Navigation by judgment: why and when top down management of foreign aid doesn’t work
In Navigation by Judgment (Oxford University Press, 2018) Dan argues that high-quality implementation of foreign aid programmes often requires contextual information that cannot be seen by those in distant headquarters. Tight controls and a focus on reaching pre-set measurable targets often prevent front-line workers from using skill, local knowledge, and creativity to solve problems in ways that maximise the impact of foreign aid. Drawing on a novel database of over 14,000 discrete development projects across nine aid agencies and eight paired case studies of development projects, Dan argues that aid agencies will often benefit from giving field agents the authority to use their own judgments to guide aid delivery. This “navigation by judgment” is particularly valuable when environments are unpredictable and when accomplishing an aid programme’s goals is hard to accurately measure.
Date:
11 May 2018, 17:30 (Friday, 3rd week, Trinity 2018)
Venue:
Blavatnik School of Government, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter OX2 6GG
Venue Details:
Accessible building
Speaker:
Dan Honig (Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies)
Organising department:
Blavatnik School of Government
Organiser contact email address:
events@bsg.ox.ac.uk
Topics:
Booking required?:
Required
Booking url:
https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/events/navigation-judgment
Cost:
Free
Audience:
Public
Editor:
Lucy Forsyth
