It is important when thinking about building state capability, to first ask, what is the “type of problem” you are trying to solve? In this video, Lant Pritchett, provides a framework to determine the capability required for implementing development projects. He begins by asking whether your task is transaction intensive, followed by whether it is locally discretionary, to better understand if the nature of the task is logistics or implementation intensive. You can watch the video below or on YouTube.
This is a clear explanation on how capacity development (= software development) differs from infrastructure development (= hardware development). Thanks to the explanation, I reconfirmed the complexity of institutional building in developing countries and relative easiness of infrastructural development projects. In fact, when I worked in Iraq last few years as a staff of a development agency, I observed good progress of our large scale infrastructure projects, in oil & gas, electricity, water supply and port rehabilitation. However, I could not see much changes or progress from our technical transfer.