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Afghanistan 2021: A quickly made long tragedy
The tragedy for the Afghan people of the Taliban re-taking control of the country in August 2021 is the denouement of a process 20 years in the making...
As a sub-component of the Research and Communication on Foreign Aid (ReCom) programme, the PDIA project feeds into the themes: governance and fragility & social sectors. An integral part of development is the expansion of capability of the state to carry out its responsibilities and effectively both impose obligations (e.g. collect taxes, enforce the law) and provide services (education, infrastructure, health). A great deal of the development debate is about what should be done rather than how the state will do it. And the state contracting with NGOs or private providers also requires capability.
However, it is clear that many states, such as the 'failed' Somali and 'fragile' Afghani, Haitian and South Sudanese states have not acquired the state capability to provide the most basic needs to its citizens. Many more states are 'flailing' (Pritchett 2009) as they have designed attractive policies but their ability to implement them is very weak. The development assistance dedicated to building 'capability' has a mixed track record and overall, there has been little progress in the development of appropriate indicators of state capability.
This project aims to research practical alternative modes of building capability for domestic and external stakeholders. The deliverables include eight papers, which at the conclusion of the project, are the core of a book on development.
31 articles, publications, projects, experts...
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Book
Building State CapabilityThis is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Governments play a major role in the...
Working Paper
Engaging with Fragile and Conflict-Affected StatesThe coherence and effectiveness of engagement with the world’s ‘fragile and conflict-affected states’—beyond ethical imperatives and geo-strategic considerations—turns on answers to two vexing questions. First, on what defensible basis is any given...
Working Paper
Can One Retell a Mozambican Reform Story Through Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation?Many public sector reforms in developing countries fail to make governments more functional. This is typically because reforms introduce new solutions that do not fit the contexts in which they are being placed. This situation reflects what has...
Research Brief
How Effectively Were the Paris Principles Applied to State-Building in South Sudan?The five Paris principles of effective aid were only nominally successfully implemented in the state-building process of South Sudan. While the importance of the first principle, ownership, was highlighted in development plans in Southern Sudan...
Working Paper
Cambodia’s Land Management and Administration ProjectThis paper presents the case of World Bank support to the mass titling component of the Cambodia Land Management and Administration Project. This was a project for which there was clear national demand, as evidenced by the fact that the Cambodian...
Working Paper
The Risks to Education Systems from Design Mismatch and Global IsomorphismThe incredibly low levels of learning and the generally dysfunctional public sector schooling systems in many (though not all) developing countries are the result of a capability trap (Pritchett et al. 2010). Two phenomena reinforce persistent...
Working Paper
Does Successful Governance Require Heroes? The Case of Sergio Fajardo and the City of MedellínThe city of Medellín, Colombia was a cauldron of violence with 185 homicides per 100,000 people in 2002. By 2006, this rate had declined to 32.5. Such successful transformation was termed the ‘Medellín miracle’ and credited to policies of the city’s...
Working Paper
South SudanDuring Sudan’s ‘interim period’ from the end of civil war in January 2005 until South Sudan’s independence in July 2011, foreign development agencies provided extensive support and billions of dollars in aid—for which institutional development and...
Journal Article
Escaping Capability Traps Through Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA)Many development initiatives fail to improve performance because they promote isomorphic mimicry—governments change what they look like, not what they do. This article proposes a new approach to doing development, Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation...
Working Paper
South Sudan’s Capability TrapThe prevailing aid orthodoxy works well enough in stable environments, but is ill-equipped to navigate contexts of volatility and fragility. The orthodox approach is adept at solving straightforward technical or logistical problems (paving roads...
Working Paper
Explaining Positive Deviance in Public Sector Reforms in DevelopmentPublic sector reforms are commonplace in developing countries. Much of the literature about these reforms reflects on their failures. This paper asks about the successes and investigates which of two competing theories best explain why some reforms...
Working Paper
Overcoming the Limits of Institutional Reform in UgandaThis paper begins by noting that Uganda has been a public sector reform leader in Africa. It has pursued reforms actively and consistently for three decades now, and has produced many laws, processes and structures that are ‘best in class’ in Africa...
Working Paper
Using Case Studies to Explore the External Validity of ‘Complex’ Development InterventionsRising standards for accurately inferring the impact of development projects has not been matched by equivalently rigorous procedures for guiding decisions about whether and how similar results might be expected elsewhere. These ‘external validity’...
Working Paper
Who Really Leads Development?‘Leadership’ is not a common topic for research in international development. In recent years, however, prominent studies like the 2008 Growth Commission Report noted the importance of leadership in development. This and other studies focused on...
Working Paper
How Do Governments Become Great?Governments can play great roles in their countries, regions, and cities; facilitating or leading the resolution of festering problems and opening new pathways for progress. Examples are more numerous than one might imagine and raise an important...
Research Brief
Building a Capable State in AfghanistanAfghanistan has received vast amounts of development aid, but results may not be sufficiently robust. There is a limited menu of acceptable options for institutional arrangements, leading to a high dependence on external resources, technical...
Research Brief
The Development Process – The Problem of Imitating SuccessDevelopment practice continues to operate on the assumptions of an outdated theory of modernization. Developing countries often sustain legitimacy by imitating other successful modern institutions without actually developing the functionality of the...
Research Brief
The Development Process – Escaping the Capability TrapCurrent development practice focuses too much on the form institutions take, at the expense of worrying about function. A focus on strict rules that aim to curb corruption and inefficiency can diminish the amount of experimentation and adaptation...
Journal Article
Using Case Studies to Explore the External Validity of ‘Complex’ Development InterventionsRising standards for accurately inferring the impact of development projects has not been matched by equivalently rigorous procedures for guiding decisions about whether and how similar results might be expected elsewhere. These ‘external validity’...
Working Paper
A Capable State in AfghanistanThis paper argues that attempts at state-building in Afghanistan have led to institutions that are not robust. The state institutions and organizations continue to be highly dependent on external resources and technical expertise, and lack of...
Journal Article
Looking Like a StateIn many nations today the state has little capability to carry out even basic functions like security, policing, regulation or core service delivery. Enhancing this capability, especially in fragile states, is a long-term task: countries like Haiti...
Working Paper
It’s All about MeEThere is an inherent tension between implementing organizations—which have specific objectives and narrow missions and mandates—and executive organizations—which provide resources to multiple implementing organizations. Ministries of finance/planning...
Working Paper
Escaping Capability Traps Through Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA)Many reform initiatives in developing countries fail to achieve sustained improvements in performance because they are merely isomorphic mimicry—that is, governments and organizations pretend to reform by changing what policies or organizations look...
Working Paper
Looking Like a StateIn many nations today the state has little capability to carry out even basic functions like security, policing, regulation or core service delivery. Enhancing this capability, especially in fragile states, is a long-term task. Countries like Haiti...
Displaying 31 of 31 results
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Theme: Past, 2012-13