3 concepts that should change how we do political analysis in development

This has been my third year teaching political analysis of development policy at Manchester GDI. Strangely, I have never used any of the donor-produced PEA frameworks in my course materials or lectures. The reason lies partly in the fact that commonly employed PEA frameworks – like most social science – are better at identifying structures than theorizing change; to my mind, this was true of Drivers of Change, SGACA, and the World Bank’s Problem-Driven PEA. So if you are interested in change – which is what development actors do – then you need a different set of tools. With that in mind, here are three intuitive but subversive conceptual tools that I introduce in Why We Lie About Aid. Continue reading 3 concepts that should change how we do political analysis in development

Tres futuros para la eficacia de la ayuda: Presentación en AECID

El 15 de septiembre fui invitado a la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional al Desarrollo (AECID) para dar una charla sobre nuevas ideas y debates emergentes sobre eficacia de la ayuda en el mundo anglosajón en torno a Thinking and Working Politically, Doing Development Differently o Results-Based Approaches. A pesar de la densidad de contenidos y la miríada de acrónimos, la presentación despertó un debate bastante animado, y con suerte habrá plantado semillas que piquen la curiosidad de algnos de nuestros expertos. Para quien esté interesado en lo último en innovación y los desafíos de gestionar el cambio, comparto aquí el powerpoint de la presentación.

Why is researching donors so hard?

I have just finished supervising a master’s thesis at the University of Manchester which compares the extent of internal reforms in DFID and the Spanish Development Co-operation Agency, AECID. The student – an AECID civil servant – wanted to know why her organization failed so miserably to reform internally in accordance with its international commitments to principles of aid effectiveness, in particular when one could find in the European vicinity other agencies like DFID that did so much better on all indicators. What emerges is a story of politics and institutional infighting: a socialist prime minister who symbolically boosted the foreign aid budget through the roof without actually planning how it would be managed, a tenuous balance of institutional power where only a few key individuals tried to make a semi-autonomous agency work, and a cadre of jaded civil servants headed by political appointees for whom development co-operation was often a stepping stone in their political careers. This is as much as I can spoil right now; for the whole picture you will have to wait a while. Continue reading Why is researching donors so hard?

What comes after all the shouting about politics and aid?

[Re-posted from the ESID blog]

Last week DFID’s research team hosted representatives from four research programme consortia on development, including ESID, for a debate and set of presentations on what we have found so far and what – if anything – DFID can do about it. Without going into details – there were surveys, concepts, migrants, onions, and even vampires – it was yet another interesting opportunity to witness that uncomfortable interface between academic and practitioner frustrations. In a very polite and reasoned way, researchers shouted to DFID staff that “context matters, reality is complex, and you’d better take politics into account!”, while DFID staff in turn shouted back that “we too are subject to a political context, and you’d better show us how what you are suggesting would work in practice!” Of course, this being a professional event in the UK, there wasn’t any actual shouting; but one could sense the deep-seated frustration, misunderstanding, even recrimination underlying the entire event. Eventually, we ended up where all these meetings seem to end: with the realization that everyone needs to do more to facilitate stronger researcher-practitioner linkages. Which is not a bad message at all. But it still makes me wonder what comes next. Continue reading What comes after all the shouting about politics and aid?

The DDD Manifesto

Statement from the October 2014 ‘Doing Development Differently’ workshop [re-posted from here]

Too many development initiatives have limited impact. Schools are built but children do not learn. Clinics are built but sickness persists. Governments adopt reforms but too little changes for their citizens.

This is because genuine development progress is complex: solutions are not simple or obvious, those who would benefit most lack power, those who can make a difference are disengaged and political barriers are too often overlooked. Many development initiatives fail to address this complexity, promoting irrelevant interventions that will have little impact.

Some development initiatives, however, have real results. Some are driven domestically while others receive external support. They usually involve many players – governments, civil society, international agencies and the private sector – working together to deliver real progress in complex situations and despite strong resistance. In practice, successful initiatives reflect common principles.

  • They focus on solving local problems that are debated, defined and refined by local people in an ongoing process.
  • They are legitimised at all levels (political, managerial and social), building ownership and momentum throughout the process to be ‘locally owned’ in reality (not just on paper).
  • They work through local conveners who mobilise all those with a stake in progress (in both formal and informal coalitions and teams) to tackle common problems and introduce relevant change.
  • They blend design and implementation through rapid cycles of planning, action, reflection and revision (drawing on local knowledge, feedback and energy) to foster learning from both success and failure.
  • They manage risks by making ‘small bets’: pursuing activities with promise and dropping others.
  • They foster real results – real solutions to real problems that have real impact: they build trust, empower people and promote sustainability.

As an emerging community of development practitioners and observers, we believe that development initiatives can – and must – have greater impact.

We pledge to apply these principles in our own efforts to pursue, promote and facilitate development progress, to document new approaches, to spell out their practical implications and to foster their refinement and wider adoption.

We want to expand our community to include those already working in this way.

We call on international development organisations of all kinds to embrace these principles as the best way to address complex challenges and foster impact. We recognise the difficulties, but believe that more effective strategies and approaches can generate higher and lasting impact. Continue reading The DDD Manifesto

Doing Development Differently: The future is now-ish

[Re-posted from the ESID blog]

Two weeks ago Harvard Kennedy School and ODI co-hosted a very particular kind of workshop, entitled “Doing Development Differently”. I say particular because I have not attended anything similar in my years as a grad student or researcher: the list of participants was small, largely a self-selected group mixing incredibly qualified veterans and refreshingly energetic newcomers; the format of sessions was heavily geared towards interaction, so that everyone felt like a contributor; the pace of debate was relentless, with real space for reaction and accumulation; and the point of it all was not simply to share knowledge or pad a CV, but to build a community and even lay down the foundations of a manifesto. Credit for all this must go to the three individuals who led the experiment: Harvard‘s Matt Andrews, and ODI‘s Marta Foresti and Leni Wild. Reacting against the unfortunate trend of getting the “usual suspects” of aid together for yet another session of group therapy, they conceived and successfully executed a different model for informed policy debate. Continue reading Doing Development Differently: The future is now-ish