Rushda Majeed drafted this case on the basis of interviews conducted in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in June 2011, as well as interviews conducted in Bangladesh by Andrew Schalkwyk in February 2009. Case published October 2011.

Associated Interview(s):  Zahurul Alam​, Iqbal Mahmood, Abdul Muyeed Chowdhury, Syed Tanveer Hussain, Rizwan Khair, Mohammad Mohabbat Khan, John Wallace

When Tarun Gogoi was elected chief minister of the Indian state of Assam in 2001, the government's finances were in shambles, key public enterprises were on the verge of collapse, and two decades of violence between insurgents and the police and armed forces had created deep insecurity among the citizenry.  The main insurgent group, the United Liberation Front of Asom, continued to threaten the state's ability to govern the countryside.  Faced with poverty and insurgency, with the former often feeding the latter, Gogoi set development ahead of peace-building on his list of priorities for the initial years of his tenure in office.  But before development could be addressed, he had to fix the government's finances.  Gogoi assembled a team of young ministers to spearhead his reform efforts and appointed talented civil servants to senior positions in important departments such as finance and home affairs.  Together, these individuals were able to augment the state's financial base, make spending more efficient, turn around ailing public agencies and devolve power to newly created autonomous councils to address the demands of ethnic groups.  As his state's finances improved, Gogoi began working to lower the hurdles posed by insurgent groups through a two-pronged approach.  He aimed to defeat insurgent groups militarily while trying to shift public support from the insurgents to the government.  Assam's reform story unfolded "gradually, gradually," in Gogoi's words, and it contains important lessons in financial management and conflict resolution.  Assam was an interesting case of development forming a vital part of a strategy to reduce conflict and create the space for further development.

Rohan Mukherjee drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Guwahati city, Assam's capital, in July 2009. 

Associated Interview(s):  Shri Himanta Biswa Sarma, Rajiv Bora, Jayanta Madhab, Subhash Das

More than a decade after the 1994 genocide, Rwandan government ministries struggled to implement long-term plans or even meet mid-term targets. A skills shortage hindered projects at the district and local levels. In 2008, Charles Karake and Stella Mugabo, senior officials at the Human Resources and Institutional Development Agency, a government organization charged with improving national capacity, experimented with a management practice known as the Rapid Results Approach to enhance ministries’ ability to implement successful projects. Rapid Results encouraged officials to focus on small-scale projects that could be completed in a relatively brief time span, usually less than four months. This case shows how Rwanda’s Ministry of Local Government, under the direction of Protais Musoni, championed the technique to advance the goals of an anti-poverty program. A pilot program in Gashaki, an impoverished region in north Rwanda, improved the ability of local officials and leaders to help poor families raise their incomes. Although adoption of Rapid Results did not progress beyond the initial phase for a variety of reasons, public servants who participated in the program increased their ability to deliver services effectively and many of Gashaki’s residents improved their financial positions and quality of life within a surprisingly short period. However, critics noted the high cost of implementing Rapid Results and stressed that other factors also contributed to the positive results in Gashaki. This study considers the approach as an alternative to traditional methods of building capacity.