TWP CoP April-May 2024 Newsletter
Bringing you the latest news and updates on all things TWP!
Dear Friends and fellow travellers on all things TWP,
Welcome to the April-May 2024 edition of our Newsletter! Here is a summary of what we have in store:
In our feature interview, Alina speaks with Global Partners Governance (GPG)’s Greg Power about his new book, Inside the Political Mind: The Human Side of Politics and How It Shapes Development.
Please head to the “What we are working on” section of the Newsletter to hear all about a conversation on politics, development and change webinar that we are co-hosting with GPG as well as The Asia Foundation and Development Intelligence Lab on Monday 29 April, partly inspired by Greg’s book. There is sill time to register!
In that same section, you can also get an update on the TWP case study competition launched by USAID.
If you are curious about “What we are reading”, take a look at TWP CoP’s Lyndsey Hand’s review of a book on how large scale change can happen.
Last but not least, as always, we bring you the latest publications, events, resources and other news of interest from a TWP perspective.
If there is anything you would like to share with us, including items for future newsletters, please get in touch by email at: info@twpcommunity.org. And please share this newsletter with others who might be interested too, and subscribe if you haven’t already!
Oh and please remember to open the newsletter directly on your browser (click on the ‘TWP CoP April-May 2024 Newsletter’ header, at the top of this page) so that you can get full access to all the content.
With all best wishes,
Alina & Graham
Highlight feature
Conversation with Greg Power OBE
Alina chats with Greg Power, Founder and Board Chair of Global Partners Governance, about his new book, Inside the Political Mind: The Human Side of Politics and How it Shapes Development.
Drawing on Greg’s experience working with political leaders in more than 60 countries across the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America as well as advising international organisations and donor agencies over the course of three decades, the book explores how social norms, public expectations and the personal interests of Members of Parliament influence the path of political development.
Click below to watch the interview:
Or alternatively, you can listen to the podcast version here.
What we are working on
New event in our Global Webinar series
A Conversation on Politics, Development, and Change, Monday 29 April, 08:30am - 10:00 am BST
How well do development actors understand the interests and incentives of the elected officials we work with?
What shapes politicians’ views of change and reform?
What are their views on development actors and their goals?
And ultimately, what does it look like to successfully collaborate with those in power to realise meaningful change?
Join the conversation that The Asia Foundation, Global Partners Governance and Development Intelligence Lab have organised in partnership with the TWP CoP as part of our Global Webinar Series, bringing together speakers from Nepal, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste, as well as Australia, and the UK. You will hear first-hand from political actors leading developmental change; we also want to hear your thoughts on how to improve aid, development thinking and practice. Get your questions ready for an interactive Q&A session!
Click here to read more about our panellists.
Update on the USAID WP Case Competition
Thinking and Working Politically Case Competition
USAID’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Governance (DRG) ran a Case Competition with the objective of capturing real-life case studies of USAID staff and implementing partners using a TWP approach for organisational learning and improved development outcomes.
There were 36 submissions in total, across countries and regions spanning Africa, Asia, and Lain America and the Caribbean. The case studies also covered a variety of sectors including Democracy, Human Rights and Governance, Economic Growth and Trade, Health and Nutrition, Anti-Corruption, Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, and Youth & GESI.
The judging process has now been completed and the winners will be announced in an event that the USAID is organising later this Spring. More details on this will be shared shortly. Watch the space!
What we are reading
Shah, R. (2023) Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens, Simon & Schuster.
A book review by Lyndsey Hand
Can Rajiv Shah, President of The Rockefeller Foundation, coax people out of their ‘aspiration trap’?
Rajiv, who, before heading the Rockefeller Foundation, was USAID Administrator and also served at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is a leader in social change working to tackle some of the world’s most entrenched challenges and crises. With initiatives to address childhood vaccination, the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, hunger in East Africa, energy poverty, Ebola, and more recently COVID-19 and racial division in America, Shah has a lived experience of what it takes to activate and drive change.
In his newly published book, “Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens” Shah takes us on a journey through his career and the lessons he’s learned about taking what he coins as the “Big Bets” which are necessary to generate large-scale change. “What is a ‘Big Bet’?” I hear you ask. Well, whilst I sometimes found myself discretely turning back to page five to confirm my understanding… according to Shah, “a big bet is a concerted effort to fundamentally solve a single, pressing [social] problem”… that… “require[s] setting profound, seemingly unachievable goals and believing they are achievable”. A big bet appears to be a mindset that manifests in certain ways of working to bring about change. He juxtaposes this big-bet mindset with that of an “aspiration trap”; a mindset that has been weighed down by complexity, cynicism, and apathy. He explains that this aspiration trap keeps those engaged in social change focused on small improvements and what might be “good enough”, rather than the big problems, the big thinking, and the big moves necessary to generate large-scale change. Through the book, Shah aims to provide some of the tools to help you identify a big bet, define a pathway forward, and maintain the momentum and confidence to keep moving.
Against this framing, Shah unpacks and explains the lessons he’s learned through the change initiatives he’s been part of, applying a retrospective lens to compile them into the “Big Bets” ethos. Chapter one brings home the lesson of keeping it simple; identifying the issue you want to solve as a simple question, understanding the barriers and the root cause of what’s stopping its resolution, and developing a solution unimpeded by the complexities that surround it. By keeping a clear view of the solution and monitoring progress towards the change you desire, you’re able to maintain a big-bet mindset. Some of this may sound counter-intuitive from a TWP perspective, with its focus on understanding complexity and identifying what may be politically feasible — which often does mean more gradual, “good enough” change.
Shah goes on to pitch the need to be bold, take risks, and view potential partners’ concerns as insights on where your assumptions need to be strengthened, which is closer to TWP. As with TWP, what becomes a cross-cutting theme throughout the book is the need to build broad-based alliances around points of common ground, adding that the key to maintaining these is openness, humility, trust, and recognising that a well-placed interlocutor may be more effective in bringing partners on board than the message alone. Using the rather extreme example of DRC's former President, Joseph Kabila, Shah makes the case for getting to know your partners’ motivations and incentives, developing contingency plans for threats to the bet, being ready and able to recognise when something is failing, and having the tenacity to move on to the next big bet. Coupled with this, he advocates for the reader to keep experimenting, iterating, monitoring, adapting and being ready to give up control of the bet or pivot, if it’s in the best interest of the desired change, all of which, again, is aligned with TWP.
Each chapter closes with an easily digestible set of tactics that can guide action on big bets. Shah concludes with a call to action, through exercising your vote or market choices towards big bet thinkers, or more directly through “launching and making good on your own big bets”.
A few pages into the introduction, I realised I was a ready audience for this book. Recently off the back of eight years overseas managing programmes for social change in some pretty challenging contexts, I confess to being, slightly and temporarily, in Shah’s shameful “aspiration trap”. Whilst I maintain my ethos of “big-stuff optimism, paired with everyday realism”, and hold a tenacity that tends to keep me trying, I am at present looking for the match to reignite the slightly smouldering tinders of the big-bet mindset that I know is still in my belly. So, by page 14, I felt ready for Shah to be that match, to coax, or perhaps shame me out of the temporary state of optimism fatigue I have found myself in.
So, did Shah bring me out of my aspiration trap? Almost, but not quite. With a few years working on social change, did this book teach me something new? Not really. But if you ask me, did Shah articulate engagingly the principles that will help me to reignite my big bet mindset and offer a set of concrete tactics that can be drawn on more strategically than I have in the past? The answer is, YES. Big Bets: How large-scale change really happens is an engaging read and speaks to many, if not all, of what we consider key principles of thinking and working politically. The clarity of thinking that Shah provides is what gives the book its strength, and it is a great addition to the literature on how change happens.
Yet, perhaps this same strength also comes at the expense of digging a little deeper into the more gritty dynamics of how change happens, and for the more seasoned reader, this downplaying of complexity does undermine the message slightly. As does the arguably Western-centric, new public management, cultural perspective it's written from. But for those relatively early in their social change careers, or those who want to have some principles to help explain how change could be brought about, or even those trying to find their way out of their aspiration trap – it's worth the read.
(Although, in a slightly Cach-22 manner, I can’t help but think that suggesting anything else would have condemned me to the aspiration trap in perpetuity…)
Bulletin Board
Rubric for TWP review in workplan or pause and reflect
The USAID TWP team has been working on a checklist that could be useful when conducting periodic work planning or pause-and-reflect moments to consider the extent to which plans and adaptation observe and respond to power dynamics in context. They are inviting feedback and comments so please do follow the link to the Rubric to share your thoughts.
Courses and training opportunities
The Institute for Development Studies (IDS) is running the following courses:
27 - 31 May 2024 - Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation for Learning. The aim of the course is to help development practitioners and professionals with developing skills to more effectively design and improve monitoring and evaluation systems supporting participatory and adaptive practice. This training course is delivered through a partnership between IDS, Voices That Count and Analysing Development Issues Centre (ADIC), Cambodia.
4 June 2024 until 16 July 2024 - Short course on Shaping Policy with Evidence. This is a six-week online policy course will help equip you with the theories and practices required to operate effectively at the interface between policy and research.
11 - 13 June 2024 - INTRAC Theory of Change – Promoting Locally-led Change Online Course
This training will provide the opportunity to learn about and gain confidence in the processes for developing Theories of Change. It is a practical course using a step-by-step approach and proven techniques for generating and exploring change options, developing robust and evidenced pathways for change, testing assumptions and integrating the ToC into MEL plans.
3 - 6 September 2024- CEPR 23rd Summer School in International and Development Economics.
The Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)’s summer school intends to provide an intensive training course for graduate students and young researchers who are working in the field of development and international economics. This year the focus will be on “Political Economy and Development”, exploring governance and accountability in developing countries and the consequences for socio-economic growth, corruption, migration and conflict.
14 October - 12 November 2024- The Policy Practice’s Political Economy Analysis for Climate Action Course
This is an online course for people working on climate change and international development. Participants will gain an understanding of what PEA is and its relevance to climate change action, how PEA can be used to understand change processes and climate change interventions, and the available PEA tools and frameworks that can be applied to the climate crisis.
Recent Publications
Academic books, Journals, and Articles
Mcloughlin, C., Ali, C., Xie, K., Cheeseman, N., and Hudson, D. E. (2024) The Politics of Development. Sage.
This book frames politics as both the obstacle to change, and the way to solving challenges o achieve change. Written by academics with decades of collective experience of researching, teaching and working on the politics of development, the different chapters in this book bring a diversity of methodological, regional and country perspectives to bear on this critical topic. The approach aims to show how politics plays out in lived realities. By foregrounding “everyday” challenges that people around the world often face in accessing vital resources they need, the book encourages students to connect with the topic and reflect on their prior assumptions.
Claire McLoughlin, Nicholas Cheeseman, David Hudson and Sameen Ali of the University of Birmingham discuss the book, and how every aspect of development is intertwined with politics, shaping the distribution of resources, authority, rights, and freedoms in this Teaching the politics of development when everything about development is political Webinar.
Reports, Briefs, Working Papers and other Policy Publications
Bickersteth, S., McCulloch, N., and Tesfamichael, M. (2024) The Political Economy of Energy Transitions - Policy Brief 17. The Policy Practice.
This policy brief outlines some of the common constraints hindering the energy transition in countries in the Global South. The brief draws on the work of The Policy Practice and local partners in Ghana, Zambia, and Vietnam to help understand context-specific challenges and opportunities for the clean energy and transport transitions. The policy brief also shows how political economy analysis can help to identify politically feasible pathways of change in each country, demonstrating the importance of PEA in understanding the energy transition.
Fox, J., Halloran, B., Fölscher, A., and McGee, R. (2024) Disentangling Government Responses: How Do We Know When Accountability Work Is Gaining Traction? ARC Accountability Working Paper, No 17. Accountability Research Centre.
This paper presents a framework to help accountability advocates and practitioners interpret government reactions to their efforts and move forward appropriately. The framework arises from learning and reflection emerging from the International Budget Partnership (IBP)’s Strengthening Public Accountability with Results and Knowledge (SPARK) program. SPARK seeks to bolster the collective agency of marginalised communities and coalitions to advance democratic and equitable fiscal governance systems that address the needs and priorities of historically excluded groups. The paper will be discussed in an upcoming webinar hosted by the Institute of Development Studies.
Guerzovich, F., and Aston, T. (2024) Social Accountability 3.0: Engaging Citizens to Increase Systemic Responsiveness. Background Paper. Florianópolis: Grupo Politeia, Udesc Esag and act4delivery.
This paper presents a single framework where different strands of research and emerging knowledge about social accountability co-exist, to help understand better their convergence and divergences, the assumptions grounding them, the evidence backing them up, and the contextual conditions under which they may be a better fit.
Karkare, P., (2024) Breaking the gridlock: Navigating the political economy of Africa’s energy systems. ECDPM
This brief highlights political economy lessons from an existing analysis of African energy systems. It illustrates a different way to examine why things are the way they are, and shows the need to appreciate the distinct dynamics related to electricity supply and demand. The brief is part of the ECDPM project on The Political Economy of Clean Economy Transitions in African countries.
Kleinfeld, R. (2024) Closing Civic Space in the United States: Connecting the Dots, Changing the Trajectory, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
This report provides an insight into the challenges for democracy and human rights in the United States. Kleinfeld points out that currently the US is experiencing a narrowing of civic space which has affected human rights organisations, corporations, religious institutions and professional non-profit organisations on both the left and right. The report discusses methods of action being used against civil society, including: government regulatory laws, private legal and regulatory harassment, threats and violence, and narrative attacks.
Sharp, S. and Homonchuk, O. (2024). The politics and (in)coherence of education in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. ERICC Policy Brief
This policy brief draws from the findings of a longer Education Research in Conflict and Protracted Crisis (ERICC) working paper 1 which explored the drivers and outcomes of dissonance between official intentions for cross-sectoral coordination, also referred to as the ‘humanitarian-development nexus’, and the default operations of the Education Sector. This brief summarizes the sources of education system (in)coherences in Cox’s Bazar, drawing out the links between sector operations and the key actors’ de facto incentives and capacities, and illustrates the value of understanding how these political economy drivers shape the contours of plausible reforms to improve education coherence in emergencies.
V-Dem Institute (2024) Democracy Report 2024: Democracy Winning and Losing at the Ballot. V-Dem Institute.
V-Dem’s 2024 Democracy Report shows that autocratisation continues to be the dominant trend. The report provides a systematic look at more fine-grained regime changes, including countries that are experiencing democratic declines despite having recently improved, and conversely, countries that are improving despite having recently been in a period of decline.
Youngs, R., Alexopoulou, K., Brudzińska, K., Csaky, Z., Farinha, R., Godfrey, K., Jones, E., Mantoiu, E., Panchulidze, E., and Ventura, E. (2024) European Democracy Support Annual Review 2023. European Democracy Hub.
This review finds that European democracy support lost some of its political momentum in 2023. While some notable new strategies and policy interventions prioritised support for democratic norms, overall the EU and individual countries were less ambitious than in the previous two years. In 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine boosted European commitments in defence of democracy. This effect carried over into 2023 - but it has since receded. The EU made some progress in pressing for and supporting democratic reforms in Ukraine and some other countries seeking to join the union, but there was less discussion of the need to spur a global defence of democratic values.
Blogs, Podcasts and other opinion pieces
Boeira, L., Patino-Lugo, D., Simeon, D. T., Hunte, S., Kuhn-Barrientos, L., Osorio-Calderon, V., Osorio, D., Menescal, B. and Dejonghe, F. (2023) ‘Institutionalizing evidence-informed policy-making in Latin America and the Caribbean’. Integration and Implementation Insights blog (9 May).
This blog provides a brief history of key initiatives to institutionalise evidence-informed policy making mechanisms in Latin America and the Caribbean to understand how the routine use of evidence in policy is progressing in the region.
Rai, S. (2024). The Power of Narratives and the power over narratives, Ideas and Institutions, Issue 50, Carnegie India.
This analytical essay provides insights into why and how governments and politicians shape narratives. The author argues that politicians operate in a climate of opinion, and the effective ones shape this climate to their advantage. They push narratives that are consistent with the logic of their political success. Rai states that governments may pursue to push an optimistic narrative of the economy in order to win elections and to produce a positive momentum for the economy in order to lure investors.
Events
Upcoming Events:
29 April 2024: A Conversation on Development, Politics and Change. Webinar organised by Global Partners Governance, The Asia Foundation, and the Development Intelligence Lab in collaboration with The TWP Community of Practice, as part of the TWP CoP Global Webinar Series.
20 June - 22 June 2024: Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS) Annual Meeting 2024 - Global Governance and Sustainable Development: Revitalizing Research to Support Multilateral Solutions.
29 April 2024: Just Associates (JASS) Dialogue/Webinar - No movements, no power: Feminist Movement Building at the Heart of Reclaiming Democracy.
02 May 2024: University of Oxford Panel Discussion - The Future of Work in the Age of AI.
18 - 20 October 2024: The Political Institutions and Political Economy (PIPE Collaborative)’s First Annual Historical Political Economy Conference
Past Events:
19 March 2024: The National Endowment for Democracy hosted an online event on Reframing Security from the Perspective of Women Living under the Taliban, exploring security from the perspective of the lived experiences of women and girls as they contend with a new political order under the Taliban regime.
11 March 2024: Chatham House hosted an online event on A year on from Nigeria’s 2023 elections, reflecting on Nigeria’s current landscape in a context of acute regional instability and democratic backsliding.
Other Resources
Knowledge Platform Security & Rule of Law Newsletter. Follow KPSL’s Newsletter for updates from their network, event announcements, new research, and updates on KMF application & funded projects.
LSE IDEAS Women in Diplomacy Podcast Series. This project at LSE IDEAS was set up to help address the issue of women’s underrepresentation in diplomacy, foreign policy and public policy, particularly in senior positions. The project hopes to create better access to and accelerate women’s representation in international organisations, share knowledge and tools to effectively do so and support structural change.
Tell us what you think…we want to hear from you!
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- Email: info@twpcommunity.org
- Twitter: @TWP_Community
- Or by leaving a comment down below