This probably doesn’t need saying, but the World Development Report is a big deal. The World Bank’s annual flagships have a track record of shaping debates on particular issues, and…
When Focus Groups Fail: The Argument in Favour of Involving Local Researchers in Project Design
…the quality of data we receive. To illustrate from my own experiences with focus groups that failed to provide quality data for the simple reason that the project manager, or…
Ditching the Masterplan. How can Urban Development become ‘Politically smart, locally led’?
…come some way in grappling with complex problems, but urban development has lagged behind. Urban programmes systematically underperform according to their own results frameworks and internal evaluations. The failures are…
Drought in Africa – How the system to fund humanitarian aid is still hardwired to fail
…after 260,000 people died in the Somalia famine in 2011. Even in Ethiopia and Kenya, where the impact was much reduced, the DEC evaluation called the response a ‘system-wide failure’…
WDR 2017 on Governance and Law: great content, terrible comms, and a big moral dilemma on rights and democracy
…Question – if that’s true, what about China? At worst, authors like Acemoglu and Robinson in Why Nations Fail make themselves look a bit ridiculous by arguing that China is…
Where are development’s venture capitalists?
…change by backing 10 projects knowing that nine will fail (and on the tenth ‘fit’ one, he/she will make enough money to more than compensate for the other failures). Could…
What does Civil Society think of Adaptive Management? Not that much, it turns out.
…– in particular – to secure authority to experiment and security to fail. Those conditions – how to eke out the space to try, test. fail, and learn – and…
How have societies rebuilt trust in their leaders? Your ideas please!
…often the result of sweat and tears. How Democracies Die is full of historical examples.’ Samy Ahmar: ‘A useful reference is “Why Nations Fail” in which the distinction between extractive…
Book Review: Power and Progress. Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity
I started reading Power and Progress in a fairly sceptical frame of mind, because I didn’t much like Why Nations Fail. But it won me over in the end, especially…
Book Review: Knowledge, Policy and Power in International Development: A Practical Guide
…they are categorised in Why Nations Fail. The discussion portrays a largely steady state world of research, engagement with policy makers, and civilised debate, but in advocacy terms, readiness for…
Fukuyama’s history of the State, Book 2: Political Order and Political Decay
…(and less crudely propagandistic) than Why Nations Fail (although both books argue backwards from the desirability of liberal democracy). If you want to see a fairly acrimonious exchange between the…
10 top thinkers on Development, summarized in 700 words by Stefan Dercon
…in Whitehall because Britain comes out well. D+J didn’t like the human capital argument (education → development), and much of their Why Nations Fail agenda was their response. The trouble…