We divide the 102 historically developing countries (HDCs) into those with ‘very weak’, ‘weak’, ‘middle’, and ‘strong’ state capability. Analyzing the levels and recent growth rates of the HDCs’ capability for policy implementation reveals how pervasively “stuck” most of them are.
Only eight HDCs have attained strong capability, and since most of these are small (e.g., Singapore, UAE), less than 100 million (or 1.7%) of the roughly 5.8 billion people in HDCs currently live in high capability states.
Almost half (49) of these countries have very weak or weak capability, and thus their long-run pace of acquiring capability is also very slow.
Alarmingly, three quarters of these countries (36 of 49) have experienced negative growth in state capability in recent decades, while more than a third of all countries (36 of 102) have low and (in the medium run at least) deteriorating state capability.
At current rates, the ‘time to high capability’ of the 49 currently weak capability states and the 36 with negative growth is obviously “forever”. But even for the 13 with positive growth, only three would reach strong capability by the end of the 21st century at their current medium run growth.
big_stuck_cidwp_318.pdfMany development challenges are complex, involving a lot of different agents and with unknown dimensions. Solutions to these challenges are often unknown, and contextually dependent. At the same time, there are political imperatives at play in many contexts which create pressure to ‘find the solution now…and then scale it up.’ Such pressure raises a question: how does a policy entrepreneur or reformer find a new solution and scale it up when dealing with complexity? This is the subject we address in the current paper, which is the fifth in a series on ‘how to’ do problem driven iterative adaptation (PDIA) (Andrews et al. 2015, 2016a, 2016b, 2016c).
The paper focuses on building broad agency solutions in the process of identifying problems and finding and fitting contextually appropriate solutions. The broad agency is, in our opinion, a most effective mechanism to ensure scaling and dynamic sustainability in the change process. As with other working papers on this topic, the contents here do not offer all answers to those asking questions about how to do development effectively. It closes by reflecting on the importance of ‘you’ (the reader, and ostensibly part of a policy change or reform team somewhere) using this and the other ideas as heuristics to rethink and reorient how you work—but with your own signature on each idea.
scaling_pdia_cidwp_315.pdf
2019-11-cid-wp-315-pdia-broad-agency-esp.pdfDisponible en Español: Escalando soluciones PDIA mediante la agencia amplia, y tu rol en ello (noviembre 2019)
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.
Resumen:
Muchos de los desafíos que enfrentamos en el desarrollo internacional son complejos por naturaleza. Involucran a muchos actores en contextos de incertidumbre y sin soluciones claras. Nuestro trabajo ha propuesto una aproximación a esos retos que se llama Adaptación Iterativa Orientada al problema (en inglés Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation, PDIA). Este artículo es el más reciente dentro de una serie que pretende mostrar cómo uno puede hacer PDIA, y que parte del primer artículo, “Trabajando con orientación al problema”. Este artículo se ocupa de una parte clave del enfoque que asumimos, que ocurre una vez hemos identificado el problema y empezamos a hacer iteraciones experimentales en tiempo real. Esperamos estar ofreciendo un artículo práctico que se apoya en la experiencia y que contiene ejercicios para lectores que ya están involucrados en este tipo de labor.
adaptive_work_cd_wp_313.pdf
2019-10-cid-wp-313-update-2-doing-iterative-adaptive-work-esp.pdfDisponible en Español: Cómo trabajar de manera iterativa y adaptativa (septiembre 2019)
Development and state building processes are about change. Change is, however, elusive in many contexts. In prior work, we have offered problem driven iterative adaptation (PDIA) as an approach to tackle wicked hard change challenges. This is our fourth practical working paper on ‘how’ to do PDIA. The working paper addresses questions about authority, given that authority is needed to make change happen—especially in hierarchical government settings. This authority is often difficult to attain, however. It is seldom located in one office of person, and is often harder to lock-in with complex challenges, given that they commonly involve significant risk and uncertainty and require engagement by many agents responding to different kinds of authority. Every effort must be taken to address such challenges, and efforts should include an explicit strategy to establish an appropriate authorizing environment. This working paper suggests ideas to adopt in this strategy, with practical exercises and examples to help the reader apply such ideas in her or his own work.
Manejando tu ambiente de autorización en un processor PDIA (resumen):
Los procesos de desarrollo y construcción de capacidad institucional están hechos de cambios. Pero el cambio tiende a ser elusivo en muchos contextos. En trabajos previos, ofrecemos la Adaptación Iterativa Orientada al problema (PDIA por sus siglas en inglés) como enfoque para encarar desafíos de cambio muy difíciles. Este es nuestro cuarto papel de trabajo práctico sobre cómo hacer PDIA. En este artículo respondemos cuestiones sobre la autoridad, la que uno necesita para hacer que los cambios ocurran —especialmente dentro de gobiernos jerárquicos. Pero la autoridad con frecuencia es difícil de obtener; rara vez se concentra en una oficina o en una persona, y es difícil comprometerla en la solución de desafíos complejos, porque estos suelen implicar un riesgo significativo, así como mucha incertidumbre, y necesitan del concierto de varios agentes que responden a distintos tipos de autoridad. Esos desafíos requieren de todos los esfuerzos posibles, lo cual nos obliga a tener una estrategia explícita para establecer un ambiente de autorización apropiado. Este papel de trabajo sugiere ideas para adoptar en esta estrategia, con ejercicios prácticos y ejemplos que ayudan al lector a aplicar esas ideas en su propio trabajo.
authorizing_environ_cid_wp_312.pdf
2019-10-cid-wp-312-update-managing-authorizing-environment-esp.pdfDisponible en Español: Manejando tu ambiente de autorización en un processor PDIA (septiembre 2019)