In 2005, massive hurricanes battered communities along the Gulf Coast of the United States. In the aftermath, thousands of families who lived on land passed down to them informally by parents and grandparents learned that because they lacked clear formal title to their properties, they were ineligible for disaster assistance to rebuild their homes. Related title issues in other regions kept families from developing inherited lands and allowed predatory developers to use court-ordered partition sales to grab long-held properties for pennies on the dollar. All those problems stemmed from the quirks of heirs' property, a form of communal landownership that gave each relative a partial share in a property but full rights to use and enjoy it-or force its sale. Beginning in 2001, before the hurricanes magnified the crisis, a coalition of scholars, lawyers, and activists united to draft and enact new state laws that would strengthen the rights of heirs' property owners. Advocates across the region helped affected families get public aid and build wealth. By 2017, those efforts were beginning to turn the tide, although many families remained unreached, unconvinced, or unable to agree on how to secure their land for future generations.

Gabriel Kuris drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in the states of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Texas in the United States in December 2017. Case published January 2018.

Although Bangalore had long been considered one of India's premier metropolitan areas, government agencies largely failed to respond to the city's rapid growth during the information technology boom of the 1990s.  During that period, essential public services such as electricity, water and garbage collection fell into disarray, while property-tax revenue stagnated.  Upset by collapsing public infrastructure, civil society groups began to demand broad reform of Bangalore's public agencies, many of which had a monopoly on the goods and services they provided.  In 1999, the new head of Karnataka state, S.M. Krishna, introduced a high-profile campaign to revamp and revitalize Bangalore's underperforming service providers.  By the end of Krishna's term in 2004, makeovers of several public agencies had produced significant improvements in the quantity and quality of services as well as in the agencies' public-approval ratings.  However, Krishna's focus on urban reform in Bangalore carried a high political price in an overwhelmingly rural state.  This case examines the operational details of Krishna's efforts to revamp service delivery in Bangalore and also highlights how political backlash can endanger reforms that are accomplished for one constituency at the perceived expense of another.

Michael Woldemariam drafted this case study on the basis of interviews conducted in Bangalore, India, in June 2010. Case published November 2010.

Associated Interview(s):  V. Ravichandar, Dr. A Ravindra

In 2006, Liberia’s only functioning seaport was a quagmire, riddled by corruption, cargo theft, and a glut of untrained workers. These problems combined to slow the delivery of relief supplies that were badly needed after a 14-year civil war, which had ended three years earlier. A battle site, the Freeport of Monrovia suffered from war damage and years of neglect. It was in danger of shutting down completely. The responsibility to upgrade the infrastructure and improve management lay with the National Port Authority (NPA), a state-owned enterprise that operated the Freeport. From 2006 through 2011, Togba Ngangana, George Tubman and Matilda Parker, successive managing directors at the NPA, enacted a series of reforms to restore the authority and port operations. The Liberian government and outside donors agreed to hire internationally recruited financial controllers to work with NPA directors on fiscal matters. Together, the directors and controllers put in place new systems that helped the NPA collect revenue and prevent unnecessary expenses, installed an automated financial management system, reduced staff size, trained remaining workers, and improved the Freeport’s security infrastructure to meet standards of the International Maritime Organization. This case chronicles the steps reformers took to improve the management of a politically sensitive agency in a post-conflict setting.