Indonesia’s 2014 presidential election opened a new era in the country’s political life. For the first time since 1998, when a 30-year period of authoritarian rule ended, a popularly elected president completed two full terms in office and ceded power to a successor from a different political party. The transition tested the leadership of the outgoing president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, whose cabinet included opponents of his elected successor, Joko Widodo. Governor of Jakarta and a former mayor, Jokowi, as the incoming president was popularly known, faced a steep learning curve, but Yudhoyono’s cooperation eased the challenge. The director of Yudhoyono’s innovative delivery unit, Kuntoro Magusubroto, worked with Jokowi’s transition team. The unit prepared reports and briefings that gave the incoming Jokowi team an overview of key policies and programs. Other ministries provided briefings that varied in depth. The cooperative tone of the 2014 transition was a welcome departure from prior divisive handovers. Nonetheless, as of 2016, there was still a need to adjust the timing of the five-year plan with regard to the transition period as well as provide a legal basis for transferring information between incumbent ministers and incoming government officers.

Robert Joyce drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Jakarta in May 2016. Case published August 2016.

At his August 2012 inauguration, Dominican Republic president Danilo Medina announced ambitious plans to increase economic growth and raise living standards—in particular by making health care more readily available, boosting literacy, and extending the school day for more than a million children. But in a country with a history of weak follow-through on policy promises and poor coordination among government institutions, fulfilling those commitments required firm political will and direction from the presidency. Medina and his chief of staff, Gustavo Montalvo, decided to use a management system created by the United Nations Development Programme’s Systems for Managing Governance (SIGOB) initiative in order to track progress on more than a hundred commitments developed in consultation with civil society groups during the campaign and transition. The SIGOB system helped ministries and agencies focus on the president’s priorities, kept the president informed on progress, and facilitated problem solving. At the end of Medina’s first term as president, the government had achieved some important successes, such as the implementation of a 911 emergency response system and expanded classroom time for most of the nation’s schoolchildren. A handful of the president’s commitments, however, had fallen behind schedule.

Blair Cameron drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in January and February 2016. Case published June 2016.

When Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley assumed office in January 2007, he took over a government hamstrung by ineffective coordination and imprecise monitoring. The state had 20 executive departments, 80,000 state workers, and a $30-billion budget. Winning cooperation to work toward shared goals and keeping tabs on progress posed daunting challenges. A Democrat who had served as mayor of Baltimore, Maryland's largest city, O'Malley had staked his campaign on promises to reform the education sector, increase public safety, safeguard the environment, make health care more affordable, and improve the state's economy. As he had done while mayor of Baltimore, O'Malley decided to focus his cabinet on several main priorities and set specific goals. Then he and his team (1) invested substantial amounts of time to come to understand the inner workings of the various departments, (2) developed measures of department performance, and (3) met regularly with department heads to evaluate progress. Because the governor was able to keep abreast of what was getting done and what wasn't, his team could focus on department performance in a timely manner and from a position of knowledge. O'Malley called the process StateStat. The implementation of StateStat kept departments focused on the governor's priorities, promoted greater coordination among departments and agencies, and produced measurable progress toward goals set by the center of government. 

Michael Scharff drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Annapolis, Maryland, in October and November 2012. Additional interviews were conducted by phone in February and March 2013. Although the governor was unavailable to be interviewed for this case study, aides and officials close to O'Malley described the reform process in detail. Case published July 2013.

Associated Interview(s):  Matthew Gallagher

Michael Scharff drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Jakarta, Indonesia, in December 2012. Case published April 2013.