Posted by Neil Cole and Adil Ababou[1]
Through the Building PFM Capabilities in Africa programme, teams from seven African countries are participating in CABRI’s first application of the Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) approach. Ministries of finance and budget teams from Gambia, Ghana, Lesotho, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and South Africa started the programme in April 2017. Over an 8-month period, the teams will tackle complex PFM problems that have plagued their PFM systems for many years. These problems range from spending ministries not adhering to approved budgets, high virements, and weak conceptualisation of infrastructure investments.
Developed by the Building State Capability (BSC) program at Harvard University’s Center for International Development, the PDIA approach helps public organizations develop the capability to solve complex problems while engaged in the actual process of solving these problems. PDIA interventions typically involve creating teams of multiple agents to tackle locally nominated problems. The approach is based on the premise that there are no predetermined solutions to complex problems, and that only experimentation through small steps can lead to solving the problem. A review of PDIA by Richard Allen was published in the PFM Blog on September 22, Reforming PFM Institutions through PDIA.
