Building State Capability in the Context of Statistical Systems: Evidence, Analysis, Action Michael Woolcock Development Research group, World Bank Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University Workshop on Statistical capacity Development OECD, Paris, france 11-12 December 2017 Free download available at: http://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/building-state-capability-evidence-analysis-action

Overview Rationale: Why this matters State capability as a key development cooperation issue Situating Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) Evidence, Analysis: Why an alternative is needed The (unhappy) state of state capability Explaining the limits of past, current approaches Action: Putting PDIA to work in Statistical Capacity Using different types of data to navigate complex spaces Statistical capacity development as itself a complex challenge

1. Rationale Why building implementation capability is a key development cooperation issue 1. The development challenges only get harder SDG 3: Healthy lives, ‘for all at all ages’ SDG 4: Education: from enrollment to ‘lifelong learning… for all’ SDG 16: Peace, inclusion, ‘justice for all’, accountability ‘at all levels’ Such laudable goals raise expectations on states… … but current capability is low, and population growth alone (esp. in Africa) will double in next 30 years… …while citizens and firms will require ever-better education, health, etc Especially important in fragile states… …but also rising middle-income countries With rapidly rising demands on data quality, quantity and interpretation

‘Like running Firefox on DOS…’ The virtues and limits of adaptive approaches 2. Any policy is only as good as its implementation SDG 17: “Strengthen the means of implementation…” But technical and adaptive problems are really different IFI systems were (primarily) designed to engage with the former …so, when asked to engage with adaptive problems, their operating systems routinely “crash” Erecting hospitals, providing bandages isn’t curative care Problem-Drive Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) as one option among several in the broader ‘Doing Development Differently’ (DDD) movement Complement to, not substitute for, orthodox approaches Not seeking ‘paradigm’ status; best suited to addressing ‘complex’ projects (or aspects thereof) Quick overview of PDIA

How does PDIA differ? “Big D” (e.g. WB, agencies) “small d” (e.g. NGOs) PDIA What drives action? Pre-determined solutions (“institutional mono-cropping”, “best practice”), more inputs Niche, parallel solutions (via variety of antidotes – e.g. “participation” “community driven”) Planning for action? Lots of advance planning (implementation of secondary importance) Boutique; starting very small with no plans for scale Feedback loops? Monitoring (short, on financing, compliance, inputs) and Evaluation (long feedback loop on outputs, maybe outcomes) Casual; geared to advocacy, not systemic learning Scale? Top-down: the head learns, implementation is just muscle (“political will”) Small is beautiful… Or, just not logistically possible

How does PDIA differ? “Big D” (e.g. WB, agencies) “small d” (e.g. NGOs) PDIA What drives action? Pre-determined solutions (“institutional mono-cropping”, “best practice”), more inputs Niche, parallel solutions (via variety of antidotes – e.g. “participation” “community driven”) Problem-Driven: looking to solve particular problems, locally nominated and prioritized Planning for action? Lots of advance planning (implementation of secondary importance) Boutique; starting very small with no plans for scale Assuring authorizing environment promoting positive deviation, purposive crawl of the design space Feedback loops? Monitoring (short, on financing, compliance, inputs) and Evaluation (long feedback loop on outputs, maybe outcomes) Casual; geared to advocacy, not systemic learning MeE: integration of rigorous “experiential” learning into tight feedback loops Scale? Top-down: the head learns, implementation is just muscle (“political will”) Small is beautiful… Or, just not logistically possible Diffusion of feasible practice across organizations and communities of practitioners

2. Evidence, Analysis Only the 13 ‘historically developing countries’ (in green) are on a plausible path to strong capability by the end of the 21st C   Rapid negative (g<-.05) Slow Rapid positive (g>.05) Negative (-.05<g<0) Positive (0<g<05) Strong (SC>6.5) BHR, BHS, BRN CHL(0), SGP(0), KOR(0), QAT(0) ARE(0) 8 3 4 1 Middle (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 Weak (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 12 6 Very weak (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 7 102 30 40 28 Source: Authors’ calculations of state capability from Quality of Government, Failed State Index, and World Governance indicators Number in brackets is years to the level of the lowest OECD country (‘Portugal’)

Education in India Successive cohorts doing worse… Parents smuggling answers to students doing exams (Bihar, India)

Poor service, even for the wealthy… Source: Kaffenberger and Pritchett 2017

…but especially in ‘complex’ tasks (i. e …but especially in ‘complex’ tasks (i.e., high discretion, transaction-intensive, contentious) Anthropology Sociology Popular Culture On implementing a national social protection program for women in rural India On implementing responses to the AIDS crisis in Malawi On implementing the welfare state under ‘austerity’ in Britain

3. Action How can we ‘do development differently’ (DDD)? Building state capability by expanding local successes Different kinds of implementation problems require different kinds of solutions Thus need different kinds of evidence and strategies Organizations, like individuals, acquire capability through practice Cf. learning languages, playing musical instruments, sports “You can’t juggle without the struggle” A wide array of initiatives already underway around the world Disseminated through an evolving global community of practice

Applications to statistical capacity Using data to navigate complex spaces Documenting, learning from wide variation in outcomes (ex post) Using real-time feedback to build implementation capability (in situ) Both require integrating different types, sources of evidence Including forms amenable to non-literate / non-numerate citizens Afghanistan (theatre, photography), India (Social Observatory)

Applications to statistical capacity Using data to navigate complex spaces Documenting, learning from wide variation in outcomes (ex post) Using real-time feedback to build implementation capability (in situ) Both require integrating different types, sources of evidence Including forms amenable to non-literate / non-numerate citizens Afghanistan (theatre, photography), India (Social Observatory) Collecting, curating and interpreting data as themselves complex development challenges Even data collection practices with long, venerable history (e.g., SNA) are far from stellar (Jervens) ‘Open Data Initiative’ as an important step… Accommodating critics, rivals using this data also requires high capability