Podcast: Can covid-19 inspire greater transformation in policy making?

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In this episode we conclude our extended interview with Professor Matt Andrews, head of the Harvard Building State Capability Programme, senior lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and one of the founders of the influential Doing Development Differently movement.

In the first part of the discussion, released last week, Matt expounded on crisis leadership during Covid-19 so far, the hallmarks of effective leadership, which countries have seen effective leadership and what some of the biggest pitfalls have been to policy makers and leaders.

In this concluding part, we turn our attention to the future: as the Covid-19 crisis moves from its first Act to its second Act, what are the major upcoming agenda items and challenges for countries? In particular we talk about the opportunity for what Matt calls ‘game-changing growth’, and the chance for countries to use this crisis to introduce greater transformation and morality into economic policy making.

We also discuss what the longer-term impact of Covid may be for the international development sector itself. Matt expresses his hope that Covid accelerates a shift towards countries taking greater ownership over reform, and greater authorship of their own development pathway – a view rooted in the concepts of Doing Development Differently.