InAsia

Thinking and Working Politically

July 22, 2020 The Asia Foundation
InAsia
Thinking and Working Politically
Show Notes Transcript

Since early 2012, The Asia Foundation’s Coalitions for Change in the Philippines has been pursuing the emerging discipline of “thinking and working politically,” which is…what, exactly? Jaime Faustino, coauthor of a new book on the subject, answers that question with a tale of unexpected obstacles, surprising solutions, and thinking like an entrepreneur. Learn more about the new book: https://asiafoundation.org/2020/07/22/thinking-and-working-politically-a-conversation-with-jaime-faustino/

John Reiger (00:00):

Welcome to InAsia, from The Asia Foundation. I'm John Rieger.

Tracy Yang (00:04):

And I'm Tracy Yang.

John Reiger (00:05):

Our guest today is The Asia Foundation's Jaime Faustino who, along with John Sidel of the London School of Economics, is co-author of the new book Thinking and Working Politically in Development.

Tracy Yang (00:16):

For listeners who may not be development walks, thinking and working politically is a thing and it has been for about a decade. The book chronicles the successes and disappointments of Coalitions for Change, a program in the Philippines that since 2012 has worked to apply these ideas in ways that were genuinely problem driven, iterative, adaptive, and entrepreneurial.

John Reiger (00:39):

That sounds great. And a little bit vague. So here to nail it down and talk to us about the new book is Jaime Faustino. Welcome to InAsia.

Jamie Faustino (00:47):

Thank you very much for having me.

John Reiger (00:49):

Where are you coming to us from today, Jaime?

Jamie Faustino (00:50):

Yeah, I'm speaking to you from my living room here in Manila, as we're all locked up.

John Reiger (00:56):

Well, thanks for being with us today. Coalitions for Change. What is it and why did you decide to write a book about it?

Jamie Faustino (01:03):

Yeah well, Coalitions for Change I started back in 2012 as a partnership between the Australian embassy and The Asia Foundation here in the Philippines. Fundamentally, it's kind of different from most development projects, which really provide technical assistance to governments or grants to civil society organizations. In our case, we're really working with leaders both inside and outside of government, focused on identifying and introducing specific policy reforms, which are designed to change the incentives and behavior of organizations and individuals to lead to better outcomes.

Tracy Yang (01:48):

So, Coalitions for Change emphasizes the idea of thinking and working politically, which is also the title of your book. Some of our listeners may not be familiar with this idea. Can you talk about it?

Jamie Faustino (02:01):

So, the basic idea here is in development, the kind of original development practice was really a division of labor between development agencies and host governments. So, development agencies would provide the technical expertise and host governments would kind of, in a sense, handle the politics. This has led to a little bit of frustration. So for example, a technically correct recommendation may go against the interest of the elites or the specific government agency that you're working with. So, the recommendation will be "Oh, you need to open up this sector of the economy with telecommunications or civil aviation or something to promote more competition" for example. But in fact, there are, like most developing countries, strong vested interests who are opposed to more competition.

John Reiger (03:01):

So, you've got a perfect technical recommendation that founders on the shoals of political settlements.

Jamie Faustino (03:06):

Absolutely. Well put my friend, you should've written a book with me. So, the actual technical recommendation is logical and clear, except that on the other side, the political dimension, the governments themselves are constrained from taking those kinds of steps because they may be going against some of the strong vested interests in the country. In the words of one regulator to me, "You're asking me to commit suicide." So, aligning interests of both development agencies, as well as leaders and the government here, that's the political dimension of Coalitions for Change.

John Reiger (03:49):

Jamie, your book highlights several projects and issues of Coalitions for Change has tackled. Is there one particular jewel in the crown?

Jamie Faustino (03:56):

Yeah, you're asking me which one is my favorite child, right? And I love all of them, but I think it would be our chapter on education reform. The reform itself is simple and straight forward. Since the public school system was established in 1910, the government never purchased land for schools. Were always donated or given. We get to the point now where the population has increased. There are 24 million students and some schools are bursting at the seams. To the point where, in the worst cases, there are a hundred students per classroom, so they have three shifts.

John Reiger (04:46):

As I recall from the book, the government actually recognized that classroom overcrowding was a serious problem and they had set aside money for building more classrooms, and yet the money was not getting spent. And it took Coalitions for Change to look at the problem from all different angles and find out where the bottleneck was.

Jamie Faustino (05:06):

That's correct. In fact, we had originally bought into the idea that the problem was classroom congestion. So we hold some workshops. This is kind of how the process works. We held some workshops and because we had read these reports, we have a solution in mind, but the participants to the workshop, parent-teacher associations, principals. When we gave them the analysis, they were kind of lukewarm and we couldn't figure out why is it that they don't really agree. So we went back to our notes after like two workshops and buried in there was the analysis that came from them. "Hey, the problem is not the money for buildings or classrooms. The problem is we don't have enough land on where to build those." So the truth is, the first two workshops, we had an answer and we weren't really listening. We figured out that, hey, they're telling us where the problem really is.

Tracy Yang (06:12):

So Jaime, some critics of Thinking and Working Politically say, it's impossible to evaluate its impact. What do they mean by that and what do you say to that?

Jamie Faustino (06:24):

Well, we're on a rolling theory of change. So all pieces of the theory of change from the current situation to our proposed reform, to the change of incentives and behavior, to an improved outcome. Those are constantly in flux in the beginning, oftentimes in our reform projects, our theory of change may go through weekly changes.

Tracy Yang (06:49):

So is it really hard to keep a vested interest among your donors or beneficiaries when you're constantly kind of changing and adapting your process?

Jamie Faustino (07:03):

Actually, I think it's the other way around. On a daily basis, we're kind of assessing, "Okay, what have you heard? What did the president say? What did you see in the column?" It's like, you're playing the game. You're in the middle of the game. Our development partners at the Australian embassy, they're delighted to be part of it. And for our leaders that is their DNA and they're looking for, you know, opportunities or openings to try and introduce a reform. It's a great story, going back to our education story. Our team leader is at a wedding and the secretary of education is one of the main sponsors. And she takes the chance to brief him on our reform while he's at the Presidential table.

John Reiger (07:55):

It's a shocking breach of etiquette.

Jamie Faustino (07:59):

It happened right there. She made the decision. I'm going to let him at least finishes dessert, and I'm going to hit them with our reforms.

John Reiger (08:05):

Jamie, what lessons should development practitioners working in Asia take away from the experiences of Coalitions for Change after reading this book?

Jamie Faustino (08:15):

Yeah, a couple of key messages. We work in, you know, maybe 15 to 18 broad areas from education to disaster risk reduction, to peace and stability to persons deprived of liberty. The thing that strikes me is there are leaders in every area who want to make their society better, but one of the traits of leaders is they want autonomy. They want to be self-directed. The challenge for development agencies is leaders don't want to be told what to do and development agencies who get their projects approved need to say what they're going to do. Coalitions for Change is a project structure that provides the predictability and accountability for the development agency, but also attracts the leaders who want their autonomy.

            The second message is: there is a coherent logic for working in an iterative, adaptive and entrepreneurial way. Coalitions for change draws on academic work that centers around entrepreneurial logic. What makes entrepreneurs entrepreneurial? The development industry grew up with linear logic drawn from the practice of building roads, where you put a Gantt chart together and then you implement step one, step two, step three. But if you apply that to policy reform and complex development problems today, the Gantt chart doesn't really work because you've got all these contingent situations that you need to constantly make adjustments. So the five principles of entrepreneurial logic are what's essential for the success of Coalitions for Change.

            Those five principles I can go through them just to give you a quick review. The first one is just start with what you have, as opposed to the linear logic, which says, "Do analysis first before starting." The second principle is make small bets. Go ahead and learn by doing right. Again, that's a way of managing risk for entrepreneurs. They don't bet the whole farm. They just make little tests to see what's working. And then whichever is gaining traction, then they pursue that further. The third principle is the idea of expecting and exploiting surprises. Again, the other side, linear logic says, "Try to predict all of the risks and all of the surprises". That's why they have these breasts matrices that they develop now. The fourth principle is the use of networks and coalitions, right? As opposed to seeing others as competitors, entrepreneurs always see each other as I can do an exchange deal here and gets up and each of us can do an exchange of goods or services. And the final principle is the idea that the future is made, not predicted. So there's a strong bias for action over analysis.

John Reiger (11:48):

Jaime Faustino. Thank you so much for a fascinating conversation. It's been great to have you here.

Jamie Faustino (11:53):

Thank you for having me.

Tracy Yang (11:54):

The book is called Thinking and Working Politically in Development: Coalitions for Change in the Philippines by Jaime Faustino and John Sidel. It drops on July 29th and it will be available for download right here on this page. So stay tuned.

John Reiger (12:09):

Until next time. I'm John Rieger.

Tracy Yang (12:11):

And I'm Tracy Yang.

John Reiger (12:12):

Thanks for listening.