1. Managing Better: What All of Us Can Do to Encourage Aid Success
- Author:
- Dan Hoing
- Publication Date:
- 02-2020
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development (CGD)
- Abstract:
- Management by way of top-down controls and targets sometimes gets in the way of aid donors’ aims, undermining project success. These unhelpful controls often stem from a need to account for performance; legislatures or executive boards induce agencies to exercise tight process controls and orient projects towards what is measurable and reportable. My 2018 book, Navigation by Judgment, presents quantitative empirics from a database of 14,000 projects and qualitative evidence from eight case studies in support of this claim. I wrote the book in part because I imagined it would be useful to show aid agencies and authorizers empirics that demonstrated the problem—that the first step to change was recognition. But after talking about my book at aid agencies and authorizers, I am confident that while my 2018 diagnosis was right, my theory of change was all wrong.
- Topic:
- Leadership, Business, Accountability, Transparency, and Management
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus