Jorge Muñoz had long championed efforts to improve the lives of children in his relatively well-off district of Peru’s capital city, Lima. In 2019, he had a chance to take some of his ideas to scale. As newly elected mayor of metropolitan Lima, a city of almost 11 million, he oversaw basic services for about a third of the country’s population. At the time, a fifth of Peru’s population lived in poverty, and one in three people lived in informal settlements, where supporting families to give infants and toddlers a healthy start on life presented many challenges. The mayor directed the metropolitan government’s Social Development Department and a small interdisciplinary team of architects and social scientists (1) to identify lessons learned from pilot projects, (2) to establish new ways of assisting infants and young children, and (3) to coordinate to get the job done. When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in the capital city in 2020, the metropolitan government and its team continued this work, using some of their newly created systems to respond to the larger challenge of caring for vulnerable populations during months of emergency lockdown measures. The national government labeled Lima’s program, which engaged residents in project development, as a promising model for helping local governments implement a countrywide strategy for the promotion of early childhood development.
Miguelángel Verde drafted this case study with the help of Tyler McBrien based on interviews conducted in Lima, Peru, during 2020 and 2021. Case published August 2021. The Bernard van Leer Foundation supported this case study to foster early-stage policy learning.
By the mid-2010s, Istanbul, the biggest city in Turkey, had developed a reputation as a bustling concrete jungle notoriously unfriendly to the 1.2 million children aged four years and younger who lived there. As part of a decade-long construction boom, multistory skyscrapers increasingly replaced green spaces and parks throughout the city. But such insufficient consideration for the developmental needs of young children was not confined to the design of public and urban spaces: in many Istanbul homes, parents worked hard to put food on the table and had little time to consider how to give their young children the best possible start in life. In February 2016, a coalition of policy research organizations and private enterprises launched an ambitious effort to persuade officials in Istanbul’s 39 districts to begin taking the needs of young children seriously. The group drew on help from a network of prominent Turkish universities and partnered with four district municipalities that agreed to join a program called Istanbul95, supported by the Bernard van Leer Foundation, a Dutch foundation. The group created a digital-mapping tool to help locate vulnerable children, conducted regular home visits to support hundreds of families, and designed new prototypes for child-friendly public spaces. This effort to embed principles of early childhood development into the work of Turkish local governments passed a milestone when, in 2019, the major metropolitan area governments of Istanbul and İzmir also agreed to join, a key step toward reaching many more children.
Leon Schreiber and Gordon LaForge drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Istanbul in June and July 2020. Case published November 2020. The Bernard van Leer Foundation supported this case study to foster early-stage policy learning.
In his interview with ISS, Issac Adewole discusses his term as Nigeria’s health minister (November 2015-May 2019), especially his role in the Basic Health Care Provision Fund. He explains how his ministry worked with others to create a transparent financial management system. He also discusses how the project was implemented throughout Nigeria and the challenges of designing a program involving many central government and state agencies in Nigeria’s federal system of government.
Dr. Isaac Adewole is a professor of gynecology and obstetrics at the University of Ibadan and the former minister of health of Nigeria. He served as part of the Cabinet of President Muhammadu Buhari from 2015 to 2019. As minister of health, he took a leading role in the implementation of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund. Prior to his appointment, he served as vice chancellor of the University of Ibadan.
In the early 2010s in Tel Aviv, parents with children under four years of age were mostly on their own when it came to finding the child care services and support they needed. Although the city was an economic and technology powerhouse, the government showed little interest in providing for the youngest residents. Public concern about the cost and quality of day care and a shortage of opportunities to ensure infants and toddlers thrived drew parents into the streets. In 2016, the city began to respond. Municipal departments expanded services, launched a digital platform for parents, and renovated public spaces to suit children three years old and younger. By 2019, early childhood development had become a government priority and part of the mayor’s reelection campaign platform, although scaling services to some of the poorest neighborhoods remained a challenge.
Gordon LaForge drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Tel Aviv in May 2019. The Bernard van Leer Foundation sponsored this case study to support learning in its Urban95 initiative. Savvas Verdis and Philipp Rode of the London School of Economics served as independent reviewers. Case published August 2019.
In this interview, Vicoria Esber discusses the development and implementation of the Report Card Survey and the Anti-Red Tape Act in the Philippine Civil Service Commission (CSC). She begins by recounting the various challenges for the program, from engaging Filipino clients to building trust with agencies, as well as the Commission's solutions for these obstacles. She also describes the measures they took to help agencies meet CSC standards, such as incentivizing compliance with good governance conditions and restructuring their Citizen's Charters. Finally, she explains the various networks and partnerships that helped the CSC design and conduct its surveys.
At the time of this interview, Victoria Esber was the head of the Office for Strategy Management in the Philippine Civil Service Commission, where she oversaw strategy, implementation, and research efforts. Previously, she conducted economic research with the Philippines's National Economic and Development Authority. She holds a master's degree in National Security from the National Defense College of the Philippines and a bachelor's degree in Political Science from the University of the Philippines.
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.
Michael Sutcliffe discusses the process of transitioning local and provincial government with the end of apartheid in South Africa. He explains the process through which the different provinces were delineated and sub-national government was built by the African National Congress party. Sutcliffe discusses efforts to strengthen local democracy and the troubles of attempts to use boundary changes to solve service delivery problems. He also touches on the challenges of working with the Inkatha Freedom Party in KwaZulu-Natal province. Sutcliffe also discusses why he believes provincial level government is unnecessary and why the focus should be on national and municipal government.
At the time of this interview, Michael Sutcliffe was city manager of eThekwini municipality, which incorporated the city of Durban, South Africa. Sutcliffe also served as African National Congress member of the legislature of KwaZulu-Natal province from 1994 to 1999 and was chairman of the Municipal Demarcation Board. Sutcliffe was an anti-apartheid activist and member of the United Democratic Front prior to the end of apartheid in South Africa. From 1982 to 1991, he was an associate professor at the University of Natal in town and regional planning. He earned a master’s from the University of Natal and a doctorate from Ohio State University.
Case published 11/16/2012 by SM.
Case updated 02/13/2013 by SM.
Case minorly updated 03/06/2013 by SM.
Abstract
When Indiana governor Mitch Daniels took office in January 2005, he sought to change the performance and culture of state government. The state’s economy was stagnant, and the accumulated budget deficit was topping $600 million on a total budget of $22.7 billion for 2003–05. (The state legislature passed a new budget every other year.) State agencies received funding without having to show results, and when funds were available, state workers received pay raises in some years regardless of performance. Daniels recognized that the delivery of bold reforms, including the promise to close the deficit and improve economic growth, required changing the way state government worked. A former corporate executive, Daniels had served as director of the Office of Management and Budget, which, among other responsibilities, helps the US government’s executive branch prepare its version of the federal budget, but he had never held elected office. To implement his agenda, Daniels needed new systems and new processes in his office, the center of Indiana state government. He created an Indiana office of management and budget and established a new group within that office to set goals, monitor performance, and link budgets to outcomes. Policy teams in Daniels’s office reported progress on agency-level reforms and helped unclog bottlenecks. And Daniels created a performance-based pay system to encourage state workers to focus on results. Daniels’s reforms were not without controversy. For example, he scrapped state workers’ rights to collective bargaining, and he privatized services previously delivered by government, which led to employee layoffs. By 2012, the final year of his second term, Daniels’s reforms had produced marked changes, including a budget surplus every year from 2006 to 2012, and he won praise from both his own Republican Party and opposition Democrats.
Michael Scharff drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Indianapolis, Indiana in July 2012. Rick Messick—formerly of the World Bank, and chief counsel and research director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee from 1983-84 when Governor Daniels was executive director—provided guidance, editorial suggestions, and interview support. Case originally published November 2012. Case revised to clarify budgetary results and republished in February 2013.
Roelf Meyer discusses his role in the negotiations that transitioned South Africa to post-apartheid governance. He focuses on the process of negotiating the Government of National Unity and drafting the interim and final post-apartheid constitutions. He discusses how all parties involved dealt with existing national and provincial government structures in the transition and the difficulty of dealing with the disparity of wealth and resources between the provinces. Meyer explains how traditional leaders were incorporated peacefully into the new democratic system and touches on the difficulty dealing with so many negotiating parties, each with different goals and interests. He briefly describes holding South Africa’s first post-apartheid elections. Finally, Meyer discusses the mistakes he believes they made in the negotiation process and the problems that South Africa is still facing today.
Rolf Meyer entered South African politics in 1979 as a member of the National Party. In 1986 he was appointed deputy minister of police, and he later served as minister of defense. Meyer became the South African minister of constitutional affairs and of communication in 1992, placing him in a key position for the National Party in the negotiations that facilitated the transition from apartheid in South Africa. Meyer and his ANC counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa, are largely credited with successfully putting the negotiations back on track after a series of failures. After the 1994 elections, Meyer was appointed minister of constitutional development and provincial affairs. In 1996, he resigned from that position to become secretary-general of the National Party, a position that he held until 1997, when he joined the United Democratic Movement and served as deputy president of the party until 2000. He retired from politics in 2000 and at the time of the interview he was a businessman, as well as chairman of the Civil Society Initiative of South Africa and director of FeverTree Consulting.
