Upon assuming office in mid-2007, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad faced an economy in shambles. Devastated by a loss of revenues and international aid in the wake of Hamas’s 2006 electoral victory, which brought to power politicians deemed terrorists by some in the international community, average real gross domestic product per capita in the West Bank and Gaza was about 40% below its 1999 level, and the government was broke. To restart the economy and demonstrate that the Palestinian Authority could manage a socioeconomic crisis in a manner befitting a sovereign state, Fayyad and his colleagues created a detailed development plan that helped secure financial resources from international donors. With that money, the government undertook an ambitious community development program, building thousands of small-scale infrastructure projects across the West Bank. It also negotiated an easing of some of the Israeli-imposed movement restrictions that were stifling both commerce and investment. The West Bank then posted two years of double-digit economic growth and expanded, private-sector activity, but the occupation’s political challenges stymied the Fayyad government’s ultimate goal of Palestinian statehood.
Jennifer Widner, Tristan Dreisbach, and Gordon LaForge drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Ramallah, Nablus, and Jericho in June and July 2019 and in other locations during 2019 and 2020. The case is part of a series on state building in Palestine, 2002–05 and 2007–11. Case published June 2022.
When Troy Schulte took over as interim city manager of Kansas City, Missouri, in 2009, the local economy was struggling and the government faced hard choices about how to use scarce resources. With a slashed budget and a diminished workforce, Schulte had to figure out how to deliver city services without reducing quality. Together with a small team of employees, he began to create a culture of data-driven decision making in municipal offices, to invest selectively in technology, and to give nonprofit organizations and firms an opportunity to develop their own, innovative solutions to city problems by making more information available to them. Schulte found a kindred spirit in Mayor Sly James, who negotiated a public–private partnership with a view to developing what Kansas City’s chief innovation officer called “the smartest 54 blocks in the country” along the city’s new streetcar corridor. As initial efforts came to a close and a new mayor entered office, Schulte and other officials stepped back to assess what they had learned. The new, data-driven culture had yielded positive improvements, whereas the technology-based smart-city initiative had had a more limited impact—at least in the shorter term. The experience generated important lessons about the scale of the benefits that technology could generate in midsize cities and in what kind of time frame.
Tyler McBrien drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Kansas City, Missouri, in January 2020. Case published March 2020.
By the early 2000s, traffic in Senegal's capital city of Dakar had become unbearable. A skyrocketing number of vehicles strained the city's infrastructure, and traffic jams choked not only the major road into and out of town but also the region's economic growth. A new highway that would ease road congestion had been planned decades earlier but had been shelved because of the cost, complexity, and difficulty of financing. Abdoulaye Wade, elected president in 2000, sought a new solution: a public-private partnership. The plan called for a private company to contribute a portion of the cost of the highway's construction and then to maintain the highway-in exchange for toll revenues-with the rest of the up-front costs borne by the government. Executing the first such partnership of its kind in the region would not be easy. In addition to identifying and resolving complex technical and financial aspects of the partnership, government planners had to find ways to mitigate extensive social and environmental impacts of the project-including the displacement of 30,000 people from their homes and businesses. Senegal's newly created Agency for Investment Promotion and Major Works led the process of selecting the partner company, overseeing construction, and coordinating implementation with institutions ranging from Senegalese ministries to international development banks and community associations. Once it opened in August 2013, the Dakar-Diamniadio toll highway saw greater use than expected and alleviated congestion in the capital. But delays in the resettlement of people displaced by the project meant that some problems persisted into 2016.
Maya Gainer, ISS Research Specialist, and Stefanie Chan of Sciences Po's Paris School of International Affairs, drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Dakar, Senegal, and Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, in January 2016. This case study was funded by the French Development Agency. Case published May 2016.
In this interview, C. William Allen reflects on how the President’s Young Professionals Program boosted the quality of the civil service in Liberia. For background, he describes the strategy and programs that improved the civil service in the aftermath of the Second Liberian Civil War. He highlights the PYPP’s uniqueness in identifying young talent, heavily recruiting women, and offering placements in rural areas. He analyzes the pay scale’s role in strengthening the program. He compares the PYPP with alternative paths to working for the government, as well as the Young Professionals with other civil servants. He champions the PYPP’s transparent and meritocratic recruitment process as a model for the rest of the civil service while presenting the steps necessary to sustain the program.
At the time of this interview, C. William Allen represented Liberia as the ambassador to France and permanent delegate to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). From 2006 to 2013, he served as director-general of the Liberian Civil Service Agency, where he chaired the steering committee of the President’s Young Professionals Program. In his prior post as minister of information, culture and tourism, he was the chief spokesman for the National Transitional Government of Liberia. He also worked as a journalist and taught journalism and mass communications at several universities. Allen earned a bachelor’s in journalism from Franklin College, a master of public administration from California State University at Sacramento, and a PhD in mass communication from Syracuse University.
When Gerson Martínez became head of El Salvador’s Ministry of Public Works in 2009, the organization was notorious for corruption that contributed to poor-quality construction, unfinished projects, and frequent lawsuits. Working with a prominent nongovernmental organization (NGO) and industry representatives, Martínez introduced integrity pacts as monitoring mechanisms intended to prevent corruption. The agreements publicly committed officials and companies to reject bribery, collusion, and other corrupt practices and enabled NGOs to monitor bidding and construction. Although limited capacity and resistance from some midlevel ministry staff hindered the monitors’ work, integrity pacts focused the attention of both the government and the public on problems in major public works projects; and participants said the pacts helped deter corruption in those they covered. In 2012, integrity pacts became part of El Salvador’s Open Government Partnership action plan, in implicit recognition of the tool’s contribution to reform. As of August 2015, the ministry had signed 31 integrity pacts involving five projects worth a combined US$62 million. Although sustaining the initiative proved a challenge, integrity pacts served as a foundation for increased collaboration between government, civil society, and the private sector—and as a first step toward a new institutional culture at the Ministry of Public Works.
Maya Gainer drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in San Salvador in July 2015. Case published in October, 2015. This case study was funded by the Open Government Partnership.
In 2009, South Africa’s second-most populous metropolitan area, Cape Town, adopted a new strategy to usher the rule of law into shantytowns that had sprung up on its outskirts, on municipal land. Without legal property rights, most of the residents of those communities were vulnerable to eviction and had access to neither municipal services nor home addresses they could use to obtain cell phone contracts or other basic goods. Lacking both the space to relocate households and the money to build enough new houses, the city partnered with a program called Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading to pilot an in situ settlement upgrade that allowed people to remain in their homes. Through an incremental tenure approach, the city issued occupancy certificates that recognized residents’ rights to remain on the land, that protected against arbitrary eviction, and that laid the groundwork for eventual access to the services enjoyed by city residents living in legal housing. The pilot project focused on Monwabisi Park, a community of about 25,000 on the southeastern edge of Cape Town. Beginning with a full enumeration of land, structures, and occupants, the project helped construct a community register, issue occupancy certificates, and extend electric power throughout the area. By November 2016, the first phase of the project had been completed, and hundreds of residents visited the community registration office every month to update their details. Using their occupancy certificates, residents could obtain cell phones, register their children in schools, receive medication from the health department, and open furniture store accounts. However, the second phase of the project—rezoning and physically upgrading the settlement—stalled in late 2016, as Cape Town officials wrestled with the basic question of how to install water and sewerage infrastructure in situ without moving any households. Even with that pause, though, Monwabisi Park offered important lessons for other cities and countries about how to provide poorer, more-transient citizens greater stability and financial access.
Lessons Learned
In a complex urban environment, community-led surveying and enumeration cannot be rushed. Time is required to build trust with and among different groups in the community and ensure accuracy.
Projects whose greatest impact will only materialize in the future need broad support to survive political turnover. Emphasis on the long-term benefits of settlement upgrading can help reduce resistance from an incoming administration concerned about supporting an outgoing mayor’s pet project.
Visible administration—having the project team physically working in the settlement on a regular basis—was key to maintaining an organized tenure administration system.
Securing upfront agreement with city engineers on infrastructure installations plans is vital. Failure to approve a design plan after the program has launched frustrates residents and undermines the progress already made.
Taking steps to help new holders of occupancy certificates understand their rights and the consequences of off-registry transfers should be a component of every incremental tenure program.
Leon Schreiber drafted this case study with Professor Michael Barry of the University of Calgary based on interviews conducted in Cape Town and Johannesburg, in July and August 2016. Case published February 2017.
Lagos State began the twenty-first century as a boomtown crippled by crime, traffic, blight, and corruption. A regional economic hub and burgeoning state of 13.4 million people, the megalopolis had a global reputation for government dysfunction. Two successively elected governors, Bola Tinubu and Babatunde Fashola, worked in tandem to set the state on a new course. Beginning in 1999, their administrations overhauled city governance, raised new revenues, improved security and sanitation, reduced traffic, expanded infrastructure and transit, and attracted global investment. By following through on their promises to constituents and forging a new civic contract between Lagos and its taxpayers, Tinubu and Fashola laid the foundations of a functional, livable, and sustainable metropolis.
Gabriel Kuris drafted this case study based on interviews conducted by Graeme Blair in Lagos, Nigeria, in August 2009 and by Kuris in Lagos, in October 2011 and in Providence, Rhode Island, in November 2012. Case published July 2014.
Vargas characterizes the Centro de Coordinación de Acción Integral (CCAI, Comprehensive Action Coordination Center) as a coordinating agent established under the Colombian Presidency that connects local demands with national supply. Focusing on the Montes de María region, Vargas traces a process of i) identifying Montes de María as a strategic transit point near the Venezuelan border and the Caribbean sea that merits institutional attention, ii) assessing local priorities incorporating input from local authorities and producers (including the chamber of commerce, avocado and cacao growers), iii) relaying that assessment to the national level for strategic action, and iv) facilitating state interventions in the region. CCAI activities pertaining to two main issue areas: road infrastructure and land ownership. Vargas singles out the Transversal de los Montes de María, a major road across the region that is under construction by army engineers, but some work is done on secondary roads by private contractors. He notes that in the face of limited resources, the CCAI chose to maximize impact by focusing on highly productive and densely populated areas and by delivering durable (but more expensive) road infrastructure, which led to a tradeoff between number of projects and quality of output. To put CCAI land ownership work in context, Vargas points out that the issue is complicated by internal displacement and land transactions during the conflict, by the return of the displaced in the post-conflict era, by a culture of informality and by limited state capacity. To address this range of situations, the CCAI has adopted three approaches: First, to coordinate investigation of land purchases during the conflict, exploring the possibility of transactions under duress. Second, to normalize land ownership through various programs focused on restitution. Third, to promote socially-responsible industrialization by providing platforms for dialogue between small landowners and new private developers. Vargas also shortly elaborates on a pilot program aimed at victims from small towns, on funding sources, on channels of cooperation with regional authorities and on recent structural changes within the CCAI. He underscores that the Center does not pursue a policy of return for the internally displaced, but instead responds to the observable phenomenon that they are returning on their own. He also assimilates the problem of continuity across political administrations with the need to phase out CCAI activities as local capacity is strengthened. He closes by zeroing in on two keys for success: honesty about what can and cannot be done when dealing with the local community, and the fostering of trust, which may require an intervention as inexpensive but valuable as installing a water pump.
Juan Carlos Vargas Morales was involved with the Centro de Coordinación de Acción Integral (CCAI) from the start, serving as the delegate from the Ministry of the Interior and Law to the Center for nine years. He later worked on National Consolidation issues in the Montes de María Region on behalf of the Agencia Presidencial para la Acción Social y la Cooperación Internacional (Presidential Agency for Social Action and International Cooperation).
In 2008, Freetown faced one of the worst energy crises among the world’s major cities, as two aging generators met less than 5% of the Sierra Leone capital’s needs. Residents had electricity for only two or three hours every few days, and businesses struggled with the high cost of maintaining private generators. To make matters worse, efforts toward a solution were creeping at a snail’s pace. Construction of a massive hydroelectric plant at Bumbuna, about 200 kilometers from Freetown, was far behind schedule because of mismanagement and political obstacles. President Ernest Bai Koroma assigned a top adviser, Victor Strasser-King, to get the project back on track by breaking through bottlenecks, facilitating coordination between ministries, and regaining the trust and confidence of the donor community to renew their support for the project. By closely monitoring progress through a system of performance tracking and personal inspection and verification of tasks, Strasser-King steered the project to completion in November 2009.
Jonathan Friedman drafted this case study on the basis of interviews conducted in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in March 2011. Case published September 2011.
Following the transition to democracy in 1994, South Africa experimented with ways to improve ministry effectiveness by separating policy-making functions from operations. The Department of Transport introduced principles of New Public Management and public-private partnerships to improve service delivery. The South African National Roads Agency Ltd. (SANRAL), led by Nazir Alli, reconfigured the procurement process and financing models for planning, design, construction, maintenance and operation of the country’s national road network. Increasing transparency in the tendering of contracts led to greater accountability on the part of project managers and contractors. This case study chronicles the steps that Alli and his staff took to build the agency and to deliver results on a large scale, culminating with the upgrade of the freeway connecting the cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria during the final months before the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Richard Bennet drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Pretoria and Cape Town, South Africa, in March 2011. Case published July 2011.
