Harvard Center for International Development

The Building State Capability (BSC) program at CID uses the Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) approach to help organizations develop the capability to solve complex problems and to implement public policies. PDIA is a process of facilitated emergence, which focuses on problems (not solutions) and follows a step by step process (not a rigid plan) that allows for flexible learning and adaptation. Today on CID’s Speaker Series podcast, Anna Mysliewic, student at the Harvard Kennedy School, interviews Salimah, who discusses the challenges and experiences BSC has faced when implementing PDIA in the field. Salimah draws on examples from BSC’s work in Albania and Sri Lanka, as well as the recent launch of the PDIAToolkit, a Do-it-Yourself kit for teams to use when solving complex problems. To learn more about PDIA: bsc.cid.harvard.edu Download the PDIAToolkit (in English and Spanish): bsc.cid.harvard.edu/PDIAtoolkit Interview recorded on March 1, 2019. About Salimah Samji: Salimah Samji is the Director of Building State Capability (BSC). She has more than 15 years of experience working in international development on the delivery of public services, transparency and accountability, strategic planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning. She joined CID in 2012 to help create the BSC program. Today, she is responsible for providing vision, strategic leadership, oversight and managing projects and research initiatives. Salimah also leads BSC’s work on digital learning. Before joining CID, she was an independent consultant working for the World Bank on issues of governance, and the Hewlett Foundation on strategic planning for one of their grantees. She has worked as a senior program manager at Google.org, leading a transparency and accountability initiative focused on empowering citizens and decision-makers, by making information on service delivery outcomes publicly available. Salimah has also worked at the World Bank as a social/rural development and monitoring and evaluation specialist in South Asia. She has a Bachelor of Mathematics from the University of Waterloo (Canada) and a Masters in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) from the Harvard Kennedy School. She is a qualified Casualty Actuary who changed careers after working for 18 months in Afghan refugee camps with a Canadian NGO (FOCUS Humanitarian Assistance) based in Pakistan. Salimah has worked and lived in Kenya, India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Canada and the USA. View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-PDIA%20in%20action.pdf

At a time when 65 million people are displaced from their homes and more than 800 million people go to bed hungry every night, how can we make a real difference in tackling poverty & social injustices? Fatema Sumar has been a diplomat and development leader, working in the U.S. Senate, the U.S. State Department, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Currently, Fatema is Vice President of Global Programs at Oxfam America, a division that focuses on humanitarian aid and response, local partnerships that improve disaster response, and food systems and security. Today on CID’s Speaker Series podcast, Ghazi Mirza, student at the Harvard Graduate School of Educaton, interviews Fatema, who gives us an in-depth look into her role at Oxfam America, the organization’s approach to development, and what they’re currently focused on in the development space. www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid Interview recorded on March 29, 2019. About Fatema Sumar: Fatema Z. Sumar joined Oxfam America in 2018 as Vice President of Global Programs, where she oversees our regional development and humanitarian response programs. Fatema comes to Oxfam with a distinguished career in the U.S. government, leading U.S. efforts to advance sustainable development and economic policy in emerging markets and fragile countries. Most recently, she served as Regional Deputy Vice President for Europe, Asia, Pacific, and Latin America at the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), where she managed investments focused on international growth and poverty reduction. Prior to MCC, she served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia at the U.S. Department of State and as a Senior Professional Staff Member on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Fatema holds a Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School and a Bachelor of Arts in Government from Cornell University. She studied abroad at the American University in Cairo. View the transcript for the episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-%20Tackling%20Poverty%20Through%20Diplomacy%20and%20Development.pdf

Between 1999 and 2009, Jordan experienced a huge growth acceleration, tripling its exports and increasing income per capita by 38%. Since then, its economy has been thrown off balance, impacted by a number of external shocks that include the global financial crisis, the Arab Spring, and the Syrian Civil War. For the past year, CID has been working in the country with the goal of understanding what is hindering income growth per capita and drafting a roadmap to help Jordan get back on a sustainable growth track. This week on CID’s Research Spotlight podcast, we talk to CID fellows and project managers Miguel Angel Santos and Tim O’Brien on the methodologies and findings of this research project. To read the full paper: bit.ly/2FNNBtY Interview recorded on March 18, 2019. About Miguel Angel Santos: Miguel Angel Santos is an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the Director of Applied Research at the Center for International Development (CID) at Harvard University. At CID, he has been involved in various research projects aimed at helping governments to rethink their development strategies, both at the national and sub-national levels. Since he joined CID in August 2014, he has been involved in projects at the national level in Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela, and at the sub-national level in Mexico in the states of Chiapas, Baja California, Tabasco and Campeche; and the city of Hermosillo at Sonora state. He has also performed as project manager in the projects leading to the build-up of the Mexican Atlas of Economic Complexity, and the Peruvian Atlas of Economic Complexity. Before joining the field of international development, Miguel worked for ten years in corporate finance and business development in Latin America, performing as Director of Finance for the Cisneros Group of Companies (1997-2003), Head of Corporate Finance for Mercantil Servicios Financieros (2005-2007), and Business Vice-President for Sony Pictures and Entertainment Latin America (2008-2009). At that point, he decided to switch tracks and get involved in development economics. He holds two Master of Science degrees in International Finance and Trade (2011) and Economics (2012) from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, a Master in Public Administration from Harvard University (2014), and a Ph.D. in Economics at Universidad de Barcelona (2016). He was the head of the Macroeconomic Policy Team for presidential candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski in the Venezuelan elections of 2012. About Tim O’Brien: Tim O’Brien joined CID in 2015 and has worked on both Growth Lab and Building State Capability projects. He has led growth diagnostic research in Albania and Sri Lanka. Tim holds a Master in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) degree from the Harvard Kennedy School and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Northwestern University. Tim served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi from 2008-2010 and has experience working with the World Bank and in environmental engineering. Tim’s research interests center on the challenges of economic transformation and adapting to climate change in developing countries and vulnerable communities. View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-Jordan-elements%20of%20a%20growth%20strategy.pdf

Earlier this year, thousands of Bangladesh garment workers clashed with the police as they tried to push for higher wages. One person was killed as the police fired rubber bullets and tear gas against the protesters. This is unfortunately common throughout low-end supply chains. Governments try to repress laborers in order to curb minimum wage increases and keep costs low. This week Salimah Samji, Director of CID’s Building State Capability Program talks to Alice Evans Lecturer at Kings College London and Associate at the Building State Capability Program on possible solutions to this pressing issue. Read Alice Evans' report on Increasing Pro-Labour Reforms: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/publications/incentivising-pro-labour-reforms // www.bsc.cid.harvard.edu // Interview recorded on February 13, 2019. About Alice Evans: Alice Evans is writing a book on "The Global Politics of Decent Work". Through comparative research on strengthening corporate accountability, Alice explores how to resolve global collective action problems and improve workers' rights. She has published on the causes of falling inequality in Latin America; social movements; rising support for gender equality; cities as catalysts of social change; and the politics of maternal mortality. She is a Lecturer at King's College London, with previous appointments at Cambridge and the LSE. View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-Labor%20rights.pdf

Salimah Samji, Building State Capability Program Director talks to Anjikwi Mshelbwala, who took the PDIA online course offered by the Building State Capability Program in the Fall of 2017. Anjikwi, an ICT Officer at ActionAid talks about his experience applying the insights from the program in his native Nigeria and describes how the learnings he got from the course have helped him solve complex development problems ever since. *** - Learn more about CID's Building State Capability Program at: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/ - Download the free PDIA toolkit at: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/PDIAtoolkit - Download the Building State Capability book at: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/building-state-capability-evidence-analysis-action View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-JPDIA%20Alumni%20Solving%20complex.pdf

Over the last eight years, the Syrian Civil War has left millions of people internally displaced and many more have fled the country to protect themselves and their families. This humanitarian crisis has left the region and its people to face incredible challenges in their everyday lives. Andrew Mitchell, British Member of Parliament and former Secretary of State for International Development considers the situation to be a catastrophe from which the international community can learn many lessons on how to support those in the country, as well as refugees throughout the world. Today on CID’s Speaker Series podcast, Nawal Qutub, student at the Harvard Graduate School of Educaton, interviews Andrew Mitchell, who discusses the humanitarian crisis in Syria following the Civil War and how the international community can assist with rebuilding the country once peace is restored. // www.growthlab.cid.harvard.edu // Interview recorded on February 22, 2019. About Rt. Hon. Andrew Mitchell: Rt Hon. Andrew Mitchell is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sutton Coldfield since 2001. He was the MP for Gedling from 1987 to 1997. He served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for International Development from 2010 to 2012. Mitchell was elected President of the Cambridge Union in 1978. Before university, he served for several months as a United Nations military peacekeeper in Cyprus. He has extensive pre-government experience of the developing world, and is the founder of Project Umubano, a Conservative Party social action project in Rwanda and Sierra Leone in central and west Africa, launched in 2007. Mitchell was returned as MP for Sutton Coldfield at the 2017 general election, with a reduced majority.

Following the brutal rape and murder of a young woman in Delhi in 2012, filmmaker Leslee Udwin traveled to India to examine the situation and attempt to understand what led to such a violent attack. She released her documentary “India’s Daughter” in 2015, and subsequently founded ThinkEqual, a non-profit organization with the mission to educate young children in social emotional learning to reduce violence throughout the world. Today on CID’s Speaker Series podcast, Abeela Latif, student at the Harvard Graduate School of Educaton, interviews Leslee Udwin, who discusses the difficult journey of making the film and how this experience inspired her to begin the ThinkEqual global education initiative. -- About Leslee Udwin: Leslee was voted by the NY Times the No 2 Most Impactful Woman of 2015 (second to Hillary Clinton), and has been awarded the prestigious Swedish Anna Lindh Human Rights Prize (previously won by Madeleine Albright). She has also been named Safe’s Global Hero of 2015, Global Thinker by Foreign Policy. A BAFTA and multi-award winning filmmaker and Human Rights Campaigner, Leslee’s documentary “India’s Daughter”, has been critically acclaimed around the globe, won 32 awards (including the Peabody Award and the Amnesty International Media Award for Best Documentary 2016) and sparked a global movement to end violence against women and girls. The searing insights yielded by the 2½ journey making “India’s Daughter”, led Leslee to found UK-and-US-based Not for Profit global education initiative “Think Equal”. To get involved with ThinkEqual, please contact leslee.udwin@thinkequal.org. Interview recorded on February 15, 2019. View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-Preventing%20Violence.pdf

Today on this BSC podcast, Salimah Samji, Director of the Building State Capability program at CID has a conversation with Professor Matt Andrews, Faculty Director of the Building State Capability program to discuss public policy implementation failures. To learn more about the Implementing Public Policy course, visit bit.ly/2QAnf69. To read the Public Policy Failures paper, visit bit.ly/2DWoLs5. // www.bsc.cid.harvard.edu // Interview recorded on January 18, 2019. About Matt Andrews: Matt Andrews is Senior Lecturer in Public Policy. His research focuses on public sector reform, particularly budgeting and financial management reform, and participatory governance in developing and transitional governments. Recent articles focus on forging a theoretical understanding of the nontechnical factors influencing success in reform processes. Specific emphasis lies on the informal institutional context of reform, as well as leadership structures within government-wide networks. This research developed out of his work in the provincial government of Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa and more recently from his tenure as a Public Sector Specialist working in the Europe and Central Asia Region of the World Bank. He brings this experience to courses on public management and development. He holds a BCom (Hons) degree from the University of Natal, Durban (South Africa), an MSc from the University of London, and a PhD in Public Administration from the Maxwell School, Syracuse University.

Across the world, people in urban rather than rural areas are more likely to support gender equality. To explain this global trend, Alice Evans has engaged with geographically diverse literature and comparative rural–urban ethnographic research from Zambia. Her research showed that people living in interconnected, heterogeneous, and densely populated areas are more likely to see women performing socially valued, masculine roles. Today on the BSC podcast, Salimah Samji, Director of the Building State Capability program at CID interviews Alice Evans, Lecturer at Kings College London, who discusses what drives social change, and how people come to support gender equality. // www.bsc.cid.harvard.edu // Interview recorded on October 30, 2018. About Alice Evans: Alice Evans is writing a book on "The Global Politics of Decent Work". Through comparative research on strengthening corporate accountability, Alice explores how to resolve global collective action problems and improve workers' rights. She has published on the causes of falling inequality in Latin America; social movements; rising support for gender equality; cities as catalysts of social change; and the politics of maternal mortality. She is a Lecturer at King's College London, with previous appointments at Cambridge and the LSE.

Starting in November 2015, the Center for International Development’s Growth Lab has been engaged in economic policy research with the Government of Sri Lanka. Led by Professor Ricardo Hausmann, the team has focused on a single question: what is holding back investment in Sri Lanka – especially in new and non-traditional export-oriented sectors – and what can the government do about it? In this podcast, members of the Sri Lanka team explain what they learned from the project which includes: First, a lack of new economic “knowhow” has meant that there are few easy opportunities for innovative investors to exploit. Next, the investors who do arrive find significant roadblocks to their success; these include policy barriers to reaching markets and key inputs, and infrastructural gaps at the regional level. Today on CID’s Speaker Series podcast, Anna Mysliewic, Masters in Public Policy student at the Harvard Kennedy School, interviews Dan and Tim, who share their learnings from the project and how they partnered with key counterparts in the government and civil society to support potential solutions, and better understand the deeper institutional gaps that prevent proactive policymaking. // www.growthlab.cid.harvard.edu // www.bsc.cid.harvard.edu // Interview recorded on November 16, 2018. About the speakers: Daniel Stock rejoined the Center for International Development's Growth Lab as a Research Fellow in 2015. He also held this position from 2011-2013. He studies how countries apply proactive strategies to promote structural transformation. His research focuses on using network models to uncover new opportunities for diversifying exports and attracting new sources of investment. Prior to joining CID, Daniel was a Junior Professional Associate at the World Bank, working with governments to improve the investment climate for local businesses and FDI. Daniel has also worked as a researcher at the MIT Media Lab's Macro Connections group, and a Research Intern at the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Santiago, Chile. Daniel earned a B.S. in Quantitative Economics and International Relations from Tufts University. Tim O’Brien joined the Center for International Development in 2015, working on both Growth Lab and Building State Capability projects.He has led growth diagnostic research in Albania and Sri Lanka. Tim holds a Master in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) degree from the Harvard Kennedy School and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Northwestern University. Tim served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi from 2008-2010 and has experience working with the World Bank and in environmental engineering. Tim’s research interests center on the challenges of economic transformation and adapting to climate change in developing countries and vulnerable communities. Sehar Noor is a Research Assistant at the Center for International Development's Growth Lab. Sehar graduated from Rollins College in May 2016 with honors in Economics and International Affairs. While at Rollins, she served as captain of the debate team, and studied abroad in Cuba and China. Her previous experience includes conducting fieldwork in disaster relief camps as an intern for the Aga Khan Rural Support Program in Gilgit, Pakistan, and interning with the Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Unit of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Islamabad, Pakistan.