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Working Politically in Practice: Asia Foundation's Experience

Explore the Asia Foundation's experience in working politically to address tough development challenges in various countries, including the successful case of the Bangladesh Leather Industry. Discover common elements of success and the importance of strategy testing for impactful programs.

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Working Politically in Practice: Asia Foundation's Experience

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  1. Working Politically in Practice: The Asia Foundation’s Experience Debra Ladner December 8, 2015OECD, Paris

  2. DFAT-TAF Institutional Partnership • May 2012- March 2016, $19 million, 15 programs in 12 countries • Addressing wide range of development problems across different country contexts • Laboratory for experimentation and learning about TWP • Hypothesis: TWP can achieve high impact on certain types of tough development challenges

  3. Bangladesh Leather Industry

  4. Bangladesh Leather • Problem:Location ranked one of the most polluted places on earth; Industry facing threat of significant export losses • Solution: Move to new location with modern waste water treatment facilities, but process had stagnated due to disagreement on cost-sharing and lack of trust • Strategy: Public-private dialogues, trust-building, understand concerns and motivations, growth projection research • Results: Move is underway, potential environmental and economic impacts are huge

  5. Common Elements of Success • Freedom to Iterate and Adapt • Evolving political dynamics and shifting conditions • Program learning • Maintain Focus on Impact • The Right Skills, Capacities, and Team Culture • Challenge function - “critical friend” • Strategy testing

  6. Strategy Testing Requires program teams to take a periodic “structured break” to: • Critically reflect on program learning – new information and insights, shifts in local context, what’s working and what isn’t. • Ask whether the assumptions underpinning the current program theory of change (TOC) are still valid in light of program learning. • Adjust programs to increase the likelihood of achieving results, and document these program changes.

  7. Many Thanks!

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