@book{andrews_limits_2013, address = {Cambridge}, title = {The {Limits} of {Institutional} {Reform} in {Development}: {Changing} {Rules} for {Realistic} {Solutions}}, isbn = {978-1-107-01633-0}, shorttitle = {The {Limits} of {Institutional} {Reform} in {Development}}, abstract = {Institutional reforms are common across the globe. Think of efforts to build new governments in Afghanistan and Iraq; or decades worth of interventions intended to improve fiscal management, reduce corruption or introduce efficient public sector service delivery in African countries.These reforms often have limited results, however. They lead to new laws that are not properly implemented, and new organizations that have poor capacities and fail to function as needed. In this book, Matt Andrews explains why reform results are frequently limited and suggests ways to overcome these limits. In the first half of the book, Andrews argues that reforms fail to make governments better when they are introduced as signals to gain short-term support--from donors and others. Reforms as signals introduce unrealistic best practices that do not fit developing country contexts and are not considered relevant by implementing agents. The result is a set of new forms that do not function properly. Andrews uses examples to prove this point, ranging from efforts to introduce fiscal rules in Argentina to reforms aimed at international accounting standard adoption in many African countries, and anti corruption interventions in Malawi and Uganda. In the second half of the book, Andrews notes that there are instances where reforms are not being introduced as signals, and are having more of an impact on government effectiveness. Examples include local government reforms in Rwanda, anti corruption initiatives in Indonesia, and a variety of initiatives ranging from results based management to civil service modernization and internal control regime adoption in governments like Kenya, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Andrews uses these examples to discuss ways in which reforms can actually provide realistic solutions to governance challenges in developing countries. Lessons from these experiences suggest that reform limits can be overcome by focusing interventions on problem solving, and promoting incremental and localized processes to find solutions, involving multiple agents who can authorize and implement reforms.}, language = {English}, publisher = {Cambridge University Press}, author = {Andrews, Matt}, month = feb, year = {2013}, } @techreport{andrews_explaining_2013, type = {Working {Paper} {Series}}, title = {Explaining positive deviance in public sector reforms in development}, url = {http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/unuwpaper/wp2013-117.htm}, abstract = {Public 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 exhibi}, number = {UNU-WIDER Research Paper WP2013/117}, urldate = {2017-04-18}, institution = {World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER)}, author = {Andrews, Matt}, year = {2013}, keywords = {Development, Innovation, Reform, case survey, governance, growth, leadership}, } @techreport{andrews_getting_2021, address = {Oxford}, type = {{RISE} {Working} {Paper}}, title = {Getting {Real} about {Unknowns} in {Complex} {Policy} {Work}}, url = {https://riseprogramme.org/publications/getting-real-about-unknowns-complex-policy-work}, abstract = {As with all public policy work, education policies are demanding. Policy workers need to ‘know’ a lot—about the problems they are addressing, the people who need to be engaged, the promises they can make in response, the context they are working in, and the processes they will follow to implement. Most policy workers answer questions about such issues within the structures of plan and control processes used to devise budgets and projects. These structures limit their knowledge gathering, organization and sense-making activities to up-front planning activities, and even though sophisticated tools like Theories of Change suggest planners ‘know’ all that is needed for policy success, they often do not. Policies are often fraught with ‘unknowns’ that cannot be captured in passive planning processes and thus repeatedly undermine even the best laid plans. Through a novel strategy that asks how much one knows about the answers to 25 essential policy questions, and an application to recent education policy interventions in Mozambique, this paper shows that it is possible to get real about unknowns in policy work. Just recognizing these unknowns exist—and understanding why they do and what kind of challenge they pose to policy workers—can help promote a more modest and realistic approach to doing complex policy work.}, language = {en}, number = {21/083}, urldate = {2021-12-16}, institution = {Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE)}, author = {Andrews, Matt}, month = nov, year = {2021}, doi = {10.35489/BSG-RISE-WP_2021/083}, } @techreport{andrews_guide_2016, title = {A {Guide} to {Peer}-to-{Peer} {Learning}}, url = {https://www.effectiveinstitutions.org/media/The_EIP_P_to_P_Learning_Guide.pdf}, language = {en}, urldate = {2018-10-01}, institution = {Effective Institutions Platform}, author = {Andrews, Matt and Manning, Nick}, year = {2016}, pages = {32}, } @book{andrews_pdia_2021, address = {Cambridge, MA}, title = {{PDIA} in action}, url = {https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/files/bsc/files/pdia_book_square_final.pdf}, abstract = {Learning from our experience in 2020, we asked the alumni of our HKS Implementing Public Policy (IPP) Executive Education program, if they wanted to work with our students on their nominated problems. Eight IPP alumni, William Keith Young, Adaeze Oreh, Milzy Carrasco, Kevin Schilling, Artem Shaipov, George Imbenzi, David Wuyep, and Raphael Kenigsberg, who had been trained on PDIA and implementation, signed up to work with our students. Thirty-seven students signed up to take the course beginning January 26th, 2021. The students worked across eight teams and adopted a problem driven approach to foster learning that could help their authorizers develop an action learning strategy to their nominated challenge. This book highlights the students’ work drawing from their blogs as well as the event series. There are 8 sections, one for each of the teams and the problems they worked on during the course. We hope you enjoy reading their stories! Scan the QR Code at the end of each section to learn more.}, urldate = {2021-12-16}, publisher = {Center for International Development, Harvard University}, editor = {Andrews, Matt and Samji, Salimah}, month = may, year = {2021}, } @techreport{andrews_doing_2015, title = {Doing {Problem} {Driven} {Work}}, url = {http://ssrn.com/abstract=2700308}, number = {073}, urldate = {2017-04-18}, institution = {Harvard University}, author = {Andrews, Matt and Pritchett, Lant and Woolcock, Michael}, year = {2015}, keywords = {IMPORTANT}, } @book{andrews_building_2017, address = {Oxford}, title = {Building {State} {Capability}: {Evidence}, {Analysis}, {Action}}, shorttitle = {Building {State} {Capability}}, url = {http://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/files/bsc/files/bsc_book.pdf}, abstract = {This 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 development process, and constantly introduce reforms and policies to achieve developmental objectives. Many of these interventions have limited impact, however; schools get built but children don't learn, IT systems areintroduced but not used, plans are written but not implemented. These achievement deficiencies reveal gaps in capabilities, and weaknesses in the process of building state capability.This book addresses these weaknesses and gaps. It starts by providing evidence of the capability shortfalls that currently exist in many countries, showing that many governments lack basic capacities even after decades of reforms and capacity building efforts. The book then analyses this evidence, identifying capability traps that hold many governments back - particularly related to isomorphic mimicry (where governments copy best practice solutions from other countries that make them look morecapable even if they are not more capable) and premature load bearing (where governments adopt new mechanisms that they cannot actually make work, given weak extant capacities). The book then describes a process that governments can use to escape these capability traps. Called PDIA (problem driveniterative adaptation), this process empowers people working in governments to find and fit solutions to the problems they face. The discussion about this process is structured in a practical manner so that readers can actually apply tools and ideas to the capability challenges they face in their own contexts. These applications will help readers devise policies and reforms that have more impact than those of the past.}, language = {English}, urldate = {2017-04-18}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, author = {Andrews, Matt and Pritchett, Lant and Woolcock, Michael}, month = jan, year = {2017}, keywords = {IMPORTANT}, } @techreport{andrews_doing_2016, title = {Doing {Iterative} and {Adaptive} {Work}}, url = {https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/files/bsc/files/adaptive_work_cd_wp_313.pdf}, abstract = {Many of the challenges in international development are complex in nature. They involve many actors in uncertain contexts and with unclear solutions. Our work has proposed an approach to addressing such challenges, called Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA). This paper is the most recent in a series intended to show how one can do PDIA, building on the first paper, "Doing Problem Driven Work.” The current paper addresses a key part of the approach one moves to once a problem has been identified, performing real-time experimental iterations. This is intended as a practical paper that builds on experience and embeds exercises for readers who are actually involved in this kind of work.}, language = {eng}, number = {313}, urldate = {2017-04-18}, institution = {Center for International Development at Harvard University}, author = {Andrews, Matt and Pritchett, Lant and Woolcock, Michael}, year = {2016}, keywords = {IMPORTANT}, } @techreport{andrews_escaping_2012, title = {Escaping {Capability} {Traps} through {Problem}-{Driven} {Iterative} {Adaptation} ({PDIA})}, url = {http://ssrn.com/abstract=2700308}, number = {RWP12-036}, urldate = {2017-04-18}, institution = {Harvard University}, author = {Andrews, Matt and Pritchett, Lant and Woolcock, Michael}, month = aug, year = {2012}, keywords = {IMPORTANT}, } @techreport{samji_pdia_2018, title = {{PDIA} {Toolkit} - {A} {DIY} {Approach} to {Solving} {Complex} {Problems}}, url = {https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/PDIAtoolkit}, abstract = {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.}, language = {en}, urldate = {2018-10-26}, institution = {Center for International Development at Harvard University}, author = {Samji, Salimah and Andrews, Matt and Pritchett, Lant and Woolcock, MIchael}, month = oct, year = {2018}, } @techreport{samji_caja_2018, title = {Caja de {Herramientas} {PDIA} - {Un} enfoque “hazlo tú mismo” para resolver problemas complejos}, url = {https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/PDIAtoolkit}, abstract = {(Spanish version of he PDIA toolkit) 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.}, language = {en}, urldate = {2018-10-26}, institution = {Center for International Development at Harvard University}, author = {Samji, Salimah and Andrews, Matt and Pritchett, Lant and Woolcock, MIchael}, month = oct, year = {2018}, } @techreport{wild_doing_2016, address = {London}, title = {Doing {Development} {Differently}: {Who} we are, {What} we’re doing, {What} we’re learning}, url = {https://www.odi.org/publications/10662-doing-development-differently-who-we-are-what-were-doing-and-what-were-learning}, abstract = {In November 2014, the doing development differently community got together in Harvard to discuss what successful development interventions look like. Two years on, our community is broader than aid. It's broader than donors. It's about all organisations delivering change, producing real solutions to real problems that have real impact. It's about building trust, empowering people and promoting sustainability. Over the past two years, the community has been putting these ideas into practice across the world – being honest about what we are learning, including where we are not getting things right. This document aims to be an entry point for anyone interested in doing development differently. It explores the things that could be stopping you including: You are constrained by a disabling environment. You have strict reporting requirements. People aren't sold on the idea. It's easier to do things the way you've always done it. It's difficult to do in practice. If you are facing one, several, or all of these constraints, this document gives you a place to start. Using 43 case studies from practitoners within donors, governments, implementing organisations and NGOs across the globe, we aim to draw out some key lessons learnt, and give some advice for people considering this approach. These case studies are split across five categories: Swimming against the tide. Working in and with government. Feedback loops and data. Organisational change. Diffusion. Finally, if you want to know more, the document concludes with a suggested list of blogs and reports which explain these concepts in more detail.}, urldate = {2017-04-18}, institution = {ODI}, author = {ODI}, editor = {Wild, Leni and Andrews, Matt and Pett, Jamie and Dempster, Helen}, month = dec, year = {2016}, keywords = {IMPORTANT}, } @incollection{whaites_building_2015, title = {Building capability by delivering results: {Putting} {Problem}-{Driven} {Iterative} {Adaptation} ({PDIA}) principles into practice}, url = {http://www.oecd.org/dac/governance-peace/governance/governance-practitioners-notebook.htm}, abstract = {The Governance Practitioner’s Notebook takes an unusual approach for the OECD-DAC Network on Governance (GovNet). It brings together a collection of specially written notes aimed at those who work as governance practitioners within development agencies. It does so, however, without attempting to offer definitive guidance – instead aiming to stimulate thinking and debate. To aid this process the book is centred on a fictional Governance Adviser. The Notebook’s format provides space for experts to speak on today’s governance issues: politics, public sector reform and stakeholder engagement. It encourages debate, charts the evolution of donor thinking, and highlights future challenges in the age of the Sustainable Development Goals. Each section introduces both technical issues and major areas of debate, providing ideas for future development support to institutional reform.}, urldate = {2019-06-10}, booktitle = {A {Governance} {Practitioner}’s {Notebook}: {Alternative} {Ideas} and {Approaches}}, publisher = {OECD}, author = {Andrews, Matt and Pritchett, Lant and Samji, Salimah and Woolcock, Michael}, editor = {Whaites, Alan and Gonzalez, Eduardo and Fyson, Sara and Teskey, Graham}, month = nov, year = {2015}, keywords = {IMPORTANT}, } @techreport{andrews_learning_2017, address = {Cambridge}, title = {Learning to {Target} for {Economic} {Diversification}: {PDIA} in {Sri} {Lanka}}, shorttitle = {Learning to {Target} for {Economic} {Diversification}}, institution = {Center for International Development, Harvard University}, author = {Andrews, Matt and Ariyasinghe, Duminda and Batuwanthudawa, Thamari and Darmasiri, Shivanthika and Silva, Nilupul and Harrington, Peter and Jayasinghe, Prasanna and Jayasinghe, Upul and Jayathilake, Gamini and Karunaratne, Jayani and Katugampala, Lalit and Liyanapathirane, Jeewani and Malalgoda, Champika and McNaught, Tim and Poobalan, Anisha and Ratnasekera, Sanjeewa and Samaraweera, Priyanka and Saumya, Erangani and Stock, Daniel and Senerath, Upali and Sibera, Ranjan and Walpita, Indira and Wijesinghe, Shamalie}, month = jan, year = {2017}, }