What policies should be implemented?

What key insights have emerged from development economics in the past decade, and how should they impact the work of the World Bank? A new working paper Toward Successful Development Policies: Insights from Research in Development Economics from the Bank’s research department captures 13 of the most significant insights in the world of development economics.

Here’s insight #5 on the need for complementary policies and institutions and how critical is a strong implementation capacity. See all previous insights here: Thirteen insights for successful development policies

Forging and adopting technically sound policies is necessary for successful development, but it is not enough: any policy is only as good as its implementation. Policy implementation can fail for two broad reasons: (1) the absence of complementary measures needed to make the chosen policy effective; and (2) the inadequate capability of prevailing institutions and administrative systems.ref1

The development community has long championed individual policies and programs as the solution to development problems: building schools and making schooling mandatory to improve education, lowering barriers to entry for enterprises to reduce informality, increasing the number of policemen to fight crime, pegging the exchange rate to lower inflation, and so on. But without a supporting institutional framework and capable public sector organizations to implement them, even technically sound policies and programs are likely to fail. This realization can explain the wide variety of outcomes of specific interventions and policies, as well as broad developmental approaches. It can also explain the frustrating performance of foreign aid in driving development outcomes – providing money to countries without competent institutions and accountable leaders may only result in waste and corruption.ref2,ref3

The need for complementary policies and institutions

Complementary policies can make reforms successful.ref4 Children do not learn if they are hungry, so educational and nutritional policies should go hand in hand.ref5 Parents do not vaccinate their children if they are struggling to survive, so immunization campaigns should target the poor and provide pecuniary benefits to families that participate.ref6 Farmers do not adopt new crops and technologies that are potentially more profitable but also riskier, so introducing new farming practices should be accompanied by improved insurance mechanisms and access to markets.ref7 This principle of complementarity also applies to macroeconomic policies. Trade openness cannot promote competitiveness if domestic industries are burdened with excessive regulations, so international openness should be accompanied by streamlining regulations and improving public infrastructure.ref8    

Beyond a mix of policies, complementary institutions are also needed for successful reforms.ref9 Consider, for instance, the “Washington Consensus,” which in the early 1990s encouraged a familiar combination of macroeconomic stabilization, trade openness, and market liberalization policies to promote economic growth and poverty alleviation.ref10 The Washington Consensus policies by themselves make sense and are potentially useful, but this potential can only be realized when the policies are accompanied by complementary institutions and organizations that make them synergistic and sustainable:ref11,ref12 a regulatory framework that promotes competition and market flexibility; an autonomous central bank that directs monetary policy to promote price and financial stability; and a government that manages resources responsibly to provide public services, social protection, and infrastructure. Failure to improve the institutional environment can lead to disappointing economic and social outcomes and even the reversal of well-intended policy reforms. Arguably, this is what happened in Argentina over the last two decades, as the country searched for macroeconomic stability and growth without the ability to reform the institutions that controlled fiscal resources at the national and regional levels.ref13 From specific sectoral interventions to large macroeconomic reforms, a conducive institutional environment is critical to their success.

The critical importance of strong implementation capacity

No less important is the capacity of the public sector to implement policies and manage institutions. Inadequate public sector capacity undermines policy effectiveness. This gap is often evident in service-delivery sectors that require many people to interact over long periods of time and to exercise considerable discretion – and who are often under pressure not to do their job (such as tax collectors and law enforcement officers).ref14 For instance, to “produce” a young adult able to contribute to the modern economy takes at least 12 years of formal education, which equates to roughly 12,000 hours of classroom instruction. Yet many countries struggle to implement even the most rudimentary aspect of the education challenge: ensuring that their teachers actually show up for work, let alone deliver a thousand hours of classroom time each year. More broadly, most countries have enacted sound policies pertaining to the provision of universal primary education, but many of them lack robust institutional support and implementation capability to carry out those policies.ref15 This results in enormous variation in performance: students in Vietnam perform as well as those in many OECD countries, while students in other middle-income countries can attend school for a decade yet still struggle to read a newspaper headline or do double-digit subtraction.

Much the same can be said of anti-corruption campaigns: countries can hire experts to write laws denouncing the use of public resources for private gain, but in practice such policies only work to the extent that front-line staff, their managers, and the whole public sector hierarchy are bound by strong standards, norms, and controls and are provided with incentives that are effectively enforced. Experimental and other research has carefully documented the ways in which organizational norms and incentives shape employee performance. In India, the same doctor working in her private practice after hours is vastly more diligent than when working in the public sector;ref16 in Ghana, certain units within national ministries have created work environments enabling them to perform at considerably higher levels than others.ref17

The World Bank is taking these concerns more seriously, even as it has struggled, over multiple decades, to become a true learning organization.ref18 The expansion of the Bank’s sectoral agenda (into wide-ranging areas such as governance, social development, gender equality, and climate change) and the global imperative to become more active in fragile states have generated a corresponding demand to deploy an array of implementation strategies. Meeting the Bank’s corporate objectives and, more importantly, helping our clients meet theirs, will entail not only adopting better policies but also giving more focused attention to building complementary support systems and organizations with strong implementation capacity.

There are a range of terms used when writing or talking about implementation and in implementation science. This glossary provides a short definition for each of these terms.

Adaptable components

Elements of an intervention which may be tailored to local settings during implementation without undermining the integrity of the intervention itself.

Barriers

Factors which hinder the implementation process and reduce the probability of successful implementation.

Capacity

The ability or power to do, understand or absorb something. This can apply to an individual, a team, an organisation or a whole system.

Coaching

A formal, typically short-term, arrangement between a coach and an individual focused on developing work-related skills or behaviours.

Community

A group of people living in an area or having characteristics in common (e.g. city, neighbourhood, organisation, service, business, professional association); the larger socio-political-cultural context in which an intervention is intended to operate.

Consultation

The action or process of formally discussing something with stakeholders, generally asking stakeholders a relevant question and receiving answers to that question. While the views of stakeholders may then be used to influence decisions, there is no commitment or requirement to do so.

Context

The set of circumstances or unique factors in which implementation takes place. This can refer to both the wider, systemic context, as well as the specific setting in which a specific intervention will be implemented.

Continuous Improvement Cycles

Ongoing use of emerging data and evidence on outcomes and implementation, and using that information to learn from experience, inform future implementation and improve outcomes. Progress is, therefore, achieved in an incremental manner over time.

Core Components

Indispensable elements of an intervention or implementation plan, which cannot be changed without undermining it. All core components should be delivered with fidelity.

Data-Based Decision Making

Using processes for collecting and analysing different types of data to guide decisions with the aim of improving outcomes on an ongoing basis.

Diffusion

A process by which an intervention is communicated through certain channels over time. The spread of ideas through diffusion is generally a passive process, following an unpredictable, unprogrammed, emergent and self-organising path, e.g. word of mouth.

Dissemination

An active, negotiated and influenced means of spreading an intervention or information about an intervention to relevant target groups.

Enablers

Factors which increase the probability of successful implementation.

Evaluation

A planned investigation of a project, programme, or policy used to answer specific questions. It can be related to design, implementation, results, and outcomes (cause and effect) of an intervention.

Evidence-Based Interventions

Practices, programmes, policies, strategies or other activities that have been empirically shown through scientific research and evaluation processes to improve outcomes to some degree.

Fidelity

Delivering an evidence-based intervention exactly as intended by those who developed it.

Framework

A structure, overview, outline, or system consisting of various descriptive categories and the presumed relationships between them.

Implementation

The carrying out of planned, intentional activities that aim to turn evidence and ideas into policies and practices that work for people in the real world. It is about putting a plan into action; the ‘how’ as well as the ‘what’.

Implementation Plan

A plan outlining the key activities, responsibilities, timelines and other important information required to achieve the desired outcomes from implementing an intervention.

Implementation Readiness

The extent to which organisations and individuals are both ‘willing’ to, and ‘capable’ of, implementing any specific intervention.

Implementation Science

The scientific study of how interventions are incorporated into service settings. It seeks to identify activities, contexts and other factors that increase the likelihood of successful implementation and lead to improved outcomes for people.

Implementation Strategy

Any specific method or action aimed at overcoming barriers, increasing the pace and effectiveness of implementation, and sustaining interventions over time.

Implementation Team

A group or structure that oversees, supports and attends to, moving an intervention through the stages of implementation. They actively use strategies to facilitate implementation.

Inputs

Resources needed to carry out activities and outputs.

Intervention

Any policy, practice, service or programme that is being implemented. It can be a change to something already in existence, or an entirely new intervention.

Leadership

The action of leading a group of people, or the ability to do this. This does not just apply to leading a whole organisation or system – leadership can take multiple forms and can occur at any level of an organisation or system.

Logic Model

An adaptable tool that describes the theory of change underpinning an intervention, a programme or a policy. It allows the user to systematically work through the connections between the components of an intervention or process, usually in graphical format on a single page.

Mentoring

A formal or informal arrangement which typically involves an ongoing relationship of support for significant transitions in knowledge, thinking and skills.

Model

A deliberate simplification of a phenomenon. Models are intended to be descriptive and need not be a completely accurate representation of reality to have value.

Monitoring

The routine and systematic collection of information against a plan. It makes use of existing data and information about inputs, outputs, outcomes, or about outside factors affecting an organisation or project, with a view to ongoing cycles of improvement.

Needs Assessment

A process which clarifies the extent to which needs, as well as enablers and barriers to meeting those needs, are accurately known and prioritised by an organisation or group of people.

Outcomes

Intended or unintended changes that occur as a result of implementing interventions. These changes can occur at the level of individuals, groups, organisations or population, and can occur in the short-, medium- or long-term.

Outputs

Key activities and areas of work that will help to achieve the desired outcomes.

Organisational Culture

The norms, values and beliefs that exist and govern behaviour within an organisation.

Resources

A stock or supply of money, materials, staff, and other assets that can be drawn on by a person or organisation in order to effectively implement an intervention.

Stakeholders

Anyone who is affected by or is involved in the intervention being implemented. This includes staff, public, clients, managers, professional bodies, unions, educators, policy-makers and funders.

Strategies

Methods or actions that aim to overcome barriers, increase the pace and effectiveness of implementation, and sustain interventions over time.

Sustainability

An intervention can be considered to be sustainable when not only have the process and outcomes changed, but the thinking and attitudes behind them are fundamentally altered and the systems surrounding them are transformed as well. In other words, the intervention has become an integrated or mainstream way of working rather than something ‘added on’.

Synthesis

A structured process where relevant information and evidence on a topic is gathered, reviewed, assessed and brought together to support decision making.

Theory

A set of analytical principles or statements designed to structure our observation, understanding and explanation of the world.

Theory of Change

An explicit, step-by-step statement of the expected relationship between the intervention and the outcome, i.e. why providing input X should lead to a change in outcome Z, by way of output Y.

Vested Interests

A special interest in maintaining or controlling an intervention, arrangement or institution, usually for personal gain.