IPP2020 – Building State Capability

Understanding the problem is critical to policy implementation

Guest blog by Mustapha Samateh

This is a blog series written by the alumni of the Implementing Public Policy Executive Education Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. Participants successfully completed this 6-month online learning course in December 2020. These are their learning journey stories.

After 11 years of public service- 7 years at the Central Bank and 4 years as Director at Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, I joined the private sector a year ago serving as the Deputy Managing Director at the Investment and Commerce bank. My experience in public sector made me believe that there is more than enough good public policy. The problem is implementation. This motivated me to take the Online Harvard Executive Education Program on Implementing Public Policy (IPP). My expectation at the beginning of the course was that I will learn a lot about public policy implementation. In the end, it surpass my expectations.

The Pandemic Cannot Stop Us!

Guest blog by Jean-Francois Roussy

Here we are at the end of our journey, 22 weeks later!

When I applied to this program, the lock-down was starting, we were wondering what was going on in the world, how long it would last and learning to telework. I am now graduating and, while we are still teleworking, we are finally seeing the light end at the end of the tunnel and the vaccines are at our doorsteps (instead of our Doordash order)!

After close to 20 years in the development and implementation of Canadian public policies, I felt that I needed a little extra at this point of my career: to formally learn theories associated to the implementation of public policies and especially learn them from a different perspective than the traditional Canadian ones. And to learn from others successes, challenges and experiences around the world.

Impact of COVID-19 on Benin Republic’s Economy

Guest blog by Aadam Soulebon

My expectations:

When I was offered to sign up for the online version of this program, at first glance, I had concerns. This was my very first HKS course. Indeed, I was afraid that the resulting interaction would not add a substantial value to me besides the class materials. I was looking for something to solidify my competence in the field of public policies as a practitioner but also the HARVARD experience, the interaction with teachers but also the richness of exchanges with classmates.

Guess what: I’ve had a lot more than I can put into words …

Working as Special Assistant to the Senior Minister of Planning and Development of Benin Republic, the highest-ranking Minister, public policies are in our core business. We oversee the implementation of all public policies launched by the government. In most cases, we conceive, we mobilize resources and we monitor while the sectoral ministries are in charge of implementation. As we are reaching the end of this course, I am going back to my normal life with technical tools, experience sharing, and a network to rely on through the years. I am more confident in my job and am able to come up with options and solutions instead of questions while dealing with public policies.

Tackling gun violence in Birmingham, Alabama

Guest blog by Crystal Smitherman

Being a new and young politician, I knew I had a lot of learning to do in the political sector. I had a lot of energy and great initiatives, but I still need to learn how to revamp my message and craft good policy making habits. In the midst of a crime crisis, as our murder rates continued to rise significantly every week, I knew something had to change. I knew our policy approach towards dealing with crime needed to be reformed and improved. I came across the Implementing Public Policy course on the Harvard Kennedy School website. I knew my mindset Right then, would never be the same the moment I enrolled in the course.

I always knew I had the potential and capability to make a difference in my district and city by achieving attainable development goals and initiatives. Yet, I was still hitting a brick wall when it came to getting over the hump of pushing forward on certain initiatives. This is why I am forever grateful that I joined the 2020 IPP cohort.

Formalizing Egypt’s Informal Sector

Guest blog by Perihan Tawfik

Being an Egyptian Woman, a holder of a master degree of the Public Policy and Public Administration from the American University in Cairo (AUC, 2007), member of the AUC Public Policy Hub (2018) and working for the International Labor Organization (UN Specialized agency) encouraged me to think about enrolling in a public policy course at Harvard’s premises.

Applying to “Implementing Public Policy”, blended course, at Harvard Kennedy School was a very interesting challenge from March to December 2020 until the moment the course turned to be an online course then the challenge started to grow bigger in me. I had an initial expectation to learn from the Harvard premises experience and from the interaction with professors and mates especially that I considered the online part as an introduction and conclusion while the body of the course is mainly the in presence-week.

Dissecting challenges, mapping entry points & building teams: My IPP learnings

Guest blog by Laney Stone

This has been an interesting year, to say the least, and when it became clear that I would need to stay at home for some time due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I considered how I might use my time in a constructive way. I was excited to see that the HKS 2020 course on Implementing Public Policy (IPP) had been moved online for accessibility during the pandemic. I quickly applied, hoping to gain insights into how best to design and implement public policies and what pitfalls should be avoided, but was not sure what exactly to expect from six months of Harvard via Zoom and Canvas. I was pleasantly surprised by how much we covered and worked through every week, and by the depth of interpersonal, leadership, and management strategies that we explored. Our Zoom sessions were not so different from in-person sessions, and six months of engagement let us put our learning into practice and exchange ideas on a consistent basis.

HIV: Patient Safety and Infection Prevention in India

Guest blog by Vijay Yeldandi

Why IPP? Honestly because I needed a navigator! After 25 years of doing public health work in India focusing on HIV Infection Prevention, I realized that not everything I did was a resounding success. While some projects were gratifying, in retrospect there were many hard lessons to learn and much heartburn to endure. Many of my friends and colleagues would remark “Oh there goes Vijay again….. where angels fear to tread…. Yes, it is true I have always been an unapologetically optimistic (hopelessly romantic) Gandhian revolutionary going about trying to make the whole world a better place. My anthem is John Lennon’s IMAGINE https://youtu.be/SfGuTigICo8

Implementing online services in Manila, Philippines

Guest blog by Chris Tenorio

A simple communication via email dated June 4, 2020 from Prof. Matt Andrews inviting me to be part of the Implementing Public Policy (IPP) Program made me think if whether or not this program would further improve my way of governance in public office and enhance my knowledge on managing public challenge even though I already had an overview about Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) as discussed by Prof. Matt in his book Building State Capability and in the previous program, Leading Economic Growth. Such email, which clearly explained the overview of the program and brief enumeration of tools that can be used in exploring several frameworks of implementation, convinced me to be part of the cohort for six (6) months.

As Prof. Matt introduced the program, he asked us to identify the public policy challenge in our own organization or office that we would want to devote our dedication and commitment during the duration of the program and utilizing PDIA principles and processes in addressing the identified challenge. I decided to work on the implementation of online services which can be implemented by our office—the Manila Civil Registry Office.

How I became a believer in the PDIA process

Guest blog by Linda Chasey

I thought that I would learn some new tools that would refine what I was currently doing with solving problems and implementing policy when I first started the IPP course. Perhaps learn the best practices or would be told what to do in different situations. I am known for getting things done and have never been afraid to tackle complex challenges nor learn as I go. I am not afraid of change and I’m constantly looking for ways to improve process and procedures so I did not think that I would struggle with trying to solve problems using this new PDIA concept, boy was I wrong.

I was a few months into the course and had built my fishbone, developed a workgroup, and started talking about what we were going to do. One of the homework sessions I had submitted a new fishbone and stated I was changing my problem statement and was now going to do this more focused problem. The staff responded to my homework and was very nice but really told me that I needed to trust in the PDIA process and try it again.

Urban Development in Argentina: How IPP helped me achieve my goal

Guest blog by Catalina Palacio

This is the story of an inspiring journey.

Everybody is working hard around the world looking for increasing their wellbeing, which in turn affects the improvement of the quality of life of others. Everybody plays a determinant role to make lives better, even more, when people share the public policies sphere due to it is the core of the society’s balance. In this regard IPP journey has turned into the most significant experience which gives all the participants extraordinary tools to be better practitioners, better people and better leaders around the world.

My entire working experience has been with public sector in different countries where I have noticed such similar situations: unsolved problems, a lot of effort with unsatisfactory results from some practitioners, lack of ownership from some staff and so on, as a result, the social, economic, and environmental dimensions are increasingly unbalanced. In this context, I decided to course the IPP journey hoping to get meaningful technical tools to add value to my professional skills to make the difference when facing the less desirable public policy arena conditions. No matter how high my expectations were, definitely this course has exceeded them. Not only gave me valuable technical information regarding a better understand of the current situation and how to deal with to be more effective, but also taught me the importance of the human aspects, how to be aware of myself as a person facing complex problems and how to build teams, encourage and support its members as people as well as a practitioners.