S7 Ep39: Ideas in Development: Moving billions to evidence

Great, and yeah, we'll, we'll get back to that gap, uh, w-with a later question.

Um, I guess one thing I wanted to ask about was your approach to moving funding and how you worked with, um, people who were already kind of funding specific aid programs to maybe adjust what they were doing or, or try something new.

I guess from what I've heard you say on, on other podcasts, which I mentioned before, the, the approach was kind of relatively collaborative, and you tried to bring teams with you and kind of show them what, um, you were thinking and, and why you were recommending kind of changes.

I guess an alternative approach would've been a more prescriptive one, uh, where you kind of just simply told teams, "Okay, no, you need to cut this and do this," and, and that's that.

Maybe that would've required more powers than, than you had.

But do you think that type of approach would've been more effective, or are you still, um, I guess a fan of the, the collaborative way that you, you went about things?

I remain a fan.

The-- We-- Maybe we could have had some [clears throat] maybe we could have had a sh- a bigger short run number, but we would have had a worse long run number.

And, and I think it's important to play the long game and build the state capacity for ourselves as well as for our partner countries where we're supporting.

And so...

But, but you're also right in the way you, uh, alluded to.

Like it-- That wasn't a choice I was given, to be perfectly blunt, right? So at, at no point did I, was I in a room where I was able to sit there and propose, "Well, can we just do it this way and ignore everybody?" That was just never on the table as an option.

And, and I think, like I said, I think that's actually healthy.

Uh, the change that we're seeing now did do that, did say, "Well, let's just scrap everything and build from scratch." Although I'm not sure build from scratch is the right way to describe the-- what's, what I, what I hear is happening.

But, you know, there, there was money that is flowing out, but it is going out in, like, big chunks, so it's not a question of building internal state capacity.

Uh, so, you know, there is a blank slate now, and that is, uh, that is a striking that there is now an opportunity to, to really put in place a good aid system that is better than what we had before.

Everybody at USAID would have said there's problems.

But that's true of any, anybody who works anywhere, right? Anything-- Think about your own workplace.

Like, of course there's always things we can point to, and no one ever s- no one ever goes home every night going, "My God, I'm, I work in the most efficient, well-run organization, firm, government, uh, ever.

Everything's smooth and everybody gets along perfectly." That's, that's just not the way anything is.

We all think there's ways of improving, and USAID was no different.

Some, some areas were better than others.

And, and how exactly would you work with people then to...

Say you, you picked a team or a sector where, um, you were gonna go in and maybe make some recommendations.

What, what would that process actually look like?