Who (and more importantly, what) next for USAID

Over on Open the Echo Chamber, I look at who might succeed Raj Shah at USAID and what is at stake. What I would like to see:

At least from an incrementalist perspective, entrenching and building on…USAID Forward would be a major accomplishment for Shah’s successor. Whoever comes next will not simply run out the clock of the Obama Administration – there are two years left. I therefore expect the administration to appoint an administrator (rather than promote a career USAID staff caretaker with no political mandate) to the position. In a perfect world, this would be a person who understands development as a discipline, but also has the government and implementing experience to understand how development thought intersects with development practice in the real world.

The big problem? I’m not sure how many of these people exist, and if they are being considered…

Read more at Who’s next?

 

Why HURDL does what it does

Over on Open the Echo Chamber, I look back at my book Delivering Development in the context of the new World Development Report. Specifically, I look at how the WDR addresses the three big claims behind my book:

  1. Most of the time, we have no idea what the global poor are doing or why they are doing it.
  2. Because of this, most of our projects are designed for what we think is going on, which rarely aligns with reality
  3. This is why so many development projects fail, and if we keep doing this, the consequences will get dire

My conclusion – OK at #1, a recognition of #2, and no attention at all to #3.

Read more at Five years later, and I am proud of Delivering Development again.