Blog

Toward a new theory and practice of building state capacity

Guest blog by Archon Fung I just want to begin by expressing my profound pride about the new book by Matt Andrews, Lant Pritchett and Michael Woolcock: Building State Capacity: Evidence, Analysis and Action. It is a wonderfully innovative volume that is full of insights about how to do development better. As many of you…Continue Reading Toward a new theory and practice of building state capacity

Registration for our free PDIA online course is closed

written by Salimah Samji We are delighted to announce that we will be offering our free PDIA online course once again. This is our third iteration of the course and we will use the recently published “Building State Capability: Evidence, Analysis, Action” book as the core reading. We will offer two courses tailored to different…Continue Reading Registration for our free PDIA online course is closed

PDIA Course: Alumni are already practicing what they learned

written by Salimah Samji We offered 4 free PDIA online courses between November 2015 and June 2016. They were well received and 365 people, living in 56 countries, successfully completed the courses. In January 2017, we surveyed the 365 PDIA course alumni to learn whether (and how) they are using PDIA in their day-to-day lives. 113 (31%) of…Continue Reading PDIA Course: Alumni are already practicing what they learned

Download the new PDIA book for free

written by Salimah Samji We are delighted to inform you that our PDIA book entitled, “Building State Capability: Evidence, Analysis, Action” was just published by Oxford University Press. The book presents an evidence-based analysis of development failures and explains how capability traps emerge and persist. It is not just a critique, it also offers a way of…Continue Reading Download the new PDIA book for free

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

Thomas C. Schelling’s Contributions to Policy Analysis

Guest blog by Robert Klitgaard Thomas C. Schelling has been rightly lionized for his contributions in economics, international security, and the transdisciplinary field of game theory. He was also a pioneer in policy analysis. In this note, I want to reflect on what Schelling can teach us about doing policy research. Though a theorist, he was fascinated…Continue Reading Thomas C. Schelling’s Contributions to Policy Analysis

Doing development differently: two years on, what are we learning?

On 17 November 2016, ODI, in collaboration with the Building State Capability program at Harvard University, convened a private workshop bringing together a number of actors from academia, civil society, and donors, to look at how the adaptive development agenda has been put into practice throughout the world. We attempted to draw out some lessons…Continue Reading Doing development differently: two years on, what are we learning?

Finding the Fringes of Formality: Organizational Capability in Street-Level Bureaucracies in Brazil

Guest blog written by Susana Cordeiro Guerra Why is it that, despite the abundant resources invested and the largely favorable macroeconomic conditions that have prevailed until recently, middle-income countries have been unable to systematically deliver quality basic services, such as education and safety, to their citizens? Despite a wide variety of attempts to improve these crucial…Continue Reading Finding the Fringes of Formality: Organizational Capability in Street-Level Bureaucracies in Brazil