The Limits of Institutional Reform in Development

The US spending bill would be unacceptable in developing governments and should be unacceptable in the US too

Yesterday's two thousand page spending bill in the United States keeps the government open for a few more months. This is seen as a sign of success in a Congress that seems to go from day-to-day in its governing of the economy. But it is no success. And it would be seen as unacceptable in developing countries tries beholden to the IMF, World Bank and ratings agencies. Let me tell you why:

• First, the bill continues a trend of deficit spending without any clear argument why this is needed or how it will be repaid. A few years ago deficit spending was explained as a vital counter-cyclical measure to balance the economy, given the slow recovery after the 2008 crisis. But now the economy is recovering (and has been for months). Why is more deficit spending needed? And why is spending rising at a time when Congress has also just announced a series of major tax cuts. Basic math tells me this is not a good situation. Imagine if Liberia announced such a budget? The international community would call the government all sorts of names--populist, fiscally irresponsible, and worse. I think ratings agencies would act swiftly to punish the country as well. Actually, we saw this last year when Fitch noted that the South African medium term budget forecast indicated a shift towards deficit spending.  
• Second (and related to the South African situation), we should note that this new spending bill is also short-term in nature. South Africa was penalized because its multi-year budget framework showed growing deficits. At least it has a multi-year budget framework! The USA is budgeting quarter by quarter at the moment, with no sense of where the spending plan is intended to go in the future. This kind of budgeting behavior is not considered acceptable in the development area, where prominent indicators (particularly the PEFA indicators) of 'good budget regimes' penalize countries who lack medium term budget regimes (covering multiple years in the future). It is true that these multi  year frameworks are seldom binding, but they provide an intended roadmap for spending that charts out the vision (and policy) about where money will be spent, why, and with what implications for deficits, debt, inflation etc. If a developing country was just budgeting quarter to quarter, they would get a 'D' on at least one dimension of the PEFA indicators. 
• Third, no one has read the budget document. Let that sink in for a second, please. It is not my claim, but the statement of many prominent legislators and the President himself.  Imagine that! In the PEFA indicators used to assess the quality of budget processes in developing countries, questions ask about the budget preparation calendar to ensure there is sufficient time to prepare the budget technically, to send the budget for political review, to allow political discussion (with technocrats) about the budget, and to allow the public access to important elements in the budget proposal. The South African example above (in which ratings agencies were downgrading the country because of a proposed increase in deficit spending) reflected on a pre-budget announcement by government (where it is required to announce basic proposals to the public months before the budget is actually passed). This is considered vital to ensure that the budget is well developed, subjected to debate, conducive to accountability, and transparent before citizens. In the United States right now the budget proposal--thousands of pages--is prepared one day, with no public engagement and limited sharing even with Congress, and signed into law the next. Imagine if this was being done in Nigeria or in Pakistan or in Colombia? Commentators in the USA would claim this was corrupt and opaque. 

I could certainly raise other concerns about the substance of the omnibus budget, but such comments will have to wait since I have not seen this document yet (as have no citizens). That would not be considered acceptable in developing countries and should not be accepted in the USA. Democracy is poorly served if Congress can vote a budget through without reading it or sharing it or having it vetted in some way by independent experts or the public.  

Time and Development: use the former better and get more of the latter

Development takes time. Especially when it involves institutional change, as is the case with government reform and other initiatives.

We know that.

But time is always under pressure in political contexts. And in modern bureaucracies where results agendas push for measurable outputs and outcomes 'as soon as possible'.

We know that too.

So: we need time but don't have time.

How do we do development in such situations?

I have been thinking about this for a while now, and think that the work we are doing at the Center for International Development (CID) is helping me develop an answer.

My first observation is that time needs to be treated in days and weeks rather than months and years. It is the minutes and hours, days and weeks that matter.

You lose the time battle with conventional practices in development where interventions happen in larger time arrangements, as bursts, with attention from key insider and visits by key outsiders every three or four months. In such situations the time spent actively and intensely on a project every year by key agents is about 15-20 days each. Let's say the project actually demands 100 days each: that means you are in a 5-7 year project.

You can use time better by having key agents (internal and external) working more intensively on the change process. If 100 days is needed, then have the key agents work aggressively for 100 days and see some results. Or ten days a month for ten months. Or 5 days a month for 20 months (1 year and 8 months).

Development demands time. If we provide the time in days and weeks we can give development the time it needs in fewer months and years than we currently use... and we can accomplish more.

I hope this makes sense.

 

 

Creating Space for Common Sense

A Doing Development Differently (DDD) event is underway in Manilla. When I read tweets about this an other events I am intrigued at two common, though highly contrasting views. One is that DDD (or PDIA, our DDD heuristic here at Harvard) is common sense. Nothing new and nothing really worth mobilizing a movement around. Another view is that DDD (or PDIA) is impossible to do in development, given political and organizational incentives and mechanisms. "We have no space to do this kind of work" is what I often hear. When I try to bring these ideas together, I increasingly think that what PDIA and DDD needs to be most focused on is simply offering ideas about Creating Space for Common Sense. I believe this space comes through drawing attention to problems, building political authorization, mobilizing groups, fostering joint learning, etc. It should never be assumed but it can be created and facilitated.

Political Patience, part 3

I wrote on the topic of political patience yesterday, noting that it was one of the most important ingredients needed when trying to do change through pdia. I described it as "the political ability to set a course and stick to the direction no matter what comes in the way". I argued that, "This kind of patience is what separates politics that builds from politics that simply jumps around looking charismatic." 

I had a couple of comments offline that suggested many politicians could not afford such patience, because they inherit so much disarray and face so many time-sensitive challenges. I can't deny there is some truth to it. Most countries have a never ending list of existing time sensitive challenges and politicians face daily additions to such list as well.

The question, I think, is how they deal with the list and its additions. I have seen some politicians manage the situation really well, organizing some of their people to respond to the daily additions (a fire brigade to manage fires) while protecting other groups who have a mandate to 'get it right' on a few other big promises that they are patiently committed to delivering. I have seen these politicians succeed at managing the urgent and the important. Putting out fires whilst also constructing new buildings.

I have seen other politicians taking power and failing on both accounts. Often it is because they mistake the urgent for the important and/or lack the patience to build. There is a broader conversation about the political skills these politicians may lack in ensuring support for the kind of strategy discussed above. I don't think missing political skills are always the leading reason for the lack of political patience, however. Actually, I think the lack of patience reflects a miscalculation of why governments do not work... which is fed by modern rhetoric about public management reform.

Hear me out. 

I often find new political leadership speaking about introducing reforms that will generate something like the Malaysian 'Big Fast Results.' This seems to assume that they have small, slow results and the management challenge is one of scale and speed. But what if the management challenge is more severe, and the government is not producing anything at all--or the government produces things that are of poor quality (regulations that are not enforced, roads that do not last, police services that are corrupt, schools that produce poor teacher quality, clinics that fail to dispense proper health care, etc.)?

I think this is the challenge in most developing countries, and locates such countries in the bottom left corner of the figure below--where we don't get it right and we don't do it fast (maybe we don't do it at all). Many politicians jump on the 'performance management' and 'big fast results' bandwagon in such situations and demand that their governments move to the top right corner--where 'we get it right and we do it fast'. A great goal.

It is a huge challenge to move from the bottom left corner to the top right corner, however. From a management perspective, one needs to find solutions to two complex problems--'how do we do it right?' and 'how do we do it fast?' This challenge is further compounded by the fact that we can assess speed of delivery better than quality. So I often see governments pushed to do stuff quickly instead of properly, such that the emphasis on being fast overwhelms any focus on doing it right (or learning how to do it right).

In these situations I expect to find governments either staying stuck in the bottom left corner (they get nothing done) or moving to the bottom right corner (see below)--'we don't get it right but we do it fast'. This is the quadrant where governments pass laws that look good (quickly) but cannot be implemented. It is where governments build badly constructed schools (quickly) without ensuring they can teach the kids in the schools. Essentially, it is where governments appear to be doing things but where they are actually not building. These governments continue to do things badly, but they just do more of them and more quickly. Sigh.

 

 

This is the product of political impatience, as I see it.

Political patience, on the other hand, supports a management and reform process that builds quality before it forces speed and scale (as in the figure below). This is essentially what PDIA aims to do--gradually address the problems with organizational failure, working at a rational (but fast-as-possible) pace to establish the wherewithal for an organization to function successfully. Political patience helps to support and protect this kind of process. This patience is usually built on clear and prioritized views of 'what is important' (where the list is not very long) and is maintained through adherence to a structured process of 'building' with constant feedback and learning. It is not clean or easy but it is structured.

My team and I are learning about creating this kind of process this right now....structuring interactions to 'buy the time' needed to do the job right--and then fast. We are often learning the hard way, however, and butting heads more than we'd like to--doing pdia on pdia, I guess. I'd love to hear any stories others have of doing this kind of work--so if there are positive deviants out there that we could learn from, please holler!!!!!

Dag Hammarskjöld on Political Patience

I thought I'd follow my prior post with this one, capturing some of Dag Hammarskjöld's comments on patience in the political process (see http://www.dag-hammarskjold.com/interpreting-hammarskjold-s-political-wisdom/patience-in-politics-part-1/):

If the elephant walks and walks in the right direction, we should not be impatient. It does not move too quickly, but we shall certainly arrive at a goal. (The Adventure of Peace, 198) 

Impatience is a useful goad, but a very poor guide. There are times when it is political wisdom, in the best sense, to mark time. (Public Papers 2, 205)   

Nothing is of greater importance for a peaceful and constructive development…toward freedom and an equal place in the world than to respect the laws of natural growth, guiding and helping the necessary change without impatience for overnight results. (Public Papers 2, 258) 

Perseverance and patience, joined with the calm trust in the possibility to overcome all difficulties which is proper to men who know that fate is what they make it, are the qualities most needed at the present difficult juncture in history. (Public Papers 2, 279) 

The fact that there may be a long road to travel in order to arrive at settlement does not in any way, and should not in any way, be permitted to discourage us in our immediate effort:  nor should it be used by any party as an excuse not to cooperate with us. (Public Papers 3, 132) 

To throw the cards on the table for such a reason as that we haven’t reached anything like perfection seems to me…a very unwise, impatient policy. (Public Papers 3, 180)

Political Patience

I have been quiet on my blog for the past few months. Quiet in most aspects of writing and corresponding, actually. It is because I have been actively engaged in trying out new ways of doing development differently, with direct and indirect PDIA experiments.

I am learning a lot through these engagements. Some of the lessons are about leadership and politics in the change process. My primary lesson in this area is that politics is always present in change, and is seldom easily understood ex ante or dealt with in any once-and-for-all fashion. You need to pay attention to politics continually, not study it at odd intervals, if you want to engage effectively in change processes. This, I believe, is the difference between political economy engagement and political economy analysis (which I have addressed before, suggesting we need less PEA and more PEE)

I have also learned that patience is probably the most valuable attribute of politics in a change process.  I don't just mean the political ability to wait or to not get flustered when things go awry or take longer than anticipated. I mean the political ability to set a course and stick to the direction no matter what comes in the way. This kind of patience is what I think separates politics that builds from politics that simply jumps around looking charismatic. 

I think we in academia should spend more time thinking about political patience, supporting it, and even teaching about it.

 

Image from http://www.livetraveleatandrun.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/patience.png

Protecting development projects from the habit of repetitive codified solutions

I've just returned from a two week stint in two countries trying to promote growth, better governance and development.

People in the public and private sectors are struggling with many prescriptions given them by well-meaning economists, political scientists and other development specialists. These usually come in neatly developed plans and working papers, strategy documents, and other codified structures. They are rigorous and well considered, but they commonly do not effectively consider the realities on the ground. This leads to the people hitting walls in implementation, that are often seen as failure and lead to an end of the initiative.

Why does this happen, I ask.

I thinking about this, I find myself reflecting on what the people are trying to do--usually something written into some formal document. However, I find that even the most well described plan and proposal is always alarmingly oversimplified. They assume so many capabilities that simply don't exist in developing countries (most of which I think the writers are not even aware of, given how mundane they may be--structured approaches to work, delegation capabilities, time management, and more things that no one teaches in an economics of development course.

This oversimplification is not in and of itself a problem, I guess. Hirschmann helped us see that we only pursue impossible things because the impossibility is hidden from us, so if we knew how little was really possible we would not do it.

But Hirschmann saw the need for some adaptation mechanisms that help people manage when they realize the capability gaps and contextual limits of codified ideas. These mechanisms help in the identification of gaps and building of capabilities found lacking, and frequently involve facing up to what looks like failure, having a frank reflection on this, and making really hard choices and changes.

In my experience this stage also demands incredible amounts of work on the ground, which is commonly not provided because those needed to work are busy explaining themselves to the ones who codified the project in the first place.  I find again and again that the codifiers--project writers, high level economic plan developers, etc.--respond to these situations by criticizing implementers and proposing another codified project that they say 'just needs to be implemented'.

This is frustrating to everyone, and is one reason why I see history repeating itself again and again. 

We need to be able to protect initiatives when they run into the traps of low capability, high ambiguity contexts...we need to be able to foster reflection on what gaps can be seen in these moments, and what kinds of practical changes these gaps call for...and we need to resist introducing new codified solutions to the problems of practice. 

getting real about development; it's hard

I'm reminded so regularly that development is about change. If it's done well it is about change that sticks, and even more about countries becoming adaptive (able to change continuously at the right pace and in the right way).

This requires learning and building a specific type of DNA in people, organizations, and countries. And this learning is hard. Often because learning is perceived as failure, and failure is feared.

The truth is that most key development breakthroughs happen out of the lessons of things gone wrong, but in the moment of going wrong it is hard to see how valuable the failure is; it seems like all is falling apart and critics come out of every window and door they can.

Keeping one's head in these moments is crucial, and is required to let people see failure as learning and to see that learning itself is the key to success. 

I wonder how often public policy schools teach students about these moments and how to manage yourself in the face of the turmoil these moments involve. I think this may be one of the most important lessons to learn if you want to work in development and not spend all the time writing safe reports no one uses or consult from a distance, or do stuff without bringing local folks along to learn how to do it themselves.

Governance Indicators post 2015...my take

A belated welcome to 2015...sorry for being off line so long.

I thought I'd kick this year off with some links to a paper I recently wrote about governance and the post-2015 goals. Here is the link. I tried to be constructive and try to suggest how measures and targets could be useful...but any reader will see this is tough. 

You see, governance targets are likely to lead to signaling and skin-deep change if they are constructed in the typical fashion--emphasizing cookie cutter processes that make countries look good. You need processes or deep adaptive change associated with the targets...as well as targets constructed around context specific, functional issues... 

this will be a big ask...

Practicing Governance

Guest post by Brad Cunningham (Millennium Challenge Corporation)

Basketball players everywhere are trying their best to shoot a ball through a hoop. In pursuit of this goal, players develop their own style of shooting. The image below shows three of the greatest basketball players just as they are about to shoot. At first glance, their form looks pretty similar. However, the differences intrigue me, and make me think about PDIA.

From left to right: Steve Nash, Reggie Miller, and Larry Bird

With a closer look, differences in these players form becomes apparent. When Steve Nash shoots, the ball stays further in front of him, close to directly above his elbow, and slightly right of the center of his body. When Reggie Miller shoots, the ball is centered above his head (not his elbow) and further back. Larry Bird takes the ball even further behind his head and has it centered above his shoulder instead of his head.

If that all seems like insignificant nuance, consider that while Larry Bird shoots, the ball is nowhere in his field of vision. Contrast this with Steve Nash, who almost obscures his vision of the basket with the ball. Despite these differences of shooting form, all three of these players achieved the highest level of shooting functionality during their careers.

In sports, elements of form are often referred to as “mechanics”. Elite athletes using different mechanics happens in many sports. Top golfers develop unique swings that accommodate their physique and style of play. Baseball pitchers also develop unique pitching motions. In each of these sports, it is remarkable that different forms developed even though players are trying to achieve exactly the same function: put a ball through a hoop from up to 24 feet away, hit a golf ball a far distance in the desired direction, or throw a baseball past a batter.

I can only speculate at how a multiplicity of mechanics comes about based on my own (admittedly amateur) experience playing basketball. I was recently back on a basketball court for the first time in a while. An hour flew by while I was working through the seemingly endless combinations of elbow position, ball position, aiming cues, release angle, left hand position, etc. Yet by the end, the rapid feedback I got from how consistently the ball was going in had helped me find a combination of form-elements that worked for me.

In sports, athletes and teams improve their functionality and the integration of their elements of from through a process called “practice”. In governance, agencies improve through a process we call “re-form”. These words are interesting. In my experience, the activities that “practice” brings to mind (such as trial-and-error, coaching, and gaining skills through experience) are much more relevant to improving the functionality of agencies in developing countries. These also happen to be the ideas that PDIA is built around.

In contrast, “reform” implies re-adjusting forms. Without connecting newly adopted forms to their functionality through a process of “practicing”, the purpose gets lost. This is embodied in activities like changing bureaucratic rules and procedures that are easy targets for change but rarely seem to enhance functionality. To get where they need to go, government agencies need help and time practicing their craft. They need clear goals and quick and timely feedback on whether the form adjustments they make are helping to reach these goals. In other words, they need PDIA.

In addition to direct feedback during practice through a PDIA type process, professional athletes are also constantly scrutinized through detailed statistics of their functionality – shooting percentages, batting averages, driving accuracy, etc. This is a great analogy for the kind of metrics we need for government. As Matt Andrews has pointed out before, metrics of governance too often focus on forms. Instead, we need more and better metrics of functionality that will promote the practice of governance.

All of this confirms my suspicion that PDIA is not some new fad of a panacea that was invented by ivory tower elites. Rather, I see it as a mundane (and perhaps far too obvious) description of how people and organizations have always gone about getting better at accomplishing something in the real world… and I think that’s great.

What Will Work Here? Convenings and Tacit Knowledge...from Bob Klitgaard

Bob Klitgaard recently reminded me of a paper he wrote in 2012, on the power of convening and learning by engagement with others in purpsoeful processes of sharing. It is called 'What Will Work Here' and is great. Here is the opening salvo:

In our rapidly changing world, many policy problems and possible solutions are in flux. History is happening all around us, with changing politics, shifting social mores, and new institutions. New technologies are creating new alternatives and enabling new levels and forms of participation. In issues ranging from public health to environmental protection to economic transformation, multiple actors from government, business, and civil society will have to collaborate in the improvements we need. Evaluating what will work here often takes place in complex ecologies.

In such settings, evaluation needs broadening and deepening. Beyond “the study” for “the decision” by “the policymaker,” a central activity of evaluation may be the convening of multiple actors to understand their complex ecologies, define issues, reconsider objectives and alternatives, digest promising practices, and forge new relationships. A convening brings together

• facts, examples, and frameworks from outside with

• local knowledge and creativity.

  One hoped-for result: better inferences about what will work here.
  Ten years from now, convenings may be the grist of evaluations in complex ecologies. 

The article fits in really well with my recent blog posts about tacit knowledge. Literature shows that this knowledge is acquired by doing and shared by engaging in high-trust interactions. The 'convenings' Bob discusses create such interactive fora, and are important vehicles for folks to acquire and disseminate tacit knowldge and work out 'what works here' (by sharing facts, examples and frameworks).  The convenings are what doing development  differently is trying to achieve (promoting convenings in person, through video-based sharing, and more, between people and organizations in differnet parts of the world doing different things but trying to be more effective in the future than they have been in the past). Consider Bob's description:

Those convened have different if overlapping objectives, different if sometimes overlapping capabilities, and different if overlapping information about the state of the world and about if-then relationships (such as treatment effects). The stakeholders are strategically connected, in the sense that what one party does often affects the outcomes of what other parties do. They are not fully aware of each others’ objectives, capabilities, or information sets; they do not fully understand their strategic interrelations.

The kinds of convenings of interest here are those that build on evaluation. In particular, I have experience with research-based convenings that provide stakeholders with:

• Data, especially data that helps people “get on the same page” about the nature of the problems, if’s and then’s, funding, and costs. Data-rich discussions, in my experience, also help build trust, particularly about controversial issues where someone may be suspicious of being sold an ideological or political argument.

• Examples of success in similar problem areas, which spotlight goals, alternatives, if- then relationships, and partnerships. These examples are based on an evaluation of what they achieved and theory-based speculation about how.

• Frameworks for understanding goals, alternatives, if-then relationships, and/or strategic interdependence. A framework may be a grand theory, a program theory, or a heuristic. The framework draws upon social science, policy analysis, and evaluation. 

Read the full article. Well worth the time.