Building State Capability: Evidence, Analysis,...
Transcript of Building State Capability: Evidence, Analysis,...
Building State Capability:Evidence, Analysis, Action
Lant PritchettHarvard Kennedy School and Center for Global Development
January 16, 2017Enhancing Quality of Service Delivery Conference
Outline
• State Capability for Policy Implementation
• The Big Stuck
• Techniques for Successful Failure or How to not build capability
• PDIA (Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation)—building capability by delivering results
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Czech Republic
Finland
Uruguay
Colombia
Top quartile by income
Second quartile by income
Third quartile by income
Lowest quartile
Bottom half of countries by…
Lowest 25 countries
Percent of 10 misaddressed letters coming back to USA within 90 days (all countries
agree to return within 30 days)
Includes not just Somalia and Myanmar but Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt, Russia, Mongolia, Cambodia, Honduras, Fiji, etc.
Source: Chong et al 2014
Service delivery outcomes from the same service vary across the whole range of possibilities: In Rwanda 97
percent of women completing grade 6 can read, in Nigeria only 12 percent
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Percent of women aged 25-34 who can read all of a single sentence in their chosen langauge, latest
DHS data
Highest grade completed
Rwanda
Ethiopia
Average 51countries
Peru
Bangladesh
Nigeria
What is the “capability for policy implementation”?
Abstract definition of policy implementation
Elements of organizational capability
• Resources
• Capacity of individuals
• Extent to which individuals exercise their capacity to act in response to states of the world to further the (better) goals of the organization
• Acting on correct causal model of outputs to outcomes
Facts(“is it raining?”)
Actions by organizational
agents
PolicyFormula is
the mapping
Driver’s licenses in Delhi: What is the “policy” for getting a driver’s license?
• Studied people getting driver’s license
• Completely Typical de jurepolicy prove identity, residence, age, and driving competence
• De facto policy: hire a tout and the driver’s examination is waived
• >2/3 of those who got a license (and avoided test of competency) by hiring a tout had no driving skills at all
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Hired an Agent Did not Hire anAgent
Took Driving Examination
Source: et al, Hanna, et al 2009
Organizational capability is not the sum of individual capacity
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Private Sector (ALL) Public Sector (ALL) Public Sector Doctors in theirPublic Clinics
Public Sector Doctors in theirPrivate Clinics
Stan
dar
diz
ed C
hec
klis
t Sc
ore
(St
and
ard
Dev
aiat
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s)
%C
hec
klis
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om
ple
tio
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Standardized Checklist Score
Difference in performance for the same health care provider in their public and private clinics
Organization
Source: Das et al forthcoming
Individual capacity
The Big Stuck
Very negative Slow negativeSlow positive(with years to high capability) Rapid
Strong capability (SC>6.5) BHR, BHS, BRN CHL(0), SGP(0), KOR(0), QAT(0) ARE(0)
8 0 3 4 1
Middle capability (4<SC<6.5)
MDA, GUY, IRN, PHL, LKA, MNG, ZAF, MAR, THA, NAM, TTO, ARG, CRI
PER, EGY, CHN, MEX, LBN, VNM, BRA, Ind, JAM, SUR, PAN, CUB, TUN, JOR, OMN, MYS, KWT, ISR
KAZ(10820), GHA(4632), UKR(1216), ARM(1062), RUS(231), BWA(102), IDN(68), COL(56), TUR(55), DZA(55), ALB(42), SAU(28), URY(10), HRV(1)
45 13 18 14 0
Weak capability (2.5<SC<4)
GIN, VEN, MDG, LBY, PNG, KEN, NIC, GTM, SYR, DOM, PRY, SEN, GMB, BLR
MLI, CMR, MOZ, BFA, HND, ECU, BOL, PAK, MWI, GAB, AZE, SLV
UGA(6001), AGO(2738), TZA(371), BGD(244), ETH(103), ZMB(96)
32 14 12 6 0
Very weak capability (SC<2.5) YEM, ZWE, CIV
SOM, HTI, PRK, NGA, COG, TGO, MMR SDN(7270), SLE(333), ZAR(230), IRQ(92) NER(66), GNB(61), LBR(33)
17 3 7 4 3
102 30 40 28 4
70 of 102 countries had deteriorating
state capability in the aggregate over 1996-201249 of 102 countries have weak or very
weak state capability in 2012
At current trends only 13 of 102 developing countries would have
strong state capability even by 2100
Techniques of successful failure:
Isomorphic MimicryPremature Load Bearing
Pretend its Logistics
Isomorphic Mimicry is gaining survival value by looking like something else
(Remember: Red and black, friend of Jack, Red and Yellow, Kill a Fellow)
What is the ecosystem for organizational survival in which
isomorphic mimicry is a technique for succeeding as an organization
while failing at its purpose?
Ecosystem for organizations
Organization
Agents
How Open is the System?
How is Novelty Evaluated?
Strategies for Organizational Legitimation
within the Ecosystem
Leadership Strategies
Front-line Worker
Strategies
OpenClosed
Enhanced Functionality
AgendaConformity
IsomorphicMimicry
DemonstratedSuccess
Value Creation
Performance OrientedSelf-interest
Organizational Perpetuation
How do you destroy organizational capability? Premature load bearing
Import tax collectionagency
Available rewards to Non-compliance for individualagents
Rent collectors
Existing tax code
Maximally Feasible tax code
Trainin
g
No amount of training is going to increase organizational capability in practice when the stress of existing policy implementation already far exceeds capacity
Response to Low Capability:Make it logistics
Get rid of “discretionary” part of driver’s license?
Doctors to give patients all the same advice?
Teachers to follow a day to day script?
Procrustes and his bed
Once systems decide that logistics of input compliance is all they do….
Enrolments Inputs
Enrolment
in
government
schools
Enrolled in private
Percent
in
government
Percenta
ge with
drinking water
Percentage
with girl's toilet
Pupil teacher ratio
2004/05 5,487,221 4,297,171 56.1 79.8 25.4 55
2011/12 4,226,225 5,229,293 44.7 100.0 75.3 29
Gain/loss -1,260,996 932,122 -11.4 20.2 49.9 -26
A million children abandon public schools, learning is getting worse and worse and the Ministry declares success—with data.
Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.
Albert Einstein
The feasible path has to start from where you are….
“You cannot cross a chasm in two jumps”
…because if the first fails, you are at the bottom, with broken bones
PDIA (Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation) as an approach to
building capability of state organizations while producing
results
Out of 30 examined cases of successful reform in developing countries…
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What MotivatesReform?
How do reformsget implemented
Final structures
Solution and LeaderDriven change
PDIA
Four Principles of PDIA(Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation)
1. Local Solutions for Local Problems
2. Pushing Problem Driven Positive Deviance
3. Try, Learn, Iterate, Adapt
4. Scale Learning through Diffusion
This section is based on Andrews, Pritchett and Woolcock 2013 (forthcoming)
Local Solutions for Local Problems
o Agenda for action focused on a locally nominated (through some process) concrete problem
o Not “solution” driven that defines the problem as the lack of a particular input (e.g. “teacher qualifications”) or process (e.g. “EMIS”)
o Rigorous about measurable goals in the output/outcome space (e.g. cleaner streets, numbers of new exports, growth of exports)—can we know if the problem is being solved?
• Good problems
Examples of “problem driven”
Compliance Driven
• Enforce existing regulations on workplace safety
• Hire teachers with required qualifications
• Comply with procurement regulations
Problem Driven
• Reduce fatalities/accidents at work places
• Attract and retain teachers who help student progress
• Buy things effectively
Pushing Problem Driven Positive Deviation
o Authorize some agents (not all) to move from process to flexible and autonomous control to seek better results
o An “autonomy” for “performance accountability” swap (versus “process accountability”)
o Only works if the authorization is problem driven and measured and measurable… increase the ratio of “gale of creative destruction” to “idiot wind”
Authorizing positive deviation
o Allow flexibility in methods against specified and agreed to problems
o “Fence breaking” activities that allow deviations from process controls for designated activities
o Rapid feedback loops to search over design space
Design policy based on global “best practice”
Implement according to local constraints
LowerOutcome
OutcomeHigher
Outcome
Rent Seekers Bureaucrats Innovators
Organizations & Agencies
Policy Makers
Space forAchievable
Practice
Policies include process
barriers to prevent
malfeasance
Process controls also
prevent positive
deviations
Design policy/project to allow designated innovators to search for local “Best Fit ”
Internal authorization of positive deviation
Current outcomes
Worse outcomes
Rent Seekers BureaucratsDesignated Innovators
Policy Makers
Space forAchievable
Practice
Policy D
eviation
s
Feedback on Outcomes with shut down or modification of failures and/or replication of successes
Better Outcomes
PDIA: Building state capability by delivering results
• Focus on locally nominated problems for which there is authorization to act
• A sequence of steps to solve the problem that authorizes positive deviation
• Rapid iterative approach to making progress
• Scaling by diffusion of demonstrated practices across the organization