Publication:
Development as Leadership-led Change : A Report for the Global Leadership Initiative

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (1.54 MB)
864 downloads
English Text (263.92 KB)
102 downloads
Date
2010-06-01
ISSN
Published
2010-06-01
Editor(s)
Abstract
Much of the work on reform and development has focused on the identification and diagnosis of problems and on the formulation of technically sound measures to address these problems. But the main challenge that often confronts policy makers in attempting to undertake reforms is not in the 'what', what is the problem and what are the remedies for it, but in the 'why', why does the problem persist, which some research has begun to address, and, more critically, in the 'how' given the why, how to manage the often complex process of change that accompanies any attempt at reform. It is in the latter where the rubber hits the road. Development involves change. But many development initiatives produce unimpressive levels of change in the countries, organizations, and outcomes they target and are disappointing in the final results. This is the case in social sector initiatives, core public management reforms, and even macroeconomic adjustment operations. Change is often limited even when countries adopt solutions in their forms, in apparently good faith and on time (or in reasonable time). This research paper aims to (modestly) contribute to such research by exploring what it takes to get change done; and particularly what role leadership plays in effecting change.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Andrews, Matt; McConnell, Jesse; Wescott, Alison. 2010. Development as Leadership-led Change : A Report for the Global Leadership Initiative. World Bank Study. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2488 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Developing Social-Emotional Skills for the Labor Market : The PRACTICE Model
    (World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-11) Guerra, Nancy; Modecki, Kathryn; Cunningham, Wendy
    Although there is a general agreement in the literature of the importance of social-emotional skills for labor market success, there is little consensus on the specific skills that should be acquired or how and when to teach them. The psychology, economics, policy research, and program implementation literatures all touch on these issues, but they are not sufficiently integrated to provide policy direction. The objective of this paper is to provide a coherent framework and related policies and programs that bridge the psychology, economics, and education literature, specifically that related to skills employers value, non-cognitive skills that predict positive labor market outcomes, and skills targeted by psycho-educational prevention and intervention programs. The paper uses as its base a list of social-emotional skills that employers value, classifies these into eight subgroups (summarized by PRACTICE), then uses the psychology literature -- drawing from the concepts of psycho-social and neuro-biological readiness and age-appropriate contexts -- to map the age and context in which each skill subset is developed. The paper uses examples of successful interventions to illustrate the pedagogical process. The paper concludes that the social-emotional skills employers value can be effectively taught when aligned with the optimal stage for each skill development, middle childhood is the optimal stage for development of PRACTICE skills, and a broad international evidence base on effective program interventions at the right stage can guide policy makers to incorporate social-emotional learning into their school curriculum.
  • Publication
    Learning and Results in World Bank Operations
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-01) Independent Evaluation Group
    This report is the second in a program of evaluations that the independent evaluation group (IEG) is conducting on the learning that takes place through World Bank projects. Learning and knowledge are treated as parts of a whole and are presumed to be mutually reinforcing. The evaluation program addresses the following overarching questions: how well has the World Bank learned in its lending operations?; and what is the scope for improving how it generates, accesses, and uses learning and knowledge in these operations? Evaluation two includes findings from seven country case studies and interviews with Bank staff about their early experience of working within the Bank’s new global practices structure, which became operational on July 1, 2014. The aim is to assess the pre-FY2015 evidence in light of the new structure and roles, and to ask how long-term trends are likely to be modified as reforms evolve. Surveys and interviews reveal that, when it comes to managing projects, Bank staff rely first and foremost on a process of informal learning, leading to a gradual accumulation of tacit knowledge. Informal learning and tacit knowledge are built on the behaviors that flow from mindsets and from the characteristics and operating rules of the groups that individuals belong to. These behavioral underpinnings are mediated by incentives that institutions like the Bank provide to staff. The Bank has launched several important learning initiatives, such as the operational core curriculum. Chapter one presents approach. Chapter two mines the academic and management literature to examine the behavioral underpinnings of informal learning and tacit knowledge. Chapter three examines how individual and team behavior is mediated by the incentives that the Bank offers staff. Chapters four, five, and six examine three operational orientations of particular relevance to the new Bank: balancing of global and local focus, adaptiveness, and results focus. Chapter seven presents recommendations.
  • Publication
    Employer Voices, Employer Demands, and Implications for Public Skills Development Policy
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-05) Villasenor, Paula; Cunningham, Wendy
    Educators believe that they are adequately preparing youth for the labor market while employers lament the lack of skills. A possible source of the mismatch in perceptions is that employers and educators have different understandings of the types of skills valued in the labor market. This paper uses economics and psychology literature to define four skills sets: socio-emotional, higher-order cognitive, basic cognitive, and technical skills. The paper reviews the literature that quantitatively measures employer skill demand, as reported in preference surveys. A sample of 28 studies reveals remarkable consistency across the world in the skills demanded by employers. Although employers value all skill sets, there is a greater demand for socio-emotional and higher-order cognitive skills than for basic cognitive or technical skills. These results are robust across economy size and level of development, sector, export-orientation, and occupations. Employers perceive that the greatest skills gaps are in socio-emotional and technical skills. These findings suggest the need to re-conceptualize education and training systems. Taking into consideration the developmental process to acquire the skills identified by employers, this implies the need to recognize that (a) the job-skills development process necessarily begins at birth and continues throughout the life cycle so skills policy should, as well; (b) schools play a relevant, but limited, role in skills development and the role of parents, mentors, and the work place must be defined and enhanced; and (c) the skills most demanded by employers -- higher-order cognitive and socio-emotional skills -- are largely taught (the former) or refined in secondary school, which argues for a general education until these skills are formed.
  • Publication
    Teaching Mathematics Effectively to Primary Students in Developing Countries
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-12-30) Soendergaard, Bettina Dahl; Cachaper, Cecile
    This paper uses research from neuroscience and the psychology of mathematics to arrive at useful recommendations for teaching mathematics at primary level to poor students in developing countries. The enrollment rates of the poorer students have improved tremendously in the last decade. And the global Net Enrollment Ratio (NER) has improved since 2001 from 83.2 percent to 90-95 percent except in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Making teaching of math and other subjects efficient for the poor in developing countries is a great challenge, particularly in south Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Many developing countries have explored new means of teaching math and other subjects. Mongolia changed its mathematics education, aiming to build a new set of priorities and practices, given the abandonment of earlier traditions. Similar to international trends of the time, South Africa in the 1990s extensively applied the constructivist learning philosophy which relied on exploration and discovery, with little emphasis on memorization, drill, In conformity with a belief that teachers could develop their own learning programs, there was virtual absence of a national or provincial syllabus or textbooks. Students were expected to develop their own methods for arithmetic operations, but most found it impossible to progress on their own from counting to actual calculating. This study integrates pertinent research from neuroscience and the psychology of mathematics to arrive at recommendations for curricular and efficient means of mathematics instruction particularly for developing countries and poor students at primary level. Specifically, the latest research in neuroscience, cognitive science, and discussions of national benchmarks for primary school mathematics learning, form the basis of our recommendations. These recommendations have a reasonable chance of working in the situational contexts of developing countries, with their traditions and resources.
  • Publication
    Developing Strategies for Improving Health Care Delivery : Guide to Concepts, Determinants, Measurement, and Intervention Design
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-06) Bradley, Elizabeth H.; Pallas, Sarah; Bashyal, Chhitij; Berman, Peter; Curry, Leslie
    This report is a user's guide for defining, measuring, and improving the performance of health service delivery organizations. The authors define six core performance domains: quality, efficiency, utilization, access, learning, and sustainability and provide a compendium of metrics that have been used to measure organizational performance in each of these six domains. The compendium, which includes 116 distinct categories of metrics, is based on a detailed literature review of peer-reviewed empirical studies of health care organizational performance in World Bank client countries. Based on reading of the literature, the authors define seven major strategy areas potentially useful for improving performance among health care organizations: 1) standards and guidelines, 2) organizational design, 3) education and training, 4) process improvement and technology and tool development, 5) incentives, 6) organizational culture, and 7) leadership and management. The authors provide illustrations of facility-level interventions within each of the strategy areas and highlight the conditions under which certain strategies may be more effective than others. The authors propose that the choice of strategy targeted at organizational level to improve performance should be informed by the identified root causes of the problem, the implementation capabilities of the organization, and the environmental conditions faced by the organization.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Remarks at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-10-12) Malpass, David
    World Bank Group President David Malpass discussed biodiversity and climate change being closely interlinked, with terrestrial and marine ecosystems serving as critically important carbon sinks. At the same time climate change acts as a direct driver of biodiversity and ecosystem services loss. The World Bank has financed biodiversity conservation around the world, including over 116 million hectares of Marine and Coastal Protected Areas, 10 million hectares of Terrestrial Protected Areas, and over 300 protected habitats, biological buffer zones and reserves. The COVID pandemic, biodiversity loss, climate change are all reminders of how connected we are. The recovery from this pandemic is an opportunity to put in place more effective policies, institutions, and resources to address biodiversity loss.
  • Publication
    South Asia Development Update, April 2024: Jobs for Resilience
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-04-02) World Bank
    South Asia is expected to continue to be the fastest-growing emerging market and developing economy (EMDE) region over the next two years. This is largely thanks to robust growth in India, but growth is also expected to pick up in most other South Asian economies. However, growth in the near-term is more reliant on the public sector than elsewhere, whereas private investment, in particular, continues to be weak. Efforts to rein in elevated debt, borrowing costs, and fiscal deficits may eventually weigh on growth and limit governments' ability to respond to increasingly frequent climate shocks. Yet, the provision of public goods is among the most effective strategies for climate adaptation. This is especially the case for households and farms, which tend to rely on shifting their efforts to non-agricultural jobs. These strategies are less effective forms of climate adaptation, in part because opportunities to move out of agriculture are limited by the region’s below-average employment ratios in the non-agricultural sector and for women. Because employment growth is falling short of working-age population growth, the region fails to fully capitalize on its demographic dividend. Vibrant, competitive firms are key to unlocking the demographic dividend, robust private investment, and workers’ ability to move out of agriculture. A range of policies could spur firm growth, including improved business climates and institutions, the removal of financial sector restrictions, and greater openness to trade and capital flows.
  • Publication
    Media and Messages for Nutrition and Health
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06) Calleja, Ramon V., Jr.; Mbuya, Nkosinathi V.N.; Morimoto, Tomo; Thitsy, Sophavanh
    The Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) has experienced rapid and significant economic growth over the past decade. However, poor nutritional outcomes remain a concern. Rates of childhood undernutrition are particularly high in remote, rural, and upland areas. Media have the potential to play an important role in shaping health and nutrition–related behaviors and practices as well as in promoting sociocultural and economic development that might contribute to improved nutritional outcomes. This report presents the results of a media audit (MA) that was conducted to inform the development and production of mass media advocacy and communication strategies and materials with a focus on maternal and child health and nutrition that would reach the most people from the poorest communities in northern Lao PDR. Making more people aware of useful information, essential services and products and influencing them to use these effectively is the ultimate goal of mass media campaigns, and the MA measures the potential effectiveness of media efforts to reach this goal. The effectiveness of communication channels to deliver health and nutrition messages to target beneficiaries to ensure maximum reach and uptake can be viewed in terms of preferences, satisfaction, and trust. Overall, the four most accessed media channels for receiving information among communities in the study areas were village announcements, mobile phones, television, and out-of-home (OOH) media. Of the accessed media channels, the top three most preferred channels were village announcements (40 percent), television (26 percent), and mobile phones (19 percent). In terms of trust, village announcements were the most trusted source of information (64 percent), followed by mobile phones (14 percent) and television (11 percent). Hence of all the media channels, village announcements are the most preferred, have the most satisfied users, and are the most trusted source of information in study communities from four provinces in Lao PDR with some of the highest burden of childhood undernutrition.
  • Publication
    Economic Recovery
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-04-06) Malpass, David; Georgieva, Kristalina; Yellen, Janet
    World Bank Group President David Malpass spoke about the world facing major challenges, including COVID, climate change, rising poverty and inequality and growing fragility and violence in many countries. He highlighted vaccines, working closely with Gavi, WHO, and UNICEF, the World Bank has conducted over one hundred capacity assessments, many even more before vaccines were available. The World Bank Group worked to achieve a debt service suspension initiative and increased transparency in debt contracts at developing countries. The World Bank Group is finalizing a new climate change action plan, which includes a big step up in financing, building on their record climate financing over the past two years. He noted big challenges to bring all together to achieve GRID: green, resilient, and inclusive development. Janet Yellen, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, mentioned focusing on vulnerable people during the pandemic. Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, focused on giving everyone a fair shot during a sustainable recovery. All three commented on the importance of tackling climate change.
  • Publication
    The Journey Ahead
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-31) Bossavie, Laurent; Garrote Sánchez, Daniel; Makovec, Mattia
    The Journey Ahead: Supporting Successful Migration in Europe and Central Asia provides an in-depth analysis of international migration in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and the implications for policy making. By identifying challenges and opportunities associated with migration in the region, it aims to inform a more nuanced, evidencebased debate on the costs and benefits of cross-border mobility. Using data-driven insights and new analysis, the report shows that migration has been an engine of prosperity and has helped address some of ECA’s demographic and socioeconomic disparities. Yet, migration’s full economic potential remains untapped. The report identifies multiple barriers keeping migration from achieving its full potential. Crucially, it argues that policies in both origin and destination countries can help maximize the development impacts of migration and effectively manage the economic, social, and political costs. Drawing from a wide range of literature, country experiences, and novel analysis, The Journey Ahead presents actionable policy options to enhance the benefits of migration for destination and origin countries and migrants themselves. Some measures can be taken unilaterally by countries, whereas others require close bilateral or regional coordination. The recommendations are tailored to different types of migration— forced displacement as well as high-skilled and low-skilled economic migration—and from the perspectives of both sending and receiving countries. This report serves as a comprehensive resource for governments, development partners, and other stakeholders throughout Europe and Central Asia, where the richness and diversity of migration experiences provide valuable insights for policy makers in other regions of the world.