Building State Capability

Salimah Samji, CID's Building State Capability Program Director, interviews Matt Andrews, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and Lant Pritchett, Professor of the Practice of International Development at Harvard Kennedy School on their recently launched book "Building State Capability - Evidence, Analysis, Action". Michael Woolcock, Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School is also a co-author.
Recorded on the book launch event on February 13th, 2017.

The book uses data to identify failures in efforts to build state capability in development, employs theory to explain why these failures are common and likely to persist-keeping countries in capability traps--and builds on applied experience to offer a new approach to build state capability more effectively. 

‘Building State Capability provides anyone interested in promoting development with practical advice on how to proceed—not by copying imported theoretical models, but through an iterative learning process that takes into account the messy reality of the society in question. The authors draw on their collective years of realworld experience as well as abundant data and get to what is truly the essence of the development problem.’  Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University;

Building State Capability - Evidence, Analysis, Action

CID Student Ambassador Emily Ausubel interviews Salimah Samji, Director of the Building State Capability Program at Harvard University and Matt Andrews, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and Faculty Associate at the same  program. Matt and Salimah talk about how the Building State Capability program came about, explain us what is the Program’s core methodology and how it’s being applied by hundreds of practitioners worldwide.
Interview recorded on February 23rd, 2018
// cid.harvard.edu //
// bsc.cid.harvard.edu //

About Salimah Samji: Salimah Samji is the Director of the Building State Capability (BSC) Program. She has over fifteen years of experience working in international development, on issues of public service delivery, transparency and accountability, strategic planning, and monitoring and evaluation. She joined CID in 2012 to help create the BSC program and is responsible for strategic planning and oversight. Salimah also leads the PDIA online courses. 

Prior to joining CID, she was an independent consultant working for the World Bank on issues of governance, and the Hewlett Foundation on strategic planning for one of their grantees. She has worked as a senior program manager at Google.org, leading a transparency and accountability initiative focused on empowering citizens and decision makers, by making information on service delivery outcomes, publicly available. Salimah has also worked at the World Bank as a social/rural development and monitoring and evaluation specialist in South Asia. 

She has a Bachelor of Mathematics from the University of Waterloo (Canada) and a Masters in Public Administration in International Development (MPAID) from the Harvard Kennedy School. She is a qualified Casualty Actuary who decided to change careers after her 18-month experience working in Afghan refugee camps with a Canadian NGO (FOCUS Humanitarian Assistance) based in Pakistan. Salimah has worked and lived in Kenya, India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Canada and the USA. 
 
About Matt Andrews: Matt Andrews is Senior Lecturer in Public Policy. His research focuses on public sector reform, particularly budgeting and financial management reform, and participatory governance in developing and transitional governments. Recent articles focus on forging a theoretical understanding of the nontechnical factors influencing success in reform processes. Specific emphasis lies on the informal institutional context of reform, as well as leadership structures within government-wide networks. This research developed out of his work in the provincial government of Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa and more recently from his tenure as a Public Sector Specialist working in the Europe and Central Asia Region of the World Bank. He brings this experience to courses on public management and development. He holds a BCom (Hons) degree from the University of Natal, Durban (South Africa), an MSc from the University of London, and a PhD in Public Administration from the Maxwell School, Syracuse University.

Doing Development Differently: The Building State Capability Program and the PDIA Methodology

Building State Capability Program Director Salimah Samji interviews Dan Honig, author of the recently published book “Navigation by judgement – why and when top down management of foreign aid doesn’t work”. Honig talks about the motivation for writing the book, the research process behind it and about what surprised him the most when researching about different management styles at various foreign aid organizations. 
www.cid.harvard.edu

Get "Navigation by Judgment" on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2jlaNVI

Navigation by Judgment: Why and When Top-Down Management of Foreign Aid Doesn't Work

Building State capability program Director, Salimah Samji, interviews Matt Andrews, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School on the first report of the PDIA in Practice Series. The Series will cover a few of the research engagements done by the Building State Capability program in the past 8 years, and detail what results emerged, what we learned, and what were the next steps for each of these engagements. The first report covers the team’s experience working with officials in Mozambique’s public financial management sector, between September and December 2009.
Interview recorded on June 6th, 2018.

// More about the PDIA in Practice Series: // https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/pdia-inform-budget-reform-mozambique

About Matt Andrews: Matt Andrews is Senior Lecturer in Public Policy. His research focuses on public sector reform, particularly budgeting and financial management reform, and participatory governance in developing and transitional governments. Recent articles focus on forging a theoretical understanding of the nontechnical factors influencing success in reform processes. Specific emphasis lies on the informal institutional context of reform, as well as leadership structures within government-wide networks. This research developed out of his work in the provincial government of Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa and more recently from his tenure as a Public Sector Specialist working in the Europe and Central Asia Region of the World Bank. He brings this experience to courses on public management and development. He holds a BCom (Hons) degree from the University of Natal, Durban (South Africa), an MSc from the University of London, and a PhD in Public Administration from the Maxwell School, Syracuse University.

Informing Budget Reform in Mozambique: The Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation Approach

Public organizations often have trouble implementing the policies and programs that will benefit the state and its constituents and the public sector in India is no exception. The perception of the state’s capacity to implement policy is often called into question so how can civil servants in India overcome the barriers they face to policy implementation?

Today on CID’s Speaker Series podcast, Salimah Samji, Director of the Building State Capability Program at CID interviews Yamini Aiyar of the Centre for Policy Research, who provides first-hand details on culture within the public sector in India. Salimah and Yamini further examine India’s state capabilities and discuss remedies that could improve decision-making processes within the government. 

Yamini Aiyar is the President and Chief Executive of CPR - the Centre for Policy Research - one of India’s leading public policy think tanks. Her research interests are in the field of social policy and development. In 2008, Yamini founded the Accountability Initiative at CPR. Under her leadership, the Accountability Initiative has produced significant research in the areas of governance, state capacity and social policy.

// www.bsc.cid.harvard.edu //
Interview recorded on June 6th, 2018.

About Yamini Aiyar: Yamini Aiyar is the President and Chief Executive of CPR. Her research interests are in the field of social policy and development. In 2008, Yamini founded the Accountability Initiative at CPR. Under her leadership, the Accountability Initiative has produced significant research in the areas of governance, state capacity and social policy. It pioneered a new approach to tracking public expenditures for social policy programs and is widely recognised for running the country’s largest expenditure-tracking survey in elementary education. Yamini’s own research on social accountability, elementary education, decentralisation and administrative reforms has received both academic and popular recognition. 

Yamini Aiyar is a TED fellow and a founding member of the International Experts Panel of the Open Government Partnership. She has also been a member of the World Economic Forum’s global council on good governance. Previously, she has worked with the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program and Rural Development unit in Delhi, where she focused on action research aimed at strengthening mechanisms for citizen engagement in local government. Additionally, she was a member of the decentralisation team at the World Bank that provided policy support to strengthen Panchayati Raj (local governance) in India.

Aiyar is an Alumnus of the London School of Economics, St. Edmund's college Cambridge University, and St Stephen’s College, Delhi University.

Rules vs. Responsiveness: The Challenges of Building State Capability in India

Many government policies and reforms fail in developing countries. Research at the Center for International Development’s Building State Capability program (or BSC) ties such failure to the tendency of governments to adopt external ‘solutions’ that do not fit their contexts and overwhelm their capabilities. The program believes that governments should build their capabilities by employing processes that empower their own people to find their way to solving their country’s real problems. They propose a process for doing this, called Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (or PDIA) and have been working since 2009 to explore ‘how to do’ PDIA practically, in the real world. 

This is the second of a series of interviews with the Building State Capability team – the PDIA in Practice Series, or PIPs, where they describe where the PDIA tools and ideas have emerged from, and how these ideas have taken shape. The previous interview covered their experience working with officials in Mozambique’s public financial management sector in 2009, the ‘adaptation window’ idea and practice it inspired. Today’s interview will tell the story that followed that first year of work, how long it took to take the project off the ground and what were the main learnings of implementing an innovative problem-driven approach across many sectors at a national level.  

// Read the PDIA in Practice note: //
https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/contributing-problem-driven-project-mozambique

Interview recorded on June 25th, 2018.
bsc.cid.harvard.edu

About Matt Andrews: Matt Andrews' research focuses on public sector reform, particularly budgeting and financial management reform, and participatory governance in developing and transitional governments. Recent articles focus on forging a theoretical understanding of the nontechnical factors influencing success in reform processes. Specific emphasis lies on the informal institutional context of reform, as well as leadership structures within government-wide networks. This research developed out of his work in the provincial government of Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa and more recently from his tenure as a Public Sector Specialist working in the Europe and Central Asia Region of the World Bank. He brings this experience to courses on public management and development. He holds a BCom (Hons) degree from the University of Natal, Durban (South Africa), an MSc from the University of London, and a PhD in Public Administration from the Maxwell School, Syracuse University.

Designing a Problem-Driven Donor-Funded Project in Mozambique

On this week’s podcast, Salimah Samji, Director of the Building State Capability program at CID and Tim McNaught, Building State Capability Fellow, have a conversation about the recently launched PDIAtoolkit. 

// download the PDIAToolkit at www.bsc.cid.harvard.edu //
Interview recorded on October 24, 2018.

About the PDIAtoolkit: The PDIAtoolkit is designed to guide you through the process of solving complex problems which requires working in teams. We call it a Do-it-Yourself (DIY) kit, where the ‘you’ is a committed team of 4-6 people mobilized to work together to solve a complex problem that cannot be solved by one person.

Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA), is a step-by-step approach which helps you break down your problems into its root causes, identify entry points, search for possible solutions, take action, reflect upon what you have learned, adapt and then act again. It is a dynamic process with tight feedback loops that allows you to build your own solution to your problem that fits your local context.

The PDIAtoolkit draws from two key resources. The first is the Building State Capability: Evidence, Analysis, Action book which is available as a free download and the second is a set of short videos explaining the key concepts of PDIA.

While the PDIA process is not linear, we recommend that you first read this toolkit in sequence to understand the steps. The toolkit has eight sections. Each section introduces a new concept and has one or more worksheets which are the tools to help you try PDIA for yourself. All the tools are dynamic and should be reviewed and adapted on a regular basis.

We hope that you find this toolkit useful and wish you the best on your PDIA Journey.

This is an open access publication, available online and distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution –Non Commercial –No Derivatives 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

PDIAtoolkit: A DIY Approach to Solving Complex Problems

This podcast comes from a panel discussion that took place at the Building State Capability program’s symposium on October 30th 2018. The panel discussion focused on How to Mobilize Political Elites and Citizens? as Salimah Samji, Director of the Building State Capability program, asked Alice Evans, Lecturer at Kings College London, Rakesh Rajani, Vice President of programs at Co-Impact and Lilly Tsai, Faculty Director and Professor at MIT’s Governance Lab, to share their experiences of mobilizing both political elites and citizens to facilitate social change. 

// www.bsc.cid.harvard.edu //
Audio recorded on October 30, 2018.

How Do You Mobilize Political Elites And Citizens?

Across the world, people in urban rather than rural areas are more likely to support gender equality. To explain this global trend, Alice Evans has engaged with geographically diverse literature and comparative rural–urban ethnographic research from Zambia. Her research showed that people living in interconnected, heterogeneous, and densely populated areas are more likely to see women performing socially valued, masculine roles. 

Today on the BSC podcast, Salimah Samji, Director of the Building State Capability program at CID interviews Alice Evans, Lecturer at Kings College London, who discusses what drives social change, and how people come to support gender equality.

// www.bsc.cid.harvard.edu //
Interview recorded on October 30, 2018.

About Alice Evans: Alice Evans is writing a book on "The Global Politics of Decent Work". Through comparative research on strengthening corporate accountability, Alice explores how to resolve global collective action problems and improve workers' rights. She has published on the causes of falling inequality in Latin America; social movements; rising support for gender equality; cities as catalysts of social change; and the politics of maternal mortality. She is a Lecturer at King's College London, with previous appointments at Cambridge and the LSE.

Gender and Social Change

Today on this BSC podcast, Salimah Samji, Director of the Building State Capability program at CID has a conversation with Professor Matt Andrews, Faculty Director of the Building State Capability program to discuss public policy implementation failures. To learn more about the Implementing Public Policy course, visit bit.ly/2QAnf69. To read the Public Policy Failures paper, visit bit.ly/2DWoLs5.

// www.bsc.cid.harvard.edu //
Interview recorded on January 18, 2019.

About Matt Andrews: Matt Andrews is Senior Lecturer in Public Policy. His research focuses on public sector reform, particularly budgeting and financial management reform, and participatory governance in developing and transitional governments. Recent articles focus on forging a theoretical understanding of the nontechnical factors influencing success in reform processes. Specific emphasis lies on the informal institutional context of reform, as well as leadership structures within government-wide networks. This research developed out of his work in the provincial government of Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa and more recently from his tenure as a Public Sector Specialist working in the Europe and Central Asia Region of the World Bank. He brings this experience to courses on public management and development. He holds a BCom (Hons) degree from the University of Natal, Durban (South Africa), an MSc from the University of London, and a PhD in Public Administration from the Maxwell School, Syracuse University.

Public Policy Failure

Salimah Samji, Building State Capability Program Director talks to Anjikwi Mshelbwala, who took the PDIA online course offered by the Building State Capability Program in the Fall of 2017. 
Anjikwi, an ICT Officer at ActionAid talks about his experience applying the insights from the program in his native Nigeria and describes how the learnings he got from the course have helped him solve complex development problems ever since.
***
- Learn more about CID's Building State Capability Program at: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/
- Download the free PDIA toolkit at: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/PDIAtoolkit
- Download the Building State Capability book at: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/building-state-capability-evidence-analysis-action

View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-JPDIA%20Alumni%20Solving%20complex.pdf

PDIA Alumni Series: Solving complex development problems in Nigeria

Earlier this year, thousands of Bangladesh garment workers clashed with the police as they tried to push for higher wages. One person was killed as the police fired rubber bullets and tear gas against the protesters. This is unfortunately common throughout low-end supply chains. Governments try to repress laborers in order to curb minimum wage increases and keep costs low.  
 
This week Salimah Samji, Director of CID’s Building State Capability Program talks to Alice Evans Lecturer at Kings College London and Associate at the Building State Capability Program on possible solutions to this pressing issue. 
Read Alice Evans' report on Increasing Pro-Labour Reforms: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/publications/incentivising-pro-labour-reforms

// www.bsc.cid.harvard.edu //
Interview recorded on February 13, 2019.
About Alice Evans: Alice Evans is writing a book on "The Global Politics of Decent Work". Through comparative research on strengthening corporate accountability, Alice explores how to resolve global collective action problems and improve workers' rights. She has published on the causes of falling inequality in Latin America; social movements; rising support for gender equality; cities as catalysts of social change; and the politics of maternal mortality. She is a Lecturer at King's College London, with previous appointments at Cambridge and the LSE.

View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-Labor%20rights.pdf

Labor Rights - It's All of our Business

The Building State Capability (BSC) program at CID uses the Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) approach to help organizations develop the capability to solve complex problems and to implement public policies. PDIA is a process of facilitated emergence, which focuses on problems (not solutions) and follows a step by step process (not a rigid plan) that allows for flexible learning and adaptation.

Today on CID’s Speaker Series podcast, Anna Mysliewic, student at the Harvard Kennedy School, interviews Salimah, who discusses the challenges and experiences BSC has faced when implementing PDIA in the field. Salimah draws on examples from BSC’s work in Albania and Sri Lanka, as well as the recent launch of the PDIAToolkit, a Do-it-Yourself kit for teams to use when solving complex problems.

To learn more about PDIA: bsc.cid.harvard.edu
Download the PDIAToolkit (in English and Spanish): bsc.cid.harvard.edu/PDIAtoolkit 

Interview recorded on March 1, 2019.

About Salimah Samji: Salimah Samji is the Director of Building State Capability (BSC). She has more than 15 years of experience working in international development on the delivery of public services, transparency and accountability, strategic planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning. She joined CID in 2012 to help create the BSC program. Today, she is responsible for providing vision, strategic leadership, oversight and managing projects and research initiatives. Salimah also leads BSC’s work on digital learning.

Before joining CID, she was an independent consultant working for the World Bank on issues of governance, and the Hewlett Foundation on strategic planning for one of their grantees. She has worked as a senior program manager at Google.org, leading a transparency and accountability initiative focused on empowering citizens and decision-makers, by making information on service delivery outcomes publicly available. Salimah has also worked at the World Bank as a social/rural development and monitoring and evaluation specialist in South Asia.

She has a Bachelor of Mathematics from the University of Waterloo (Canada) and a Masters in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) from the Harvard Kennedy School. She is a qualified Casualty Actuary who changed careers after working for 18 months in Afghan refugee camps with a Canadian NGO (FOCUS Humanitarian Assistance) based in Pakistan. Salimah has worked and lived in Kenya, India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Canada and the USA.

View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-PDIA%20in%20action.pdf

PDIA in Action: Challenges & Experiences

Incredible progress has been made throughout the world in recent years. However, globalization has failed to deliver on its promises. As problems like unequal access to education and healthcare, environmental degradation, and stretched finances persist, we must continue building on decades of transformative development work.

The Center for International Development (CID) is a university-wide center based at the Harvard Kennedy School that seeks to solve these pressing development problems—and many more.

At CID, we believe leveraging global talent is the key to enabling development for all. We teach to build capacity, conduct research that guides development policy, and convene talent to advance ideas for a thriving world. Addressing today’s challenges to international development also requires bridging academic expertise with practitioner experience. Through collaborative, in-country partnerships, CID’s research programs, faculty, and students deploy an analytical framework and context-dependent approaches to tackle development problems from all angles, in every region of the globe.

Building State Capability

Harvard Center for International Development