The Role of Bridge-Builders in Global Policy Reform

This spring, while watching children in rural Zambia excitedly cluster in groups on their classroom floor to chalk out different strategies to solve three-digit multiplication problems, I thought about the journey that had brought an innovative method of teaching (Teaching at the Right Level or TaRL) from Mumbai to 5 million children across the African continent. I have learned a lot from being a Forrest Gump character throughout TaRL’s journey—present at many of the pivotal moments though never the main actor. Key among these lessons is that many different actors are needed to make big change happen. This creates a critical role for organizations and people who can bring different groups together through objective, accessible analysis; who can translate across the language of different disciplines; and who can build consensus across agencies. This is what I have sought to do in my career and what the Center for Global Development is so good at. It’s why I’m excited to be CGD’s new president. So, for my first official CGD blog post, I wanted to share some lessons about delivering policy reform, drawing on TaRL’s journey to Africa.

Lesson 1: Innovation is a continuous process

With my then-seven-month-old son in tow, I watched Rukmini Banerji and her team from the Indian NGO Pratham seek to adapt their new teaching method (originally designed for NGO workers in urban schools) so that it could be delivered by volunteers in rural Uttar Pradesh after school. TaRL helps children who have fallen behind catch up quickly by grouping children based on what they know (not their age), focusing teaching on precisely what they don’t know, and having children actively participate in a fun and engaging way in the material. Our evaluation showed that children who had not learned even the basics of reading in three years at school could learn to read in three months if they turned up to volunteer-taught after-school lessons. However, not that many turned up. Pratham responded by developing a version of the program that government teachers could deliver in school.

My son is now at university, but the iterations continue. As chair of the board of the Kenyan NGO TaRL Africa, I have a front-row seat to observe the continued implementation challenges, as well as the data gathering, innovation, and adaptation needed to answer questions raised by bringing the approach to new contexts (how should the teaching approach change when children are not taught in their local language, as in Côte d’Ivoire?) Even running the same program in the same place for eight years requires innovation: how do you provide low-cost support to teachers new to the district, and to teachers who were last trained on TaRL eight years ago? Even success leads to demand for innovation: Can TaRL’s teaching tools designed for students who have fallen behind be used to prevent them from falling behind in the first place?

Lesson 2: Scaling innovations in public service requires multiple actors

In the pharmaceutical sector, one firm can take an idea from research and development through global distribution, but improving service delivery in low- and middle-income countries is usually very different. In the case of TaRL in Zambia, this included Pratham India (which first developed TaRL) and Pratham International (which helped bring it to Africa). It included researchers from around the world, including me. Part of their role was to evaluate the program, but equally important was comparing cost-effectiveness across different programs (which benefitted from a CGD co-author). With cost-effectiveness analysis in hand, ministries of education could better understand their options. Organizations that understand both the research and the implementation challenges were critical to taking TaRL from a program run by an NGO in India to one mainly run by governments in Africa. The JPAL team based at the University of Cape Town played an important role here. But, implementing organizations that actively engaged in the evidence, knew the local context well, and sweated the implementation details were also critical. In Zambia, this included TaRL Africa, NGOs like VVOB, UNICEF, and others. Finally, multilateral, bilateral, and individual donors are needed to help bring evidence to impact. Bringing these actors together to work toward a common goal does not just happen; it takes work (see lesson 3).

Lesson 3: Lasting progress requires consensus building across disciplines and agencies

In talking to government officials in low- and middle-income countries, I have found it much more effective to discuss a menu of evidence-based approaches (based on systematic reviews and comparative cost-effectiveness analysis) from which ministers and civil servants can choose rather than try and sell one single product. And if there is consensus across various expert organizations about what is on that menu, it’s much easier to make progress. Organizations like CGD can help provide this type of objective comparative analysis. When I was chief economist at FCDO, the UK’s aid agency and foreign office, I helped set up the Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel, which brings together experts from across different disciplines and regions to build consensus on the most cost-effective approaches to improving learning in low- and middle-income countries. The panel forces these experts to interact and come to a consensus on the evidence—which leads to better policy advice. The panel is also hosted by multilateral and bilateral donors, encouraging them to coordinate around common advice.

TaRL’s journey is one of many where smart policy reform, based on sound evidence, changes millions of lives against the odds. But those changes generally don’t happen by accident and rarely occur through good research alone. A bridge is needed.

I have spent my life building bridges: in government, I reached out to researchers for ideas and evidence; as an academic, I built bridges with governments to understand and respond to their needs. And it’s what I’m most excited to continue as I step into the role of CGD president. In many ways, CGD is that bridge between the big ideas, the rigorous analysis, and the thoughtful consensus-building needed to deliver change and improve the world.