Publications
BSC faculty, fellows, and affiliates regularly publish research in a wide range of academic and policy venues. These include books, book chapters, working papers, articles, cases, and reports. In addition, we have hundreds of blog posts that you can read.
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Featured BookBuilding State Capability: Evidence, Analysis, Action
This book provides evidence of the capability shortfalls that currently exist in many countries, identifies capability traps that hold many governments back, and describes a process that can be used to escape these traps called PDIA (Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation).
Featured Publications
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Tackling Learning Poverty in Sierra Leone’s Education System through the Lens of the PDIA
Guest blog by Irina Bilyalova, Orlando Carvajal, Vaiba Flomo, and Sonali Verma We were four students brought together by a shared interest in solving real-world problems. Three from the Harvard Kennedy School and one from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. One of us was from the United States; three of us were…
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Case: Using PDIA to Transform Waste Management in Amman
In early 2022, the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) faced a growing waste crisis. Given its population of 4.5 million people generating approximately 3,000 tons of solid municipal waste daily, half of Jordan’s total, the city’s rapid growth had significantly outpaced its waste management infrastructure. In response to this challenge, a remarkable two-year transformation using Problem-Driven…
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Can Outsiders Help Build State Capability? Lessons from Ted Lasso
Gaps between potential and performance are common in states across the globe. This paper argues that these gaps represent differences in state capability, and compares Ted Lasso to how outside actors can impact that capability.
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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,…
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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.
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Has Sweden injected realism into public financial management reforms in partner countries?
Public financial management strategies fail because they aren’t scaled to local political and administrative norms. This paper examines whether or not Sweden could apply their own PFM moves to support global reforms in Cambodia and Mozambique.
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This is PFM
This paper defines Public Financial Management, demystifying the concept and drawing on specialists’ knowledge. This serves as an entry point, not as a prescriptive.
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Why Distributed End Users Often Limit Public Financial Management Reform Success
This working paper centers around the potential failure of Public Financial Management reforms in developing countries. Research and practice needs to better account for the influence of distributed agents to better account for the reform success.