Doing Development Differently: Politically Smart, Adaptive Approaches to Address Governance and Accountability
Constraints
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Leni Wild, Head of Politics and Governance, Overseas Development Institute
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What’s at stake?
• As the SDGs replace the MDGs: ‘more of the same’ will leave many without access to even basic services
• Progress in access to clean drinking water but big gaps in sanitation• Improvements in primary school enrolment but lagging progress in
completion and learning outcomes• Growing inequalities within countries
For many service delivery problems, financing or growth alone are not enough and technical solutions are available; problems are complex and often political
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The challenge (I)
Why current approaches often do not work - Pre-planned, pre-designed reforms:
– Tendencies to underestimate uncertainty and overestimate ability to achieve improvements within complex systems
– Too often assumes ready made solutions rather testing and learning in the face of this uncertainty
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The challenge (II)
• Why current approaches often do not work - While problems are often political, grand governance reforms may not be the solution:– Reinforce ready made solutions, rather
than what’s appropriate in the context– Can lead to superficial rather than deep-
seated change– Can be counter productive (reform
overload, capability traps)
Adapting development
Residential land titles issued per year
6 Source: Department of Finance
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
60,000
Residential Free Patent
Act (March 2010)
1,400% improvement
with same personnel!
Achieving results in The Philippines
Health-earmarked excise tax revenue from alcohol and tobacco
(billions of 2000 pesos)
7 Source: Department of Finance
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
Tobacco
Alcohol
Law passed
(December 2012)
Achieving results in The Philippines
Philippines: Property rights
The Asia Foundation (USAID grant funding)
• Choice of objective: technically sound and political feasible• Entrepreneurial logic: Series of small bets, iterative learning, ‘searching’
for what is feasible• Self-motivated multi-skilled reform teams• Skilled coaching and support• Supportive funding arrangement
• Counter-factual: Large scale technical assistance programme that didn’t deliver
Nigeria: SAVI
State Accountability and Voice Initiative (DFID)
• Achieved a number of reforms (budgeting, access to health and education)
• Initial design to work on ‘demand side’• Implemented in unconventional ways:
rather than grant making, supported multi-stakeholder partnerships
• ‘Learning by doing’ approach
Plan’s community scorecards, Malawi
• Framed as programme for citizen voice and empowerment
• In practice – recognition that underlying problem was a lack of collective interests and action
• Use of politically savvy and connected local facilitators, and ‘learning by doing’
• Localised improvements in education, health and agriculture
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Malawi: Community score cards
Doing accountability differently?
• This requires in-built flexibility to change focus, level of ambition or activities after the programme start, and to learn as you go:
– Critical questioning/testing of assumptions, regular strategy testing– Blending design & implementation (including staffing), mapping ‘the
design space’– Fast feedback loops, ‘good enough’ evidence, making ‘small bets’– Looking for ‘positive deviance’– Funding arrangements that support this
See also: Duncan Green on systems thinking and the role of INGOsMercy Corp on adaptive programme management, Northern Uganda
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Recent BOND/UK NGO Event
https://storify.com/bondngo/adaptive-development, September 2015
An emerging network
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Doing Development Differently network: signatories from more than 60 countries
Interest from: BTC, DFID, DFAT, GIZ, SIDA, USAID, World Bank, as well as implementers
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Future reform efforts
• Emerging examples of attempts to operationalise these principles – Implementers of different shapes and sizes– DFID Better Delivery, USAID, World Bank and others
• But still predominantly “lone rangers” – what will be needed for a ’bandwagon effect’?
• Changes in:– Rules and processes– Management styles, working cultures– Public discourse
ODI is the UK’s leading independent think tank on international development and humanitarian issues. We aim to inspire and inform policy and practice to reduce poverty by locking together high-quality applied research and practical policy advice.
The views presented here are those of the speaker, and do not necessarily represent the views of ODI or our partners.
Overseas Development Institute
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