interest groups in the sector such as NGOs and third parties. I also presumed that the program would help TDRA address the challenge of deciding on the right regulation approach form the widely defined regulation models such as: prescriptive regulation, performance-based regulation, responsive-regulation, and self-regulation. Furthermore, new assessment methodologies can be developed to assess preventive measurement taken by the TDRA to address emerging regulation requirements. Finally, the TDRA may address the challenge in regards to the diverse stakeholders’ partnership strategy when it comes to sharing regulation responsibility and what strategy it can use to address the “de-regulation” pressure from interested stakeholders and public.  

Insights from Applying PDIA in the Education Sector

written by Salimah Samji

Over the past three years, we have engaged on research titled “Understanding How Education Systems Build Capability, Innovate and Improve their Practices” as part of the Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE) programme.

One of the components of this work is to explore whether BSC’s Problem Driven Iteration Adaptation (PDIA) approach to build capability by delivering results can be customized for use in the education sector. As part of this work, we have published new papers, written retrospective case studies (South Africa and Brazil), recorded podcasts, and reviewed the work of development practitioners who have taken our online course and applied PDIA in the context of education. This blog draws some initial insights from the experience of our online course participants.

PDIA and Education

In the period between March 2017 and June 2019, fifty-six development practitioners, working in thirteen groups, across seven countries, nominated problems related to the education sector to work on in our 15-week Practice of PDIA online course. These practitioners worked for: 

• 2 Country governments (48%) 
• 4 NGOs/Think Tanks (25%) 
• 3 Consulting firms (27%)

About half of the groups were homogenous, with seven out of the thirteen groups made up of members from the same organization, while the six were comprised of members from multiple organizations (government, think tank, consultants) working together on the same problem. 

Of the thirteen groups, seven selected problems related to learning outcomes in primary schools, four selected problems related to education systems, one selecting problems related to secondary education, and one selecting a problem relating to higher education. The topic areas covered in problems identified by the various groups are summarized below.

Insights and Observations

All thirteen groups found the PDIA approach useful in their work. A key learning for many of the participants was that the problem solving process does not follow a linear or predictable path. One participant noted, “we have to be ready to face failures, to look back at what we have done, to adapt or redesign what we have planned and be brave and consistent enough to keep trying.”

Many participants also noted the importance of the local context. One noted, “Problems need to be recognized as being locally relevant, and solutions must be seen to be productive to local stakeholders.”

Some participants from consulting firms noted: 

“Through this course even more than before, we have become aware that local embedded-ness is crucial.

Wicked hard problems should be driven by local teams, not external development projects. The latter can only catalyze and support complex change processes, but ultimately these have to be driven by local actors.

Always work in partnership with your target groups, listen and speak their languages.”

Here are some of the key lessons they learned, organized by PDIA concepts and tools.

PDIA: Problem Construction and Deconstruction 

The first two steps in the PDIA process are problem construction and deconstruction. In problem construction, one explores why a problem matters, to whom it matters, who needs to care and what the problem would look like if it were solved. The problem deconstruction uses the 5-why and Ishikawa or fishbone diagram to break down a problem into its root causes.

All participants, regardless of the type of organization they worked for, found this process extremely useful and relevant. A key takeaway from the problem construction process was the realization that development practitioners often confuse selling solutions with solving problems. One participant noted, “avoid the trap of formulating the lack of a solution as the problem.”

The figure below illustrates framing a problem as the lack of a solution. In this example, the problem is that children are not learning, while the lack of teachers might be one of many possible solutions to this problem. The process of problem construction helps to provide clarity on the problem statement.

Participants also realized that there was often a bias toward quickly jumping to solutions, without clearly identifying or understanding the problem first. This has led to interventions that did not address the root causes and therefore did not help resolve the problem. They noted, “ask all the whys before you design the solution.” 

Building on the example from above, if participants started with the problem of the lack of teachers, they would then figure out strategies to hire more teachers. However, it is unclear whether more teachers would lead to improved learning outcomes. What were the causes of children not learning? was it teacher training? curriculum? availability of books and reading material? language of instruction? There could be a variety of reasons why the children are not learning and each cause would require different interventions. This is the reason why the problem diagnosis part of PDIA is so critical. 

The key takeaway for the problem deconstruction process was the importance of having a clear problem statement and then breaking it down into smaller pieces to find entry points. They noted:

“It doesn’t matter how clear my understanding of the problem is; it matters how clear our understanding of the problem is: and perhaps that means my perspective on the problem needs to shift.

I learnt that what my team identified as a problem became a step 2 problem and the primary problem was something we had not thought about before.

The five whys and fishbone analyses reveal root causes and deeper problems – those that don’t assume the answer.

You really need to see through the current situation to see what is the problem, and where is the root of the problem that needs to be solved.”

The process helped them realize that different stakeholders bring different perspectives thus allowing for a more robust deconstruction of the problem. Visualizing the problem in a fishbone diagram highlighted the complexity and interconnectedness of their problem. One of them noted, “constructing and deconstructing the problem is as important as solving the problem.” 

The figure below is an example of a fishbone diagram drawn by participants in the course focused on the problem of low literacy in primary schools. 

PDIA: Building and Maintaining Authorization

Authorizing environments are commonly fragmented, and difficult to navigate. Programs and policies typically cross over multiple authority domains in which many different agents and processes act to constrain or support behavior. Whether formal or informal, authority structures are often inconsistent. This means that one is never guaranteed continued support from any authorizer and therefore authority needs to be treated as a variable and not as something fixed.

Most participants appreciated learning more about how to identify and map various authorization needs, how authority is structured in their context, and how to grow their authorization over time. They noted: 

“The idea of understanding one’s stakeholder environment as the source of opportunity and constraints in resolving the problem —particularly the idea of the multiple layers of an authorizing environment (horizontal mid-level, bottom level, as well as the vertical levels), thereby providing the keys to the relevant problem framing and to its/their solution.

Understanding our authorizing environment is crucial. Without it, we are unlikely able to drive any changes.

I was skeptical about involving government in my current work as they often give hassles rather than support. But then, considering how important their role is in doing the reform and creating an authorizing  environment, I realized that I need to keep involving and updating them about the progress that we have made with their people in  order to influence them to authorize us in undertaking any initiatives to do the reform.

I learnt that the authorizing environment is critical, and that managing the authorizing environment effectively draws in the necessary support for the problem.”

PDIA: Iteration, Small Steps, and the Power of Reflection

Iteration is a key step in the PDIA process, whereby ideas are identified and put into action with tight feedback loops. The small steps help to flush out (or clarify) contextual challenges, allow local legitimate solutions to emerge, and fosters adaptation to the local context. This is especially important in uncertain and complex contexts where reformers are unsure of what the problems and solutions actually are and often lack confidence in their abilities to make things better.

In PDIA, there is no separation between the design and the implementation phase of solving complex problems. This is a simultaneous process that occurs via embedding experiential learning (or “action learning”) into the iteration process.

In the PDIA course, participants had the opportunity to undertake two iterations, allowing them to learn how the process works in practice. One group of participants who were working on the problem of low literacy decided to take some action on a sub-cause in their fishbone diagram around inadequate public awareness. Their idea for the first iteration was to develop narratives for public conversation to be positioned in the arts pages of the print media and for discussions in the broadcast media. They also wanted to negotiate for free editorial space in at least one leading newspaper with nationwide circulation.

Over the period of a week, they wrote some stories and articles but soon learned that they needed the approval of the Director of Policy and Planning at the Ministry of Education (MoE) before they could publish them. When the participants reflected on their first iteration in their check-in they realized that they needed to bring in their authorizers as co-owners of this work, otherwise they risked rejection of their proposals. This allowed them to adapt their idea in their second iteration.

Another participant group working on the problem of low learning outcomes in secondary schools decided to request access to examination results data to better understand patterns and to identify if there were any positive deviant schools. At the end of the week they learned that they did not have sufficient authorization from the relevant senior official in the Ministry to get the data.

When the participants reflected on this in their check-in they realized that they needed to build some authority. In their second iteration, they were successful in getting the data. However, they found that the data was at a higher level of aggregation (school rather than individual) and used a different indicator. They also learned that the Ministry did not assign IDs to secondary schools which prevented them from reconciling data within different departments of the MoE. These lessons were important for the team as they were able to learn quickly and adapt their next steps accordingly.  

Both these examples illustrate how the process of iteration fosters rapid learning and adaptation to the local context.

All participants found the iteration process particularly useful. They noted:

“Learning is something embedded in a core implementation team and NOT isolated in a different set of ‘Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning’ activities.

Change can take place in small iterative steps and we don’t necessarily need to have the entire strategy mapped out in advance.

Do one small step at a time and then reflect on that to improve next steps.

The very frequent reflection of action together as a team is vital to the insightful and disciplined development of a solution.

By documenting the small progress we made and reflect that will give a sense of achievement. That will keep me motivated and committed to reach the goal.

Learning from iteration: The most constant thing is that new things are emerging all the time. The whole iteration exercise is a kind of continuous ‘epiphany,’ with a series of ‘eureka’ moments.”

PDIA: Working in Collaborative Teams

Solving complex problems requires working in teams. However, working collaboratively is neither obvious nor innate. It is a yet another muscle that needs to be built. 

In the PDIA course, participants register as a team to work together on a problem that they nominate. Most participants appreciated learning how to make teaming work. They noted:

“I think that it is very important to have a team committed to the propulsion of fast moving activity; and that the very frequent reflection of action together is vital to the insightful and disciplined development of a solution.

Leadership and group dynamics matter – that it’s okay for people to take different roles within the group, but that leadership can be shared, diffused.

Allowing the team to respond to the iteration check-in questions is an important step of owning the process. It also gives them an immense sense of achievement.

It is vital that one is working with/engages an appropriate group of people. This group needs to include people who can play substantive, procedural and maintenance functions; but is also needs to be organised into small enough units, so that each unit is able to work as a team and interact constructively.

The PDIA process is designed to help a team iteratively solve problems as they learn about the capabilities they lack and need to actively develop and to expand their legitimacy.”

Summary

PDIA offers a process and framework for development practitioners to solve complex problems. The hallmark of the PDIA online course includes the practical/experiential nature of the course, the length of the course which allows for the spacing effect of learning in one’s own context, and teaching teams working together to create sustainable change. Through a process of learning by doing, participants experience how creativity can emerge in the face of complexity.

It is therefore not surprising that many of the lessons learned by practitioners working in the education sector echo those we have seen in other sectors as well. These include:

• Problems are often framed as the lack of a solution.
• There is a bias toward jumping to solutions before fully diagnosing the problem.
• Breaking complex problems into smaller pieces helps to find entry points. 
• Different stakeholders bring different perspectives thus allowing for a more robust deconstruction of the problem.
• The process of iteration fosters rapid learning and adaptation to the local context, allowing solutions to emerge.
• Local ownership and buy-in from stakeholders is key. Participants from a consulting firm noted, “Wicked hard problems should be driven by local teams, not external development projects. The latter can only catalyze and support complex change processes, but ultimately these have to be driven by local actors.”
• Building and maintaining the authorizing environment helps to draw in the necessary support for the problem.
• Big change starts with small steps.

It is important to note that the PDIA approach is most useful for solving complex problems where there are a large number of unknowns and there is a need to learn about the context. There are various other approaches that can be used for simple or logistical problems where there are few unknowns. 

While the course only has two iterations built in, our engagements with country governments are usually much longer. Teams we directly work with, conduct a series of rapid iterations with constant learning, action, and adaptation over a period of 6 months to a year. During this time period, teams find that they build capabilities, solutions emerge through the process, and they move toward becoming a learning organization.

PDIA is not conceptual. The only way to learn it is by doing it.

For more details, see The PDIA Toolkit.

Genome sequencing in Saudi Arabia

Guest blog written by Malak Abedalthagafi

“One size fits all” interventions have limited impacts in modern medicine. Rapid advances in genomic technologies are making genome sequencing more affordable and readily available. We now find ourselves at a tipping point. The cost of sequencing is falling, and it is now quick and efficient enough to inform clinical and even critical care. We are building a holistic ecosystem in which genomics research is no longer the preserve of the laboratory scientist. The biggest gains are being made through collaborations across a range of expertise from clinicians, engineers, social scientists, mathematicians, and data scientists. Combined with world leading research projects to better understand COVID-19 and a nascent, exciting genomics industry. Furthermore, the expectation has grown that genomic-sequencing technologies could be applied in a broad range of clinical situations, leading to personalized diagnoses and personalized drug therapy.

Applications for our Leading Economic Growth Executive Program are Open!

We are offering Leading Economic Growth online again from October 3 – December 9^th 2022. Application deadline is September 12th, 2022.

Stimulating growth is the top economic priority for many countries and localities around the world. Yet many are trapped, lacking the productive capability to solve problems and expand to new industries to drive development. New growth strategies need paths, processes and organizations to address this problem.

Sophisticated Tools. Practical Approaches.

In this ten-week program, you will learn how to develop a set of policies and tools to define your growth problem, detect constraints to growth, and design solutions to unlock growth. Through peer learning groups and live class sessions, you will apply the frameworks and tools to your own economic growth challenge.

We’ve transformed our cutting-edge research and frameworks into easily digestible formats for anyone struggling with the question of growth. You could be working in the private or nonprofit sectors, in government, or for a multilateral organization, focused on a country, region, or city. If you’re saying we need to grow more, we need to grow in different ways, in different locations, for the benefit of different peoples—this course is for you.

We use a three-part model: you learn the concept, practice by applying the concepts, then reflect on the application to your context. We designed the course to include two asynchronous content sessions and one live question and answer session with the faculty each week. Participants are required to identify an economic growth challenge in their city, region or country, that they would use to apply the concepts, frameworks, and tools they learned each week. Participants also attend a weekly peer learning group session where they could engage with each other and deepen their understanding. Review the draft program schedule.

The program’s curriculum includes:

• Breakthrough research insights on the nature of economic growth: learning what makes growth low, stuck, volatile, not sustainable, or not inclusive.
• Ways to identify the constraints faced in expanding economic growth: finding what prevents a place from expanding and diversifying their productive capabilities to enter new economic activities to achieve more rapid, sustained growth.
• A new way to think about economic strategy-making to construct (and deconstruct) the problem: moving away from one-size-fits-all solutions to identify and address the context-specific binding constraint to growth.
• Adaptive policy implementation: exploring the institutional processes agents, and teams required to build capacity and mobilize the coalition to effectively implement growth projects and reforms.

We have offered this program three times since March 2020, when we pivoted online. 343 participants from 76 countries have successfully completed this program. 96% of the participants rated the program excellent/very good, and 98% of them said that they would consider taking an online course with us again.

Here’s what they had to say about the program:

“This is an extremely engaging, interesting and practical course. I have already incorporated many of the ideas/concepts into my project proposals.” 

“It was one of the most stimulating learning experiences I have had. Not only was I able to expand my viewpoint about development and economic growth, but I was also able to think more deeply about the growth challenge I am tackling in my country.”

“The combination of growth diagnostics and PDIA was very valuable–new tools for thinking about economic growth challenges, and new tools for advancing implementation.” 

“I would highly recommend the course to every international development practitioner.”

Read our blog series written by the alumni of the program as they detail their growth challenges, and key takeaways. To learn more and apply, visit the course website.

Paving the way for economic diversification in Iraq

Guest blog written by Rana Abbas

Growing in a post-conflict country that faced enormous shocks and suffered drastic political, social, and economic changes over the past forty years, motivated me to enroll in the Harvard Kennedy School’s Implementing Public Policy course.

Over the past five years, I worked with government institutions and leaderships to support policy reforms aimed at advancing economic opportunities and help Iraq recover from the recurrent fiscal and economic shocks the country witnessed due to its several wars and endemic political instability.

Implementing Public Policy is the second course I joined with HKS after the Leading Economic Growth (LEG). LEG familiarized me with the experience of other economic experts from over 20 countries worldwide, working on launching policies to boost their countries’ economies and increase their income sources. The LEG course helped me realize the importance of leveraging expertise with different backgrounds and interacting with my professors and colleagues who succeeded or worked on driving a policy change. Though joining an online course for over four months is challenging, I believed that IPP will answer a lot of my questions regarding where to start when to promote new policies and how to gain your audience’s trust.

Addressing unemployment in Panama

Guest blog written by Julio Spiegel

IPP through PDIA showed us a process to avoid the very frequent situation where good people with good intensions and good ideas fail in the implementation of the Policy.

After taking Leading Economic Growth, I received an email suggesting I take IPP to complement my learnings, and in my reflections, I felt an open-ended feeling when I finished Leading Economic Growth but was not sure what it was. So, I joined IPP last minute to search for that answer and the great news is that I feel I found it. How many times do we see bright people, seeming to work effectively as a team, all having good intensions and great ideas but end up failing?

A shortage of affordable rental and workers accommodation in Western Australia

Guest blog written by Rose Riley

I was encouraged by my CEO to sign up for the IPP course. He had completed an economic complexity course at Harvard in 2018 and had shared some of the approach with me at that point. He was aware this approach would align well with my existing way of thinking and working. I was unsure about the online format for the course, not having studied formally through an online approach and not having enjoyed smaller, online training courses as much as a face to face format. I was curious about how the course would be ran with so many people from around the world with varying degrees of shared language, differences in organisational cultures and government systems and such diversity of policy challenges – how could there be an approach that could work for everyone? My position is focussed on my own State and region (Western Australia) and I do not have much knowledge or experience of international policy perspectives or implementation, except the two countries and three states that I have previously worked. I was surprised that there is such a body of organisations, institutions and people working internationally on policy implementation as a specialism – I think this is an area of research, study and training focus that is perhaps lacking in Australia in certain areas. I think we are particularly average at evaluating our policy success, or lack of success.

I was hopeful that the IPP course would bolster my interest in policy issues and problem solving and provide ways to improve my engagement with others in what is such a fascinating area of government but also so important. I was hoping IPP and PDIA would have some techniques for ‘shaking’ people (government public servants) out of their comfort zones and getting them to really listen and understand the problem and take on a role, not only my current policy challenge, but be open to future engagements and collaboration on emerging problems. In my work, I have found it takes a long time for those in other agencies or departments to listen and understand the problem presented to them and that there is a reluctance to act without authority from a very senior level, sometimes only the highest level, and I’ve always found this difficult to accept. What would help empower public servants at every level to do the job they are engaged to do effectively and be actively engaged in meaningful policy engagement? How can they connect better to the people on the ground to listen and understand the problem and develop better policy solutions?

Implementing good decisions in my life: Applying IPP to the judicial system in Colombia

Guest blog written by Catalina Mesa Ramirez

The best decision at the right time. When we felt that a pandemic had overtaken us, when we observed that despite scientific progress in the creation of the long-awaited vaccine against Covid 19, its different sub-classifications were still a threat to humans and even more importantly, becoming vulnerable to the point of seeing our hopes broken, however as an effect we saw our country in the worst possible situation and in the specific case of Colombia we saw it fall before adversity, but it was a moment of clarity to see that it is one of the causes of the great problems facing our beautiful country. And it was just at that moment where I needed to contribute, but for her I had to unlearn and learn. And it was there when I decided to take the course of Implementation Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and now I can say that there could not be a better starting point. It was in this space that I managed to understand that I was part of the problem; we must first change the way we have self-defined and perceived fundamental concepts in the development of a society. As an advisor and consultant, I feel the duty to transmit and communicate the valuable treasure that the HKS team left me and especially in the interventions of Matt Andrews since when you listen to him you wish that the world and especially the rulers all had the opportunity to access their knowledge. It is really shocking. In this blog, it is impossible to summarize the new learnings, however I will do my best effort to describe beautiful gifts that the experience at HARVARD has left me with.

Sustainably managing hazardous and municipal solid waste management in Rwanda

Guest written blog by Okechukwu Daniel Ogbonnaya

In 2016 I was privileged to sit in a high-level government meeting where the policies and strategic direction of the government were discussed and decisions taken regarding the immediate, medium to long-term solutions to the challenges facing the country and the opportunities thereof. This meeting was a memorable but also puzzling one as part of my work in the international development environment is to support member governments in their policy planning and execution. The puzzling aspect of this meeting were the striking similarities to the agenda discussed and the challenges in the related sectors which were part of the same issues discussed when I visited the country for the first time in 2011. It was puzzling because I had the feeling that a span of 5 years is good enough time for any of these challenges to have received some sort of solution. This is bearing in mind that lots of resources (budget, time, and skills) must have been put into finding solutions to such challenges. Sitting through the meeting listening to the same argument made 5 years earlier to the same problems was a bit unsettling but also eye opening as I pondered the sort of support I was meant to provide as an adviser. I knew something was missing since the progress made by the country in the last 5 years when it comes to development from an economic, social, or environmental perspective are very visible and could be seen both from new infrastructural development and better means of living for the citizens.

Thus, when I started my journey for continuous education at HKS in early 2021 and was introduced to the Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) approach to finding lasting solutions to complex problems, it dawned on me that my expectations to broaden my knowledge on how to build capacity within institutions was on the right track. My initial concern of the possibility of getting immersed into classroom theories and concepts were relieved as the PDIA approach gave me and my colleagues (most of them friends today) the opportunity to put to action what we are already doing in our daily work. Moreover, the opportunity to listen to and interact with students across the globe from diverse disciplines was one I could not trade for anything as we debated, reflected, disagreed, and agreed upon the different ways challenges could be taken care of when implementing public policy.