We work alongside other exciting initiatives at Harvard that also support state capability. One of these is the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership initiative. The following is a description of their work. Funded by a four-year $32 million gift from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative is a collaboration between HKS, HBS, and Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Government…Continue Reading Strengthening Capabilities in City Government
Agricultural Inefficiencies in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Guest blog written by Sakineh Roodsari, Son Truong Can (Kenny), Dinh Quoc Cong, Nguyen Uyen, Phuoc Hung Thach, and Long Ho. This team is made up of an independent group composed of 6 individuals coming from both the public and private sector. They are a multidisciplinary team of professionals who have worked in the following positions: the head of agricultural cooperatives…Continue Reading Agricultural Inefficiencies in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Stop, Look, and Listen! Preventing Recruitment of Youth into Illicit Activities in Southern Colombia
Guest blog written by Cameron Berkuti, Christina Schultz, Diana Acuña, Juan Pablo Castaño, Kelly Brooks, Susan Kemp This team successfully completed the 15-week Practice of PDIA online course that ended in December 2018. This is their story. As development practitioners, we tend to rush in with solutions to deal with complex problems. We impose so-called best practices…Continue Reading Stop, Look, and Listen! Preventing Recruitment of Youth into Illicit Activities in Southern Colombia
Enhancing Women’s participation in Nigeria
Guest blog written by Adetunde Ademefun, Lois Chinedu, and Suleiman Oluwatosin This team is made up of of experienced Programme, Research and Communication Staff and Assistants who work at the Nigerian Women Trust Fund (NWTF). They successfully completed the 15-week Practice of PDIA online course that ended in December 2018. This is their story. Amazingly, when we…Continue Reading Enhancing Women’s participation in Nigeria
PDIAtoolkit now available in Spanish!
At Building State Capability, we are excited to see the PDIA methodology being tested and adapted in many countries around the world. In order to make our videos and materials more accessible, we have started translating them into other languages, most recently in Spanish. In January this year, we were approached by a former HKS student,…Continue Reading PDIAtoolkit now available in Spanish!
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)
CFI in Cambodia
Guest blog written by Lee Henley, Vann Sokha, Jenny Ciucci, Zoey Henley This team successfully completed the 15-week Practice of PDIA online course that ended in December 2018. This is their story. CFI is a small NGO in a rural part of Battambang Cambodia, we work with some of the most resource poor children in Cambodia….Continue Reading CFI in Cambodia
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
PDIA Course: 1,000+ alumni in 3 years
written by Salimah Samji Wow – I can’t believe that we’ve trained 1,112 development practitioners in 86 countries through our free PDIA online course! When we first launched this course in November 2015, we thought that training 50 people would be wildly successful. So my friends – the state of the PDIA course is strong!…Continue Reading PDIA Course: 1,000+ alumni in 3 years
10 new things we did in 2018
written by Salimah Samji It’s February and 2018 feels like a long time ago! Last year, I wrote my first annual stock taking blog and I’ve been meaning to write a follow up since early January, but 2019 has been off to an incredibly busy start. As you may know, we are small team of…Continue Reading 10 new things we did in 2018