Making Problem-Driven Governance Possible: The Foundations of Problem-Driven Capability
Authors highlight the key foundational aspects of governance that uphold problem-driven capability.
Africa
Malawi’s Cashgate Scandal
Malawi’s anti-corruption reforms centered on implementing IFMIS, but repeated attempts from 1995 – 2012 faced technical failures, mismanagement, and political resistance, culminating in the 2013 “Cashgate” scandal that exposed major system flaws. Despite renewed efforts to replace IFMIS with a more secure version, experts warned that real reform requires addressing deeper political and cultural challenges, not just technical fixes.
Evaluating Systems: Three Approaches for Analyzing Education Systems and Informing Action
In low- and middle-income countries, education systems struggle without constant support. This work outlines a systems approach to learning improvement.
Funda Wande through the Lens of PDIA: Showcasing a Flexible and Iterative Learning Approach to Improving Educational Outcomes
An insight into how a PDIA approach can create positive learning outcomes in the education sector.
Can Africa Compete in World Soccer?
In this paper, Africa is examined through the lens of soccer to better understand how nations act as participants and rivals. It also helps us grapple with how African countries compete in the global economy.
Improving Educational Outcomes in South Africa
Funda Wande is a non-profit organization with the goal of ensuring all students in South Africa can read for meaning and calculate with confidence in their home language by the age of 10. They develop curricula, videos, and print materials to train teachers in the fundamentals of foundational learning and have adopted a “learning by doing” strategy that is similar to the Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) approach.
Who Wins in the World Economy and English Football?
The global economy is compared to English football in this work to illustrate the ways in which policy makers in developing countries strive to catch up on the international stage.
Contributing to a Problem Driven Project in Mozambique
This case details our experience working with a broad group of officials across Mozambique’s public financial management (PFM) sector, and donors (particularly the World Bank) between March 2010 and December 2013.
Opening Adaptation Windows onto Public Financial Management Reform Gaps in Mozambique
Identifying weaknesses in policy decisions is crucial for states to continue achieving their goals. Mozambique is used in this paper to highlight how and why the government had to reflect on their adaptation.
PDIA to Inform Budget Reform in Mozambique
Mozambique’s Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) had come to the end of a ten year public financial management (PFM) reform initiative. While widely hailed as a success, some observers were concerned about compliance gaps and weaknesses in the system. Between September and December 2009, we worked with officials in Mozambique’s public financial management sector to explore whether a conversation about problems could spark new ways of doing reforms.