Guest blog written by Fadila Leturcq “Le savoir est une arme” (“Knowledge is a weapon” in English) is a recurring punchline in French rap lyrics and one that resonates with me when I take the time to reflect on my journey through the IPP program. “Le savoir est une arme ” suggests that learning, acquiring…Continue Reading Inclusion of youth in public and private decision-making bodies in France
Guest blog by Nicah Santos, Ivy Wang, Rachel Diaz, and Malaika Toyo Six weeks ago, we came together because we wanted hands-on experience with a new approach to getting things done in development: PDIA. We were from all four corners of the world and campus – Filipino, Nigerian, Latin-American, and Chinese-Canadian, HKS and HGSE. We…Continue Reading Civic Education and Youth Political Engagement in Peru
Institutional change is part of the theory of change of PDIA – scaling through the diffusion of new ways of thinking and greater problem-solving know-how. And once a community of practice reaches critical mass across an eco-system, a tipping point can happen where the eco-system becomes generally more open to novelty, where success is a more effective route to legitimacy, and where leadership is oriented towards value creation….Continue Reading Can PDIA become a regular part of how a government works?
written by Salimah Samji In August 2021, we began an engagement with Instituto Sonho Grande (ISG) in Brazil to build the capability of public servants working in secretariats of education in the states of Maranhão and Paraíba. In this virtual action learning program, 60 public servants working across 11 teams, learned how to use PDIA to solve…Continue Reading Using PDIA to Improve Public Education in Brazil
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
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
Guest blog written by Albert Pijuan and David Hoole 86 development practitioners at OPML have successfully completed the 15-week Practice of PDIA online course over the past two years. This is a story of how they are using the PDIA tools. At Oxford Policy Management, we have been building on and incorporating the lessons from the…Continue Reading Applying the ‘triple A’ framework in Pakistan and Palestine: what we learnt about implementing reform
written by Matt Andrews, Mark Moore, Lant Pritchett and Salimah Samji This is a crowdsourcing effort to understand why … and to help foster a common response. Many governments lack the capabilities to play the roles needed for their countries to work well and prosper. These capabilities are often missing because policy-makers cannot agree on…Continue Reading Why are there so many mass shootings in the USA?
Matt Andrews teaches a course entitled “Getting Things Done: Management in the Development Context,” at the Harvard Kennedy School. He often gets asked about what he teaches in his course. So, he has decided to experiment with blogging about his course after every class. Each blog entry will include his powerpoint presentation, his syllabus, required…Continue Reading Follow “Getting Things Done” at the Harvard Kennedy School
We are proud to announce that Looking Like a State: Techniques of Persistent Failure in State Capability for Implementation co-authored by Matt Andrews, Lant Pritchett and Michael Woolcock won the Faculty Article Award from the Sociology of Development Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA). The award ceremony was held in San Francisco on August…Continue Reading BSC Paper wins ASA award
