# Stefan Dercon on Implementing Elite Bargins

An episode of [The Africa Urban Lab Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1886680160), 2 Jun 2026, 1 h 25 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2604291/episodes/19279386-stefan-dercon-on-implementing-elite-bargins.mp3

Our guest is Stefan Dercon — Professor of Economic Policy at Oxford and former Chief Economist at the UK’s Department for International Development (now FCDO). We discuss what it takes for cities and countries to kickstart economic growth, exploring in particular Stefan’s recent work operationalizing elite bargains in the real world. It’s a grounded conversation on why growth and development depend not only on planning and policy, but on the politics that make growth possible.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker: Welcome to the Africa Urban Lab Podcast.
[0:01] Speaker: I'm your host, kurtis Lockhart.
[0:03] Speaker: On today's episode, I talk with Stefan Durkan.
[0:06] Speaker: Stefan is a professor of economic policy at the University of Oxford, where he also serves as the director of the Center the Study of African Economies.
[0:15] Speaker: In addition to his academic work, Stefan has served in the world both as the chief economist at the Department for Development in the UK and as a policy advisor to the UK's Secretary.
[0:28] Speaker: Stefan has also published a great book called Gambling on about the importance of an elite bargain in low-income for kickstarting growth and development.
[0:39] Speaker: I hope you enjoyed the show.
[0:42] Speaker: Stefan Durkan, welcome to the podcast.
[0:44] Speaker: Hi, kurtis.
[0:46] Speaker: Well, it's nice to be here.
[0:48] Speaker: We had you on, well, a different podcast a few years ago.
[0:52] Speaker: It's been a while since the CCI podcast.
[0:54] Speaker: That was back in 2022.
[0:55] Speaker: So now almost four years ago.
[0:58] Speaker: Your book, Gambling on Development, it had just come out.
[1:01] Speaker: And so in that 2022 podcast, we, you and I, we talked a the main point of your book, this idea of an elite bargain uh development bargain between elites being this essential for economic growth.
[1:16] Speaker: So now, you know, fast forward for today's conversation, I wanted to do a little retrospective and focus on, you happened in the years since the book's publication and on like, okay, you have this idea.
[1:32] Speaker: Um, how has it actually been operationalized in the real Um, but before, you know, before we dive in, uh, maybe just new listeners, uh, maybe you could just give a brief of the idea of an elite bargain for development and why you it as sort of the essential thing for economic growth and growth.
[1:52] Speaker 1: Right.
[1:52] Speaker 1: Look, so um where I started from also in the book, and I thinking about it, is you know, we we see these quite striking disparities between uh, you know, some of the poorer um beginning to take off in growth or at least doing well, and then others being totally stagnant.
[2:14] Speaker 1: And um, and you know, if we simply put it in a growth is it saying, look, there was about 49 countries that were countries around 1990, half of them ended up um you know reasonably well and the other half didn't.
[2:30] Speaker 1: And if we just uh you know, one overall population that were growing by uh more than 5% per capita per year as a whole group.
[2:42] Speaker 1: Um, but if we divide them up between better growers and slower growers, you know, you have a whole bunch of countries stagnated, um, where in fact some actually even declined in size.
[2:55] Speaker 1: And so for me, the puzzle always is a bit like, you know, you know, countries that, and and and and you can look at some of the characteristics, although income in a particular you know, some begin to take over and others.
[3:06] Speaker 1: And it's like, you know, why would that happen?
[3:08] Speaker 1: Uh in the same global circumstances.
[3:10] Speaker 1: Yes, there's this difference in histories, but there countries that take over, and there's African countries that didn't.
[3:16] Speaker 1: Ethiopia, Ghana grew quite well, and then you've got DRC and Nigeria, that actually uh either went down like or actually were stagnant.
[3:26] Speaker 1: And for me, you know, looking at this is to just try to about it, you know, who who who holds that up?
[3:32] Speaker 1: You know, if if if it's clearly possible to grow, what is it that blocks this?
[3:37] Speaker 1: Um, and I come into the political economy, the polit the of a place.
[3:42] Speaker 1: And this is a bit like where I use a bit like Douglas arguably that say, look, the way to look at states is to about a coalition of elite groups, you know, and not I like elites, because I believe that they are the great people of the society, but because they have the power to They hold power, and not least in these kind of lower-income countries that we know from lots of other work, are quite weak.
[4:04] Speaker 1: So political economic institutions to start with are weak.
[4:08] Speaker 1: So obviously the actions and behaviors of individuals is to matter quite a lot.
[4:12] Speaker 1: And that's somehow that I want to capture in saying, look, you want to understand what's the underlying elite bargain, the deal that exists between elites in countries, and actually
[4:22] Speaker 1: yourself: is that growth-oriented, is that
[4:25] Speaker 1: or not?
[4:26] Speaker 1: Okay, so look, we can have a lot further discussion around But, you know, when you look at a lot of these case studies, as I did in the book, you see somehow that in Ethiopia, for example, um, you know, the elite bargain was maybe not very broad-based, but one thing they definitely had is that bargain was about, you know, our legitimacy comes from and from development.
[4:51] Speaker 1: You can go to the DRC, similarly, the elite bargain is not people, but you have very little sign that it is uh that uh that elite bargain is anything to do with development.
[5:02] Speaker 1: It's largely about let's control the state to be predatory.
[5:05] Speaker 1: And so you get very different settings and things, and not as simple as bringing it down to politics, because you Ghana working as a democracy managed to actually do a remarkable per capita growth rate, well above 3% per year 1990 in per capita terms, while you have other democracies Malawi essentially being stagnant, uh, you know, about one one and one percent growth or something per capita in period since 1990.
[5:35] Speaker 1: So this is a bit like, you know, it's not about simple systems.
[5:39] Speaker 1: And because, uh, or indeed, even market choices, more state-led than say Ghana did.
[5:46] Speaker 1: It's not quite that.
[5:47] Speaker 1: And it's actually you want to look at that elite bargain, want to understand what drives it, why they're doing it, and actually, as your entry point to understand, you know, possible here, what can we do?
[6:00] Speaker 1: And you know, it it has a bit of a sobering conclusion, is if there's no elite bargain, it's incredibly for at if there's no elite bargain for development, uh, but kind of more rent distribution deal only, it's just to get anything going.
[6:16] Speaker 1: You know, as an outsider, it's limited.
[6:18] Speaker 1: Or indeed, you go further.
[6:20] Speaker 1: Some countries they don't even seem to have an elite bargain, a deal that actually brings some stability.
[6:24] Speaker 1: You look at Sudan today, South Sudan for many periods of that's not an elite bargain for stability, a minimal That's actually just totally broken and actually elites each other to get control.
[6:36] Speaker 1: And so then, you know, how can we actually get growth and So, yeah, so it's it's that mixture of trying to understand and realize that within weak institutions, some countries to actually progress looking at the actions, behaviors, of elites players.
[6:55] Speaker 1: Um, and then you observe, yeah, uh across case studies also in Asia, but I looked uh maybe talk maybe now more mostly on Africa in the examples.
[7:05] Speaker 1: We see that some one way or another, they there is somehow a deal, a bargain for development.
[7:13] Speaker 1: Not perfect, never perfect, but there's progress.
[7:17] Speaker 1: And that was kind of the big idea.
[7:19] Speaker 1: Use that lens to understand where a country is going, going, where it's going, and maybe look for your entry points starting from there.
[7:29] Speaker: Okay, good.
[7:29] Speaker: So so right, we've got this idea.
[7:31] Speaker: You publish this book in 2022.
[7:33] Speaker: Um, it makes the rounds, lots of folks read the book, uh, is great.
[7:38] Speaker: Congratulations.
[7:39] Speaker: Um, so so big big question is what have you been working on then to operationalize this concept of an elite bargain?
[7:49] Speaker: We'll start there and go from there.
[7:52] Speaker 1: What I've been up to.
[7:53] Speaker 1: So one thing that I you know, anyone writing a book, uh or about writing a book and say, well, do it, especially if you can pitch it reasonably well.
[8:02] Speaker 1: And was this was not for the general public, but definitely people interested in development.
[8:06] Speaker 1: It's quite interesting because a lot of people want to talk to you.
[8:10] Speaker 1: So one of the things that I realize is that I've been very talking about what I just talking to you about.
[8:17] Speaker 1: But I must say, as an academic, it's quite striking most of the time nobody really wants to talk to you, and other academics want to criticize your work and uh and and make your life hard, and it's a kind of struggle.
[8:29] Speaker 1: So it's the one thing that I want to say, it's been because you know, one of these people are not very good at no, and I think I must have it's if it's not 100, it will close to 100 talks about the book, small groups, bigger and whatever.
[8:43] Speaker 1: And that's been at least for the one thing interesting is you know, there is a, you know, it's it's not that I can prove in some kind of pure causal or even total analytical science or economic way that this is the right framework.
[8:59] Speaker 1: It seems to help people to think about what they're doing, it's within countries, uh, people that are acting within or indeed outside of external agencies.
[9:09] Speaker 1: So I felt like it's actually giving them a bit of a a bit giving them a bit of an entry point to think about how I should approach getting involved in a country.
[9:21] Speaker 1: So that's a bit like what I've been up to, and it's actually then trying to clarify this a bit more.
[9:26] Speaker 1: You know, how can you, if you're working inside a country, take some of these ideas forward?
[9:33] Speaker 1: And if you're from the outside, as I mean eight communities or international agencies, you know, what is it that do better by actually taking into account this lens of at the problem?
[9:44] Speaker 1: So I spent quite a bit of time in it.
[9:46] Speaker 1: And so, but also the the interest was clearly there, and in fact, you know, bumped into one president of a organization and basically suggested, well, why a book in practice?
[9:59] Speaker 1: And it was just music to my ears because it was something saying, Look, I always wanted to do it.
[10:04] Speaker 1: Because one thing that I'd learned working in Diffit in the Department of International Development at the when it still existed as chief economist, is that you know, there's a lot of things that we know wants to change, but uh the understanding the politics of a place provides you that entry point.
[10:23] Speaker 1: And so it gave an opportunity to do a little bit what did internally to actually do it a bit at scale.
[10:30] Speaker 1: So what we've done now is um we've been able to set up a small group of people, we have some funding, and actually we're to um offer countries that actually are interested in to get some growth-oriented reforms.
[10:46] Speaker 1: Can we actually help them to give, call it second opinions, call it ideas about how other countries may have done it, not in the spirit of perfection, but how do you overcome blockers of any of your changes?
[11:01] Speaker 1: And to actually have a very political lens in doing it.
[11:04] Speaker 1: So there's a number of countries, and can talk a bit more it, that uh all the way to prime minister said, you know, a bit like if you're so smart, why did you come and help me pushing through some growth-oriented reforms, which is okay, and it's a very tough place.
[11:19] Speaker 1: Um it's actually Pakistan, um, can actually do this, places where we know the people who are trying to do it and help them, giving them a sense of how countries have other it and and so on.
[11:32] Speaker 1: So we don't try to, and and I think that's really important because one of the things that I think now, in other words, you know, uh that I've also learned, you know, if I talk oh, it's all about elite bargains, you know, an economist or political scientist understands it.
[11:46] Speaker 1: But if I talk to an agency, oh, I can't talk about this, know, it sounds all very elitist and I can't do it.
[11:53] Speaker 1: But in a sense, another way of putting it is to say, look, I want to progress, I want growth coalitions, I want coalitions that have to go beyond simply the minister or the government, but it has to involve people in senior civil uh, business community, civil society organizations, and beginning to talk about, you know, helping doing reform is helping to build a coalition of support that actually you to lengthen the horizon of the political process, the horizon of what you can do, getting a bit of, I'm not consensus because it's always virtually impossible, at a coalition of broadly like-minded people that can actually progress.
[12:33] Speaker 1: So that's what we seem to be doing in a number of countries.
[12:36] Speaker 1: And uh, you know, we've had a fascinating time, you know, from Laos to Madagascar, Ethiopia, uh, Uganda, Somalia, Leone.
[12:49] Speaker 1: Not saying we're doing work there, but all had entry explored it, and just this kind of meeting these people you know they want change.
[13:00] Speaker 1: They are in a position that potentially they could be in the change, right?
[13:06] Speaker 1: But actually find it very hard to get that group of people that that that that coalition to actually do it.
[13:13] Speaker 1: And so we kind of want to talk about the economics of it you know, one of the other things I know as as uh someone worked in advisory work uh in the UK government and and you know, the biggest role of the advisor is really to stupid things, you know.
[13:27] Speaker 1: The rest is uh it's the is the key thing, helping them make sure that the ideas, what they're trying to do, makes broadly sense.
[13:34] Speaker 1: But then also talk about, you know, can we help you understand who will try to block it?
[13:40] Speaker 1: How can we think about it, the sequencing and so on.
[13:43] Speaker 1: And I find it you know fascinating to do this, and um yeah, and it brings economics with uh in contact with the reality of policy making within a political environment.
[13:54] Speaker 1: So that's that's yeah, what I've been been up to.
[13:57] Speaker 1: And it's um, you know, beyond, of course, writing my research papers, I still have a job, so I have to do stuff.
[14:03] Speaker 1: But anyway, but that's largely uh how we're trying to take forward now.
[14:07] Speaker: Yeah.
[14:07] Speaker: And and give give us uh an example of um one of these Because I know I as I mentioned before we started I I uh called some people, I talked with Pascal, who you you with uh at Economic Policy Network.
[14:22] Speaker: Um, you know, he mentioned some of the countries that have had some engagement with.
[14:27] Speaker: Um so you you like say you you mentioned the prime minister of Pakistan.
[14:30] Speaker: So run us through sort of like what what does an engagement like?
[14:34] Speaker: Um, you know, are I could imagine, right, there's there's uh specializations involved in skill sets, because there's you know, you Stefan Durkan at Oxford, a you know, well-known economist who's been at Diffid and whatnot.
[14:50] Speaker: Uh, you can fly into a place and open some doors that maybe other folks wouldn't be able to open.
[14:55] Speaker: But I would also imagine the engagement would involve uh you say it local teams or at least people steeped in the nuances Pakistani needs for reform and possible.
[15:06] Speaker: So just it'd be great.
[15:07] Speaker: Run us through the Pakistan example and sort of what's gone on there.
[15:11] Speaker 1: Okay, so so there's lots of layers there and and uh and and to do it.
[15:15] Speaker 1: You know, the the um, you know, and and I want to actually fundamentally, you know, you know, this typical thing where you kind of want to do change in an imperfect world, you you have a dilemma.
[15:26] Speaker 1: You have a dilemma where you have to ask yourself, what is own legitimacy to do this?
[15:32] Speaker 1: And what's the legitimacy of people you work with?
[15:35] Speaker 1: Okay.
[15:35] Speaker 1: Again, I must say, like all these countries, and Pakistan is no exception.
[15:39] Speaker 1: Let me simply say, and there will be people listening to and say, well, why would you even want to work in Pakistan?
[15:45] Speaker 1: You know, you would question, and there would be people want to question, you know, the power structures there.
[15:51] Speaker 1: There's there's there's people in uniform having positions power in in that society.
[15:57] Speaker 1: There are political issues that uh that that that are all fully resolved.
[16:04] Speaker 1: There are issues to do with uh you know the nature of and how well it functions or how well it doesn't function, and so on.
[16:10] Speaker 1: So you could have lots of interesting ideas about it.
[16:13] Speaker 1: But for me, that that that illustrates, first of all, the of countries where you know you where most of the where the change is most needed.
[16:22] Speaker 1: Okay, and you know, we make our choices as people working development and and also related to growth is that that kind of saying, look, yes, you know, do we do we wait until history catch up with catches up with these places and they have institutions?
[16:37] Speaker 1: Or do we actually want to engage in the world of imperfection?
[16:41] Speaker 1: You know, I know you're you're sitting in Tanzania now.
[16:45] Speaker 1: Let's say it's a bit complicated, okay, in in certain to work in places like that.
[16:50] Speaker 1: Okay?
[16:51] Speaker 1: Now that's the reality with it, and we make these choices.
[16:54] Speaker 1: And I want to actually say that I'm not stupid and naive, I'm not uh here as a kind of in fact, none of the engagement is like, you know, with this massive contract and we'll do for anyone and whatever.
[17:06] Speaker 1: So this question you have to ask.
[17:08] Speaker 1: So our judgment had to be um, you know, is there something we can do?
[17:13] Speaker 1: And I'm actually now a strong believer that unless we get economies to also begin to function and to create some there won't be any resources for poverty reduction, be a resource for health and education.
[17:24] Speaker 1: So I'm kind of taking that choice now, and people can that.
[17:29] Speaker 1: And so the engagement is a little bit like, first of all, I want to emphasize that, thinking a bit carefully, just do it with your eyes wide open.
[17:36] Speaker 1: You know, you're going into a country, it's a messy place, a complicated place, but I do have a sense that country is on its knees, it's doing the 25th or 24th or 25th, on how you count it, IMF program, the largest number in the world, and it's stagnant.
[17:53] Speaker 1: Its eastern neighbor, with whom it doesn't get on too uh, used to be uh only 15 years ago on the same GDP per now it's 50% GDP per capita higher, which much better indicators and whatever, and say, look, there is some here.
[18:09] Speaker 1: So you kind of say, look.
[18:10] Speaker 1: And the question that came to me, and it's a much more fun One day I'll write it up in a book one day when I feel like I can do it uh without breaking the confidence, but at some point a request comes, you know, can you help?
[18:24] Speaker 1: And a few people that say look generally kind of want to say, look, we need to try to get out of this rut of these IMF programs.
[18:32] Speaker 1: Can we actually grow the economy?
[18:33] Speaker 1: Can we get our balance of payments sorting and so on?
[18:36] Speaker 1: So that's and this ask came after the book was published.
[18:41] Speaker 1: It came after the book, and in fact, okay, the book was that some people had seen it, and uh, and I'm I'm not saying that the prime minister read the book or whatever, but around it were aware of this, and I had given definitely actually before that I was asked to give a talk.
[18:57] Speaker 1: Let me not name the instant institution that had invited but it was an international institution that asked a talk, and they literally asked me, Can you say the that we can't say?
[19:07] Speaker 1: Okay, so I had talked about uh, you know, the the elite the vested interest in Pakistan, the the things that were So, and and indeed I was widely reported in the press, so you know, they could have done their due diligence that I had minced my words in terms of how I thought about it.
[19:24] Speaker 1: Uh what blocks blocks Pakistan.
[19:25] Speaker 1: But you know, you're sitting there, and you know, at the time I've worked inside governments enough to say, look, you have to work with the grain.
[19:32] Speaker 1: You know, you try to do, and it's a complicated thing.
[19:34] Speaker 1: So I want to say, so the way we went about it was um I think really um we were lucky in some senses because I was asked the Prime Minister, can you write me a homegrown economic And I had to reply and say, no, I can't.
[19:57] Speaker 1: I can't write homegrown economic agenda.
[20:00] Speaker 1: You know, exactly.
[20:01] Speaker 1: And I'm sure he didn't mean it like that, but it's one of the better moments when you went to sleep.
[20:06] Speaker 1: But basically, all the good ideas of Pakistan have been set by Pakistani economists.
[20:12] Speaker 1: Right.
[20:13] Speaker 1: Now, as with most policy advice in a country itself, most of the bad ideas have also been set by other people in including economists.
[20:23] Speaker 1: So I saw my role largely as actually trying to see with all the ideas that are there, can one get somehow a reasonably picture and actually bring that together.
[20:33] Speaker 1: So there's not that we were saying it.
[20:35] Speaker 1: And so, but at the same time, you work in the government.
[20:37] Speaker 1: So the first task was to get a sense of what the civil themselves were proposing.
[20:41] Speaker 1: And so the main role I actually played initially was the that already were there on the table on the growth plans, with local economists inside the prime minister's office actually say, well, what makes sense, what doesn't make and helping to do that.
[20:58] Speaker 1: A bit of second opinion.
[20:59] Speaker 1: Okay, so and using a little bit there.
[21:01] Speaker 1: Of course, I'm pretty sure that the prime minister was attracted because he could say Oxford, but I always loyal pee.
[21:08] Speaker 1: It was leaked, it was in the press, I was accused of all of things, including getting very rich from this.
[21:13] Speaker 1: And I kind of wondered, maybe I should have become very rich from this.
[21:16] Speaker 1: I thought nothing, it was entirely pro-bombable, and it is largely uh there's no money paid by the prime minister, no contract with the prime minister, so you're kind of informal.
[21:27] Speaker 1: But I do want to emphasize that it's so important if in a country, you know, that is in the spirit of the book.
[21:35] Speaker 1: If if the ideas are not from there, and indeed, if the ideas are not owned to some extent by the civil servants and the there's no point.
[21:43] Speaker 1: So there's no point writing these beautiful, glossy reports as some organizations will do, and this is things you need to do.
[21:51] Speaker 1: No, and it's not perfect, it's extremely second best.
[21:54] Speaker 1: What they are actually implementing is not perfect, and absolutely not.
[21:59] Speaker 1: But then Then we fortunately had to, and but then the and I think I've definitely learned that of how to it.
[22:05] Speaker 1: You know, you you need so I argued early on.
[22:08] Speaker 1: In fact, there was a bit of a precedent.
[22:10] Speaker 1: I wrote something in the newspaper before the prime minister reached out, and that's the one thing that he that triggered it.
[22:16] Speaker 1: Not to say what to do, but how to do it.
[22:19] Speaker 1: And how to do it included, try to signal your You know, that's the idea of the book as well.
[22:24] Speaker 1: You need to create a sense that there is commitment of Now, Pakistan is a complicated place, and uh lots of are said and very few things are done.
[22:33] Speaker 1: So this is this is a hard one.
[22:35] Speaker 1: So you have to find a few things that you could do.
[22:37] Speaker 1: And fortunately, I think we at some point managed to hit on something, which is essentially um, you know, the for Pakistan in its economy.
[22:47] Speaker 1: Have a longer conversation about it.
[22:50] Speaker 1: This basically doesn't sell anything to the world.
[22:52] Speaker 1: It's uh it's you know, these days it's very popular again do lots of industrial policy and being saying we can do and so on to build it up.
[23:01] Speaker 1: But my simple lie is if you want to do learning by doing, if you haven't learned after 30 years, you probably never learn.
[23:08] Speaker 1: Okay, and so these economies where input substitution the policy for 30 years, and they're still there, and in all the data suggests they're becoming less competitive than more competitive as a result of it.
[23:21] Speaker 1: Very obvious thing, but it is one of these examples.
[23:24] Speaker 1: So it kind of said, look, you need to become outset-oriented.
[23:26] Speaker 1: You you must be one of the last Asian economies that is not trying to sell to the rest of the world.
[23:32] Speaker 1: Now it's a late morning, so we can question whether it's the right moment to do this, but it has to be a signal.
[23:37] Speaker 1: And one of the great things is in a complicated country, reform is actually an easy reform because you only need the cabinet to approve that.
[23:46] Speaker 1: Uh, regulatory reform, you have to have loads of people to do it and implement it and follow it, and the bureaucrats at all levels, all kinds of local government, national level.
[23:58] Speaker 1: It's much harder.
[23:59] Speaker 1: You know, you work on urban things, land policy reform, luck with it, okay?
[24:04] Speaker 1: That is so things.
[24:06] Speaker 1: So we found something that we can do quickly, can signal, it's a tariff reform.
[24:10] Speaker 1: But it also was a little bit, and now I'm going to be more uh, if anyone related to the Pakistan thing listens to.
[24:18] Speaker 1: It's provocative in some sense because it smokes out the interests that are living off the rents.
[24:25] Speaker 1: And so you basically get now endless meetings, including some that I've, many of them I've attended, where people invent kinds of reasons why the tariffs need to stay.
[24:37] Speaker 1: And basically you see very much the firms that actually never be competitive and to doing it.
[24:43] Speaker 1: Because, in sense, what we need here is a structural reform.
[24:46] Speaker 1: Removing import substitution is to actually say, of creative destruction is required.
[24:51] Speaker 1: There will be firms that actually shouldn't really exist they only can exist because it's entirely protected for 30 years.
[24:58] Speaker 1: And there's other firms that never come up because all the is allocated.
[25:02] Speaker 1: And so, kind of we're smoking out some of the vested that block it.
[25:07] Speaker 1: Now, of course, I discover quickly that there's plenty interests that will do all we can in a complicated place Pakistan trying to block the thing.
[25:16] Speaker 1: And so, yeah, so we're still in that phase, but the the is being implemented, the first year has been done.
[25:22] Speaker 1: Nobody believes that they will get to the five years, but the commitment seems to be there for the people to do this.
[25:28] Speaker 1: Now, of course, we need much more.
[25:29] Speaker 1: There's no economy that changes just by that.
[25:32] Speaker 1: So it's it's that slow grind of can we find bit by bit the things that begin to start shifting the incentives?
[25:40] Speaker 1: And in the process, which is then the harder one, build up a bit of a coalition of people for whom it's in the interest dynamically, in a dynamic political economy thing, to actually keep on beginning to defend these gains that you can And so I'm trying actually next Monday to Karachi, not talking to exporters.
[26:00] Speaker 1: You know, you need them to also be vocal that actually look, these are the kind of things that help us, and maybe a few other things that can help us as well.
[26:09] Speaker 1: And so you begin to shift there because, and you know, moving tax incentives away from import substitutors to exporters and so on, and yeah, without structural change, and it of course hits vested interests, left, right, and center.
[26:23] Speaker 1: So, yeah, so you're trying to do this and helping there.
[26:26] Speaker 1: The outsider, like I am, you know, if at some point vested are so strong, and I leave it to the imagination who some these vested interests would be, I may never get a visa Okay, that's fine.
[26:39] Speaker 1: You know, I may actually become difficult because I'm sipping on toes of those vested interests I shouldn't uh uh uh be And at the moment I have a very easy visa, but maybe I I may not be able to do it.
[26:51] Speaker 1: That's fine, and that's another part of it.
[26:53] Speaker 1: I learned the role of the external can be to say the things that's much harder for the internal think tanks and so on say because they need to still live in these places.
[27:04] Speaker: They can do that.
[27:05] Speaker: I mean, it isn't this isn't this kind of famously what the sort of IMF does?
[27:10] Speaker: It kind of can play the boogeyman that tells the tells the truth to the government, like and and it can be this sort of uh in in some respects, right?
[27:20] Speaker 1: But it's it's but it is in two ways there, you know.
[27:22] Speaker 1: You know, so I I you know do I love the IMF?
[27:26] Speaker 1: Do I not like the IMF?
[27:27] Speaker 1: I think you know a lot will then depend on the people you know, that they actually think through this, because know, the IMF often gives you the perfect blueprint, doesn't necessarily easily invest in what's feasible, what's not.
[27:42] Speaker 1: I think they can play the scapegoat and they can be blamed, but being the scapegoat is never happening, helping with the ownership as well, because actually one of the things, Danny Roderick wrote that a long time ago, is to actually say the problem with that kind of approach is that you may uh the opposition against it because it's very clearly an a structural organization that offers you that, uh and it and it gives you explicitly.
[28:11] Speaker 1: I see it much more.
[28:14] Speaker 1: I don't, I try very hard not to be the one that gives the itself, but helps those who have the ideas to be So it's not my solution, it's not my solution and and my uh proposals, but it actually is their proposals.
[28:30] Speaker 1: But I help them to maneuver through to get a bit of uh and that's actually a bit hopefully a bit more subtle.
[28:36] Speaker 1: Um, I mean, there was a newspaper that uh that early on actually very positive about the reforms, but the title was um Draconian Solutions, which was a little bit scary to uh get that uh that kind of thing.
[28:52] Speaker: And it's it sounds sounds too close to draconian solutions, it?
[28:56] Speaker 2: Exactly.
[28:56] Speaker 2: That was uh indeed the journalist uh make the allusion to
[29:01] Speaker 1: And uh because of course I was arguing for structural although the article said that's what we need.
[29:06] Speaker 1: We need some real shocks to the thing.
[29:08] Speaker 1: But at the same time, you know, you need to, you know, as I also in the book write and also in subsequent papers, you to be understand the politics because you know, and a problem with the IMF sometimes, is that it has a very support base within it, maybe the technocratic minister of and the central bank governor.
[29:28] Speaker 1: And actually by going too far too quickly in what's needed, even though it's the best thing to do, and maybe it needs to be done, but they're going to too quick quickly, too too too quickly, or encouraging the minister to do a up actually with so much backlash that the one person often or the few people in government that really want to do get removed.
[29:52] Speaker 1: Right.
[29:53] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[29:53] Speaker 1: They burn them.
[29:55] Speaker 1: And so that's actually what I want to avoid.
[29:57] Speaker 1: I can be it as an external, but it needs to be a bit I mean, I'm not saying that I need to be subversive or or maybe I like to think a little bit as well that you want to actually change something, but but no, it needs to the grain because that's the only reform.
[30:13] Speaker 1: And that's actually, I think, the difference with sometimes international organizations, which explicitly and also implicitly, explicitly I understand, uh, but not that they can't deal with the politics.
[30:26] Speaker 1: Explicitly, they have to be purely technocratic.
[30:30] Speaker: The World Bank um exactly and the IMAP as well.
[30:34] Speaker 1: They cannot be, it's in their charters one way or another.
[30:36] Speaker 1: Of course, you know, subtly, hopefully, they think Because one of my points has been for a while now is saying, you know, it's it's not very different from the Chinese you non-interference.
[30:47] Speaker 1: And we know that non-interference is interference, of interfering.
[30:52] Speaker 1: IMF and World Bank saying we cannot be political is political.
[30:57] Speaker 1: It's a political statement.
[30:59] Speaker 1: It's actually saying, you know, look, I'm only work with the government and we only do that and whatever.
[31:04] Speaker 1: No, it is political as well.
[31:06] Speaker 1: And so so I'm actually hopefully encouraging a bit more You know, if you want reform, you have to start the political economy and and who's blocking it and so on, and then adjust what you propose to these realities so that you can have success.
[31:21] Speaker 1: If you want impact, you better understand that.
[31:24] Speaker 1: And I think that I want to say is a bit of different rather than the IMF blueprint, which 25 times in Pakistan has been more or less the same blueprint.
[31:32] Speaker 1: Yeah, there must be a definition of madness, by the way.
[31:36] Speaker 1: Um, and and in fact, I I should add, of which less than five are recognized by the IMF as completed IMF programs.
[31:51] Speaker 1: Uh, so you know, there must be something and say, look, must be another way of doing this.
[31:56] Speaker 1: Can we actually find a way in and beginning to do this?
[31:59] Speaker 1: I'm not saying we succeed in that, but that clearly has to be the way, and linking properly also to the book, how should begin to be willing to think a bit more is to look, there is a political reality, you know, we we have to recognize that sequencing and prioritization needs understand that political reality, and then begin to think how can we change this, including all the way to, you know, maybe shifting that political reality implicitly a to be more sensible on the economic policies and not.
[32:32] Speaker 1: But you have to start with, you know, there's lots of why go back to where I started earlier, these call it, you 20, 30, low-income countries from 1990 that are still today, right?
[32:46] Speaker 1: Why we get stuck.
[32:47] Speaker 1: And it's not because the advice has not been, objectively um, the right economic advice, or the Minister of Finance never understood that.
[32:58] Speaker 1: It has to do with their local political realities that or another we have not been able to do the same thing as um as as in other places.
[33:06] Speaker 1: And I mean, collectively, we, the countries themselves, have not been able to get themselves on a on a growth path um others have been able to do this.
[33:15] Speaker: Yeah.
[33:15] Speaker: And and so just just kind of um honing back into the Pakistan example, just to put a cherry on top.
[33:22] Speaker: So you you've you've you went there, post book, you were by let's say a high, uh, you know, a top official in in Um you're prioritized kind of reform-minded um uh politicians and elites.
[33:39] Speaker: Um that includes, it sounds like trips to talk to exporters, you're doing, which is more broad than just political elites.
[33:46] Speaker: This is business elites and other types, um, to form a broad of those supporting growth and development.
[33:52] Speaker: It sounds like, too, in your answer, you prioritized, at the beginning, like doable things.
[33:58] Speaker: And oftentimes that means second or even third best things, so that you actually get some quick wins on the board that signal a commitment to this, to this bargain.
[34:07] Speaker: Um where are you at today?
[34:10] Speaker: Like I just kind of to put a cherry on top.
[34:12] Speaker: Um, what have been the big successes um with the Pakistan case today, and then we can move on.
[34:17] Speaker 1: Yeah, so so so you look the the um you know, once we got of the key people, and this was the the the um at the level of ministers, prime minister, to understand um that you I I thought one of the biggest almost intellectual that I had with some of them is to be able to find a way of explaining um that you know if you think of the trade that uh import substitution is not simply the other export promotion.
[34:53] Speaker: Right.
[34:55] Speaker 1: In an accountessy sense, accountants would say that should be the same.
[34:58] Speaker 1: I can suppress my imports or I can promote my exports, both are will be helping me to get my trade balance sought, and you actually just talk about you know what what are the incentives you set.
[35:08] Speaker 1: Okay, once we had that, the focus on exports is then being things.
[35:14] Speaker 1: So the successes have been helping to get somehow um the the the tariff liberalization and the beginnings of the first year of the five-year reform is done.
[35:27] Speaker 1: Why do I call this a success?
[35:29] Speaker 1: Because you know, if we can keep on track, and the second budget needs to have the second step and so on, if we can this on track, um then like the technocrats in the World became very useful.
[35:41] Speaker 1: They simulated the reforms that we proposed, and we can show that if it gets implemented, this would be 350,000 new jobs and uh and uh 7% of GDP increase, you know.
[35:56] Speaker 1: That's a lot of billions, by the way.
[35:58] Speaker 1: Okay, yeah.
[35:59] Speaker 1: So the rate of return, we may not get it through all full five years, we may not get it perfectly doing it.
[36:05] Speaker 1: But the success was that if we quantified what of all the that initially should have been implemented in the first were implemented, and we got to something like 96% of the of the tariff reductions.
[36:16] Speaker 1: There were a few places that they give in and to something whatever was implemented.
[36:19] Speaker 1: I say, okay, that's a success.
[36:21] Speaker 1: Now, one of the great things about that is that we've said from the beginning, this is never going to be enough.
[36:28] Speaker 1: There's no, you don't, you know, competitive does not come from relative price shifts.
[36:32] Speaker 1: You know, we had learned in the 1980s, it's not enough to get the prices right.
[36:36] Speaker 1: There's other things needed, but it does put a lot of on a lot of the other ministries to actually really begin think, okay, what are the my complementary things that I need to do to help to either remove regulatory stuff and so on.
[36:49] Speaker 1: So there's momentum around it.
[36:50] Speaker 1: I'm not going to blame credit for that.
[36:52] Speaker 1: There's a lot of other people doing it.
[36:54] Speaker 1: And I should actually say it involves a huge amount of local people.
[36:59] Speaker 1: There's some top-level, I won't name them now, top-level or experienced uh former, you know, Pakistani former people that that worked in both in government and international that are very involved.
[37:13] Speaker 1: There is a whole delivery team that's entirely Pakistani.
[37:16] Speaker 1: There is there's all kinds of advisors that are that are there.
[37:20] Speaker 1: That's now donor-funded.
[37:21] Speaker 1: That's great.
[37:23] Speaker 1: The donors are funding all this, but it is all still around more or less the same kind of principles, you know, uh uh it.
[37:31] Speaker 1: I would say, will it change Pakistan?
[37:34] Speaker 1: You know, several of friends and and and some some top to say, look, it may well fail, but we know one day we need to do this and see how far we get.
[37:46] Speaker 1: And this is also a bit how reform works, you know, it's a of you make a bit of progress and then maybe bad, but next time is there, you know, you're sitting in Tanzania, unrecognizably different.
[37:56] Speaker 1: You're sitting in Zanzibar, especially, it's different from what it was in the in the 1980s and 90s.
[38:03] Speaker 1: Yeah, that does mean there's a lot has changed in the many and many things for for for better that actually you has real effects.
[38:12] Speaker 1: So that's a bit like we're there.
[38:14] Speaker 1: And so yeah, we keep on going, we have conversations with prime ministers, we provide him advice, we give second we're supporting things, we're sitting very regularly talking uh to different people, and actually we got to a slightly phase.
[38:28] Speaker 1: Now, initially, I was very much committed to stay in the so even though you know the it was all leaked that I was and and and and as I said to the all the kind of newspaper that I was going to be earning millions from it.
[38:41] Speaker 1: Um but um yeah it's it's strange as an academic to be exposed to that, I must say.
[38:47] Speaker 1: But it was it is what it is.
[38:50] Speaker 1: Um, but then leading to the point where um, you know, now that's you know, I've not actively done that, you know, start well publicly.
[38:59] Speaker 1: This is actually the first time that I'm going for a I'll do a series of much more public things.
[39:04] Speaker 1: But but interestingly, uh you know, within within, you know, there's no no one controls me.
[39:11] Speaker 1: Um and and just being able to talk, you know, what needs be done, but but how to say not, you know, yeah, not not to say these are these are my proposals or whatever.
[39:23] Speaker 1: So everything is basically all the time sourced from And yeah, so yeah, I'm a bit cautious in terms of where we because there's some real sensitive things that we need to a way to get through.
[39:35] Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that the that it's stock market sensitive in that sense, but it's actually a bit sensitive in terms of the kind of things where where we we have blockages and then and it's doing it.
[39:47] Speaker 1: But yeah, it's been, and I must say, what started initially very few people believing this could be possible, you know, the idea at least among some senior civil servants, some uh the prime minister, and you know, there's lots of other in parallel, but there is a cohere more and more coherence it.
[40:06] Speaker 1: And and that's actually quite satisfying that you know, just one cock in something, you know, with one set of connections, right?
[40:14] Speaker 1: One set of being positioned in a way that you can be bit more an honest broker also with also some international organizations, just as another person they will talk to, but helping to broker a bit, you know, that's quite useful.
[40:29] Speaker 1: So it's we're we're not going to say, you know, this becomes a world of of contribution rather than what I mean.
[40:36] Speaker 1: Right, right, right, right.
[40:37] Speaker 1: But we're now one set of more people and more and more people that actually are beginning to see, well, maybe of opportunity.
[40:45] Speaker 1: By the way, in an absolutely complicated place, and only a small part of all the things that may need to change in that country, but would be nice that we got a little a bit of minimally sustainable growth going for a bit
[41:00] Speaker: Yeah, and I mean to your point, you don't need to, you know, all the policies all at once.
[41:05] Speaker: You can have some wins in doable, politically tractable policy areas that demonstrate success, and then you build on that with bigger stuff later down the road, right?
[41:16] Speaker: So, and I think that's how kind of reform in East Asia and kind of played itself out, too.
[41:20] Speaker: They they chose very strategic areas and then got some their belt before tackling the harder, the harder problems with the bigger, scarier vested interests that you have to contend with.
[41:32] Speaker: Um, so but before I ask the next question, Stefan, just for just to clarify, the organiz the organizational home for is it CSAE or is it the economic policy network with Pascal?
[41:43] Speaker: What's the home for this work?
[41:46] Speaker 2: I'm not going to try to explain the complexities of the way it's organized itself.
[41:51] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[41:52] Speaker 1: Let's say we are we are doing this from the Vatnik School of Government.
[41:56] Speaker 1: Um, the Center for the Study of African Economies is the of organizational home.
[42:01] Speaker 1: We work under the NOMAR economic policy network.
[42:05] Speaker 1: We are quite low-key, you know, because we we are doing all this work.
[42:10] Speaker 1: Um in many of these places, it's all entirely pro bono.
[42:15] Speaker 1: We just do have some private foundations supporting us.
[42:18] Speaker 1: And yeah, so um, and we're bringing up because we're links with some other places as well.
[42:24] Speaker 1: Uh, some colleagues in Georgetown University will join us other people as well.
[42:27] Speaker 1: So it's not just me and Pascal that you mentioned earlier.
[42:30] Speaker 1: It's actually broadening, but but it's all with a set of people that in different countries we're trying to do this, use our own connection, so to speak, to be somehow able to seen as relatively trustworthy, not just after another consultancy or delivery contract, not after a contract we but actually say, can we help you maneuver through difficult things related to through the economy?
[43:00] Speaker 1: And thus, yeah.
[43:01] Speaker 1: And so the economic policy network will be the vanilla, plain vanilla name that we work on at the moment.
[43:07] Speaker 1: Um, simply to say, look, you know, this is uh this is going to be in some sense to the outside world relatively yeah, but it's trying to be, you know, trusted people that those people in countries that we have a sense that they're somewhat committed to try to get economies to function uh you know in ways that that are not extractive but but can be become quite more inclusive and creating jobs and and living standards for people that we want to try to work where we're in in these kinds of places.
[43:40] Speaker 1: Yes.
[43:41] Speaker 1: So um yeah, that's it.
[43:44] Speaker: So that's that's good.
[43:45] Speaker: So we have a broader backdrop for you, right?
[43:47] Speaker: There's this idea of an elite bargain written about in the book.
[43:52] Speaker: You're now operationalizing this idea, it's across several We went over the example of Pakistan.
[43:58] Speaker: Um You've got sort of an organizational home at Blavatnik in and CSAE and uh the Economic Policy Network.
[44:05] Speaker: I'm curious, sort of four years on, um, what's been the prior that you held back at the book's publication that you've since uh updated most as a result of actually doing the dirty work of oper operation operationalizing the idea of an
[44:26] Speaker 1: So so one of the things that, you know, one of the things I did actually soon after the book was published, I went to Um and I spent quite a bit of time in uh countries I didn't know well.
[44:41] Speaker 1: Senegal, Niger, Madagascar, and so on.
[44:45] Speaker 1: Places that intrigued me.
[44:47] Speaker 1: This was before the coup in Niger, by the way.
[44:49] Speaker 1: And so so we we spent some time and just trying to think it.
[44:54] Speaker 1: And I mean, there's something about the history of these They're they're actually relative to some of the you know uh East African countries, they're they're actually all a bit smaller, um, and actually having, let's call it, a more a different a different post-colonial experience, put it simply, very, very politely.
[45:20] Speaker 1: It's quite French still, okay?
[45:23] Speaker 1: And so it did make me think because of course the Sahel geopolitically they became more important uh already for um uh security issues and so on.
[45:36] Speaker 1: So the one thing that I think I realized that if I had spent time in these countries before I wrote the book, there would have been a chapter to actually thinking a bit more deeply the link between local elites and international elites.
[45:52] Speaker 1: And basically, in this case, for example, French business or French political elites.
[45:59] Speaker 1: Um, and of course, now that was I think 2022, and then just look at the world today.
[46:06] Speaker 1: You wouldn't write to look at this anymore without putting geopolitics much more at the center of these elite and so one of the priors that I definitely have to change is that there's probably two or three.
[46:20] Speaker 1: The first thing is you know, and just the in I'm and I know whether it's an alternative, but it's basically what a way out for a country.
[46:28] Speaker 1: Now, definitely if we go back in the period between 1990 and about 2020, export orientation was a very obvious way Not so much only because, you know, globalization and so on created the markets, it was there, it was just so much more, you know, the uh market access was so increasing uh for countries, and we know so much the Asian countries did it.
[46:53] Speaker 1: So there wasn't an engine of growth that's available outside you that you can lock into that is not dependent on your markets developing, and so that's great.
[47:01] Speaker 1: And you see Bangladesh and so on using it to real great but related to that, um why export orientation is so is that you use the example there in Pakistan as well.
[47:15] Speaker 1: You know, once you get into the input substituting uh rut, extremely hard to get out of.
[47:21] Speaker 1: And I'm actually people promoting industrial policy cannot that.
[47:25] Speaker 1: You know, that's a bit of the history, is that it creates to either do this really well in a very disciplined way, as maybe Korea did, or it creates all kinds of incentives that I see Pakistan doing it, where it just becomes a massive opportunity.
[47:39] Speaker 1: And basically you end up learning by doing for 30 years and not learning, but just and not doing anything either, by way.
[47:46] Speaker 1: Uh so so so that's the thing.
[47:49] Speaker 1: Now, with the geopolitics, I'm not so sure that is as strong anymore as it was.
[47:57] Speaker 1: Now, I'm not saying it's definitely gone, and a lot of people are are thinking about it, and people are maybe it's not, that's definitely a change because it means it's a more pessimistic, look forward looking.
[48:08] Speaker 1: That actually it's not going to be so easy to use the kind access to global markets engine of actually getting going.
[48:16] Speaker 1: So that's the hard one because you have to be more Okay, and I know you work on urbanization things and so on, and all these things are also have a link with not the same, but have a link with domestic engines of growth and so on, have to do it.
[48:30] Speaker 1: But there the political economy is so much more complicated immediately because there's no there's no benchmark, you there's no international prize to benchmark against it.
[48:39] Speaker 1: There's no in it becomes more persuasion.
[48:41] Speaker 1: This is this is this is efficient, this is the right policy, this is the right thing, and where export orientation has very clear thing do you sell anything or not?
[48:50] Speaker 1: And the second one related to this is with the as it is, it will make it the incentives for the state to in these countries will suddenly have improved dramatically.
[49:01] Speaker 1: Think of the DRC, where in the age of international say between the late 1990s and 2020, AIDS was allowed in world of globalization to be quite technocratic because it quite complementary.
[49:20] Speaker 1: In fact, there's another dimension, the outward orientation of uh of Western countries to actually defend or Western liberal, the international liberal order, meant you know, in the security space and so on, that eight was a very welcome guest to do it really well because military weren't enough.
[49:40] Speaker 1: You know, we needed to do things in fragile states, we needed to do things.
[49:43] Speaker 1: But it was not to just keep regimes to friends.
[49:46] Speaker 1: It was actually generally trying to do, can I help to Can we actually do state building?
[49:50] Speaker 1: I'm not saying we succeeded, but it was actually an I'm not saying not at all that we succeeded, but it was an age where aid had the legitimacy to actually doing as good could do.
[50:01] Speaker 1: And World Bank IMF had mandates to actually being I may criticize that and maybe doing it too much, but at the same time they could do it.
[50:10] Speaker 1: Think of what happens in geopolitics now.
[50:12] Speaker 1: And I've heard it already in closed meetings being said, oh, surely we should keep on giving aid to the DRC because they have rare, rare earth minerals.
[50:20] Speaker 1: You know, you see the deals that the US is doing, all for own self, uh, self-political and other interests.
[50:27] Speaker 1: You know, that's deals with the status quo.
[50:30] Speaker 1: You know, that's actually indistinguishable.
[50:32] Speaker 1: The incentives are now indistinguishable, what everybody accusing in the previous age of China doing.
[50:38] Speaker 1: And the incentives with the status quo will be dramatic no, we'll do a deal with you because we get access to your we get access to the stuff, you know, and we'll give A to DRC, not because we think we'll do it in a way that maybe will transform this to a better functioning, better functioning, maybe better economic and politically governant state.
[50:58] Speaker 1: No, no, because you have rare minerals.
[51:00] Speaker 1: And so well, that's the last thing we do.
[51:02] Speaker 1: So that's what I also probably would have had.
[51:05] Speaker 1: And so basically, a fat chapter on the geopolitics and the of it.
[51:10] Speaker 1: That's what I definitely changed my mind.
[51:12] Speaker 1: And it makes it a bit more less optimistic that indeed elite bargains can actually strengthen themselves, that breeds success, and we can actually get change in the world uh country by country, because the world is a bit more a place for them to maneuver in.
[51:32] Speaker: Yeah.
[51:32] Speaker: Um, so the one more question on operationalizing this So I'm I'm curious, and I kind of alluded to this a little but I'm curious about what are what are the different teams and specializations across you could call it the reform journey, that either you've seen emerge slowly as you do this work your within your network of uh policy folks, you have yourself and others kind of flying around um trying to influence policy.
[52:04] Speaker: Yeah, what specializations and teams have emerged across this reform journey as you've pushed forward on implementation?
[52:13] Speaker 1: Okay, so look, if you so probably the the the most important one is really is that, I mean, look, I I still look at economic reform, economic decision making, but it would apply to all kinds of other areas as well, whether it's health education or whatever.
[52:30] Speaker 1: I think what you what you need to develop in your teams is not embedding hard-nosed uh theory-grounded political although I like talking to them.
[52:44] Speaker 1: Um but what you want is somehow um creating in these themes, either it's through having the right people, but just having the right attitude in these themes, that stepping in a local reality.
[53:06] Speaker 1: And a local reality is different to say, you know, this is first best.
[53:13] Speaker 1: It's actually recognizing and understanding that it's not just that the local reality will just frustrate you because they don't want to do, you know, the perfect health policy, the education policy, but actually, the more you know about local reality, you may get better ideas about how you may add.
[53:37] Speaker 1: So it becomes people that are less that are sorry, people that become more not simply knowledgeable about the what, but can one actually do things in a place?
[53:51] Speaker 1: Now, what I don't mean there is that, you know, as we I worry about in the current geopolitics that businesses all the anti-corruption acts and so on disappearing uh in US, uh, how to get things done may have very simple solutions of how to get things done.
[54:06] Speaker 1: I don't mean it at all like that.
[54:08] Speaker 1: You know, that's another how.
[54:09] Speaker 1: But it's basically say, well, how do I actually work in this place and how do I begin to think about how I can make And what I simply mean there is basically people skilled in asking the right questions on local teams as well, from other places, you know, it's like if I'm going to do subsidy reform, the technical part, for example, will about three and a half minutes.
[54:34] Speaker 1: Okay, it's a bad idea, fuel subsidies.
[54:37] Speaker 1: Okay, there's not much to be said.
[54:39] Speaker 1: I can teach in my first class to a student in my in 101 that fuel subsidies sound like a bad idea, okay?
[54:47] Speaker 1: I can do that.
[54:48] Speaker 1: But how to get it done needs a lot of thinking because it about lots of vested interest, how they get mobilized, you actually begin to compensate, how you sequence it, how lock things in, how you build a political narrative around And that's actually the kind of people that you also want with, because that's the reality anyone you deal with sits and you can't leave it to them.
[55:13] Speaker 1: It's your problem.
[55:13] Speaker 1: You know, you can't simply say, Finance minister, my for you is going to be the abolish the fuel subsidy You do so much better by actually telling them, okay, and we know about these and these places that they did it like It's not best practice necessarily, but maybe you can do You maybe you can talk uh to, you know, um you know a country X, maybe you can talk to Indonesian former finance minister, how she did it in her country, how she actually did it.
[55:41] Speaker 1: And you begin to build up a picture as like, wow, it's quite similar in lots of countries.
[55:46] Speaker 1: It may be specific in my country, but how I can get things So that's the minimal amount.
[55:51] Speaker 1: And then the related thing is is respect for the for well-meaning politicians to implement, even if to do it, how it will work, and the and basically, and recognizing that you know, so many reforms are proposed within, and not necessarily with the worst bureaucratic politics, that is the usual office politics, well as within bureaucratic politics, that's not a politics, but more uh malign, and including their vested interests and all the interactions with them, is tough everywhere.
[56:34] Speaker 1: And that actually, you don't simply say, oh, McKinsey will do a delivery unit and implement it, because then we'll lots of fakery.
[56:42] Speaker 1: The data that will come up are fake and and so on.
[56:45] Speaker 1: I mean, not necessarily, but I definitely not a fan to turn this into a pure technocratic delivery thing.
[56:51] Speaker 1: But again, to have people that help to think through, can I actually deliver this?
[56:56] Speaker 1: Is there what I can I can I do it?
[56:59] Speaker 1: Is this the one that I can deliver?
[57:00] Speaker 1: I mean, we like talking in Pakistan, we're talking about reform.
[57:04] Speaker 1: And even some of the ministers um are highly skeptical they actually can get it done.
[57:11] Speaker 1: Uh even very well, you know, very well-positioned people say, Well, can you actually get it done?
[57:16] Speaker 1: Can you not done?
[57:16] Speaker 1: Because actually, you know, we just don't sometimes know about the internal bottlenecks and properly doing it.
[57:24] Speaker 1: They don't really know it don't know fuller than standard, get impatient.
[57:27] Speaker 1: But yeah, just really thinking and and and getting that documented, you know, get get more people that work on helping to document, you know, but what's the change of making?
[57:39] Speaker 1: How many people can actually potentially block it in the the bureaucracy?
[57:42] Speaker 1: How long is that change?
[57:44] Speaker 1: Can we first maybe actually make that change slower try to do the reform and so on?
[57:49] Speaker 1: So it yeah, respect for that.
[57:52] Speaker 1: I and I'm almost saying respect for that, recognizing that that you don't simply so far more focusing on how things get on, how you get things implemented than just what needs to done.
[58:05] Speaker 1: The what is actually not that hard.
[58:09] Speaker: Not the hard part, yeah.
[58:10] Speaker 1: A lot of sensible things that have long time been proposed in all the countries, but how to get it done is the hardest And we just have and just say respect for it is a minimal interest, intellectual interest in it that you want to it, rather than this kind of arrogance, often also external teams, saying, why don't they just do it?
[58:30] Speaker 1: You know, why don't they do big bang, change everything in go?
[58:34] Speaker: No, no, yeah, it doesn't like that.
[58:36] Speaker: So so this is interesting because as you were talking about, like how, like the how, how do we how do we actually bring uh folks, policymakers, through this reform journey?
[58:49] Speaker: Is there is there something to like a reform funnel?
[58:54] Speaker: Like I'm I'm thinking so I just I had a chat with Pascal, as I mentioned, uh who uh helps you on the Economic Policy Network about my former life before I went back and did a graduate I was in software sales, uh believe it or not.
[59:10] Speaker: This was a long time ago, seven.
[59:11] Speaker: And and in software sales, there were like whole um sub teams within the broader sales team dedicated to specific parts of sales funnel, right?
[59:26] Speaker: So so at the beginning of the sales funnel, there's a whole dedicated to uh qualifying potential leads, basically, like they needed to pinpoint like four pieces of information to a potential sale.
[59:43] Speaker: Um, and I can't believe I'm telling you this, but like there was an acronym we were taught called BANT, which is uh budget, need, and timeline.
[59:52] Speaker: And so if a lead, if you're talking to a lead on a discovery and they had a budget, uh, they had authority or they they had authorization from the right authority, if they had um like on the call a clear business need for the software then lastly, if they had an explicit timeline in mind, this lead was basically like quote unquote qualified.
[1:00:14] Speaker: And then went further down the sales funnel to they had a call with an account executive to discuss a potential tailored package for the specific need that was identified.
[1:00:24] Speaker: And then if an appropriate package was identified, like a demo is the next step in the sales funnel.
[1:00:30] Speaker: A demo is typically given with pricing for the various that you've you've pinpointed.
[1:00:35] Speaker: And then right finally you get to the part of the funnel where there's eventually a no or uh a go or no go decision made by potential client, right?
[1:00:45] Speaker: And and so that's that's basically this sales funnel.
[1:00:47] Speaker: Obviously, afterwards, if if the client decides to buy, this post-sale part where a whole kind of customer support team is brought in and you want the client to effectively use the right?
[1:01:00] Speaker: And so bring this back to my chat with Pascal, I was thinking at every stage of the funnel I just outlined, I see like ties to the journey that you would need to take a would-be on, right?
[1:01:16] Speaker: So, like I guess, Stefan, what I'm asking is, are you just a salesman taking you know would-be buyers down this uh reform
[1:01:28] Speaker 1: Well, the idea that I'm glory glorified salesman, uh yeah is a thing.
[1:01:33] Speaker 1: But but look, no, there is an element to it.
[1:01:36] Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we also conceptualize this a bit of like, you know, and it's and it's you know, as as with all as all ways of match uh doing things, it's it's helpful to a bit of a a staged way of thinking about it, okay?
[1:01:52] Speaker 1: And so at least we know, I I we know now, and we're trying, and you know, every context is a bit different, just as person you're trying to sell to has a little bit of a on what you describe, and it may not be as beautifully but we think about it, you know.
[1:02:08] Speaker 1: Look, the most important thing, and that definitely comes from also the writing in the book, is that you know we need to find a way of assessing first kind of do they mean Do they actually want to generally do this?
[1:02:24] Speaker 1: You know, do they not want just the window dressing of uh Oxford team or a Georgetown team or something that just uh you know it's good to be associated with is good of thing.
[1:02:38] Speaker: So you kind of it's a bit like with the sales, you know, the they genuine interested in in really getting a solution rather than just enjoying and in sales, you wanted to get to know as fast as humanly possible so that you can just get on to the next person.
[1:02:53] Speaker: Exactly right.
[1:02:54] Speaker 1: I saw and so so so we kind of this actually illustrates others that I I find it really helpful that we are not to get contracts with anyone, that we actually can do this just like pro bono because it allows us to walk away.
[1:03:12] Speaker 1: We need to be able, just as you have to stop the I mean you're selling, we want we want to create the to walk away.
[1:03:19] Speaker 1: But at the same time, we need to find ways of testing the right?
[1:03:23] Speaker 1: And this is a bit like where you come back, and then of it can go together, you know.
[1:03:27] Speaker 1: In Pakistan, there were definitely moments early on that we felt like this is absolutely zero commitment.
[1:03:31] Speaker 1: And and there was a particular conversation with an senior person where I kind of said, look, there's no point us to do this because you want to say these things when you act in another way.
[1:03:42] Speaker 1: It actually had to do with with increasing the tariffs you said you wanted to reduce them.
[1:03:46] Speaker 1: You can't do both at the same time initially.
[1:03:48] Speaker 1: And so we kind of testing.
[1:03:50] Speaker 1: So you you I so I'm really we we're trying to have a where we say, can we actually test a bit of the We begin to do a bit of a diagnosis, what's possible, what is it doing.
[1:04:01] Speaker 1: And it actually has meant in quite a few countries where we had great interactions all the way up to presidents, but we just don't think there is at all a commitment to do anything.
[1:04:12] Speaker 1: Either because what they want you to do is feels like window dressing, or unrealistic kind of thing, having attached to it to do it, or in in another case where we just say, look, no, they absolutely don't give a damn.
[1:04:30] Speaker 1: They're folks, let me not name uh the country involved, but let's say uh they're more interested in drug smuggling than actually doing anything on the economy.
[1:04:40] Speaker 1: Um you know, we're much more interested in harboring uh the biggest cocaine trade one of the biggest cocaine traders in Europe than actually uh than actually doing anything Okay, so let's say, okay, that's not quite commitment for economic reform.
[1:04:56] Speaker 1: So so yeah, and so you want to step back.
[1:04:58] Speaker 1: So yeah, so that's definitely part of the process.
[1:05:00] Speaker 1: And for us, the process is also to then you know try to, I and we we're trying hard not to hold the pen too much, you It's like saying the commitment has to be, you need to do things.
[1:05:12] Speaker 1: You know, it's it's hard at times and in all the context, and occasionally we have written things and notes and so on, they have to write their own reforms.
[1:05:21] Speaker 1: You know, this cannot be our blueprint of what to do.
[1:05:23] Speaker 1: We can say we can help them prioritizing and so on.
[1:05:26] Speaker 1: So it's so yeah, there is a there is a clear process.
[1:05:28] Speaker 1: We want to step away because that's not our advantage or advantage or absolute advantage uh either.
[1:05:36] Speaker 1: Um, but it's definitely not in terms of we're going to now it, you know, and being the support of the delivery and so I wish in all these countries the bureaucracy would it, habits get created that for all the things I was describing, people are in a hurry and they're rather bring in organizations that are setting up the some of the parallel and.
[1:05:59] Speaker 1: Doing it, don't like it entirely at all.
[1:06:02] Speaker 1: Well, I don't like it at all, but but but we hope that they either deliver themselves, uh, as indeed in some or um, or indeed that it's other people doing it, you then and doing it.
[1:06:14] Speaker 1: So we we want to be in that early phase, just a bit like know, probably your sales team.
[1:06:18] Speaker 1: Now I hand it over to another team that'll actually make the package.
[1:06:22] Speaker 1: So we go, we get the outline of the package, that's as we go.
[1:06:27] Speaker 1: Probably these are the principles, the the ideas, but then know you're going to source across your own organization elsewhere what the details of the package has to be.
[1:06:37] Speaker 1: And so that's where we are in the kind of thing.
[1:06:39] Speaker 1: But but at the same time, and that's an important thing, even when you're selling, you can't set up something that then on someone down the line can't deliver for for you.
[1:06:51] Speaker 1: So that's also what I want to have in mind.
[1:06:53] Speaker 1: So the economists often say the policy implications are we stronger, stronger institutions, so we need stronger rights to say, yeah, that's really helpful.
[1:07:01] Speaker 1: That's really, really helpful.
[1:07:03] Speaker 1: That's actually quite useless, you know.
[1:07:05] Speaker 1: And it's the kind of thing, of course, I agree that um if we get a pure democracy in the long run, we'll uh, you know, that the evidence seems to suggest Asimoglu's paper, it's all great.
[1:07:16] Speaker 1: But tell me how do I get there, you know?
[1:07:18] Speaker 1: Tell me how do I get there?
[1:07:20] Speaker 1: That would I find much more useful as an advisory kind of And so it's it's it's that things, and I want to just the who give the advice also in the pure economic sense, that are giving the advice, keeping in mind that process that describe down the line.
[1:07:35] Speaker 1: That actually the advice is associated there with what you can be done, what can be prioritized, what are the and so on.
[1:07:44] Speaker 1: And that's probably where definitely the biggest learning is that you know your sales team needs to be disciplined or about what happens down the line.
[1:07:55] Speaker: Yeah.
[1:07:55] Speaker: Yeah.
[1:07:55] Speaker: Um, okay, I'm being cognizant of time because I know you hard stop in I believe seven minutes or so.
[1:08:01] Speaker: So I had three or four questions I needed to get through And let's let's hope we can get it before your your call here in seven minutes.
[1:08:09] Speaker: Um so the one is um so is it is your work just dealing with or so far over the last four years, is your work just with national governments or right, I'm at the Africa Urban Have you worked with any city or regional governments?
[1:08:25] Speaker: Um, I'm right, I'm thinking one of the supposed benefits of or decentralization is that you can experiment with new policies at the local level uh and then scale up those experiments if work more broadly across the country.
[1:08:40] Speaker: Is this are you guys taking this approach at all, or is it or is it more focused at the national level?
[1:08:45] Speaker 1: Look, we we're trying to be as much on one hand demand-driven and opportunity driven.
[1:08:50] Speaker 1: You know, we haven't had quite the opportunity to do what you just described, you know.
[1:08:54] Speaker 1: You could imagine, you know, if in Nigeria are particular were to say, look, we we want you really to work with you on something here, and and if there is uh there, you know, that we we would do it.
[1:09:06] Speaker 1: But but it is broader than actually just national So so so the idea is really in the end, you know, if I go to where we started and say, look, I strongly believe that the the if we don't get a strong enough, what I can call it an elite coalition together, um things will be blocked.
[1:09:25] Speaker 1: Uh, you know, or but there's many various ways to try to that.
[1:09:29] Speaker 1: And and elites are broadly defined, you know, these are in you know, in politics, in civil society, in uh senior civil service, can be the military, can be religious leaders, leaders, and so on.
[1:09:41] Speaker 1: So if we get an entry point on the other side, so it's a like motivating.
[1:09:44] Speaker 1: I'm not being the one that's going to create a growth in Pakistan, but I'm very happy to talk to the business to try to actually say, look, you know, this is the the kind of things that that that actually would probably help you with gets bits of growth.
[1:09:59] Speaker 1: And you know, if they can be implicitly become part of it.
[1:10:02] Speaker 1: But it also means in in Madagascar, we we were beginning to work with civil society organizations that generally said a window of opportunity with the resetting of the new that's come into power, they find defeat.
[1:10:14] Speaker 1: Let's actually engage them.
[1:10:17] Speaker 1: And and they were asking us, you know, okay, but what what how would we engage, what would make sense and so on?
[1:10:22] Speaker 1: We're very happy to do that.
[1:10:23] Speaker 1: If there's a business confederation in another country, we would be very happily doing this.
[1:10:29] Speaker 1: So so it it it's open.
[1:10:31] Speaker 1: If if there's demand and if we feel like we can contribute, for us, the whole thing is always about is there a chance this will make the big price to getting these economies to better, to grow better, uh improves it.
[1:10:47] Speaker 1: And and again, you know, not in a naive sort of way, it's not just natural resource growth, but just you know, with all benefits that it can bring to have some form of inclusive going.
[1:10:57] Speaker 1: But basically, that the the price, if we feel like and if we can sense it and justify and and stress test and asking will it really do?
[1:11:07] Speaker 1: And so that's again, I said, well, we then may walk away at some point and say, if I'm making it up now, the civil organization we work with, they have no levers, there's point, you know, just making noise, that's not what we be doing.
[1:11:20] Speaker 1: And and so yeah.
[1:11:22] Speaker 1: But local governments, yeah, it's it's it's possible, you There can be important important engines, and they may have lots of things under their control that you could maybe to help them with.
[1:11:33] Speaker: Yeah.
[1:11:33] Speaker: Well, hey, the AUL is here working with cities, so let us know.
[1:11:38] Speaker: Um so just I again realizing time, a couple more focused on on um broadly economic growth, right?
[1:11:47] Speaker: At the end of the day, that's what that's what these policy that you guys are pursuing aims to to bring about.
[1:11:53] Speaker: So more broadly, like what are the I'm sure you have to make case for growth sometimes, right?
[1:12:01] Speaker: And as an economist, that might be kind of confusing or making the case, but um, what are the arguments against growth that you take most seriously, right?
[1:12:12] Speaker: I know there's a ton of straw man critiques of growth that I can be dismissed out of hand, but what are the critiques you most seriously?
[1:12:20] Speaker: And you know, how how do you respond to them?
[1:12:23] Speaker 1: No, no.
[1:12:23] Speaker 1: So so look, the the one thing is that you know I would be happily join petitions that would argue in the US or in or in Singapore that you know zero growth is not bad if we if we think sensibly through it.
[1:12:41] Speaker 1: You know, I see it much more in you know, you get a critique on on the environmental side.
[1:12:47] Speaker 1: You know, there's even you know one of the biggest of uh of of green green focus and and and climate change in the World Bank uh basically wrote uh a series of saying, look, if we get growth that alleviates all the in low-income countries, it is so marginal in its in its contribution to uh to climate change that it's probably very happily a price worth paying.
[1:13:14] Speaker 1: So, in a sense, the green argument, you know, we want this to be sustainable, but in this first phase, um in that uh in first phase we're um we're we're we we want to focus it.
[1:13:28] Speaker 1: So I take it seriously for uh you know the Chinese growth I take it seriously for the US or European growth model to not you know really be willing to say, look, you know, is not necessarily the worst thing if we handle it really Um but but I I I don't want it to constrain.
[1:13:48] Speaker 1: So so I I I happily listen to these the the these but say, look, in the cases I'm considering, I'm using the that actually the the impact of that is is is minimal.
[1:14:00] Speaker 1: The other part of it, it's that you know, we just know the evidence that not a single country has sustainably extreme poverty uh without actually growing, you know, it's just part of it.
[1:14:15] Speaker 1: It's never the it's I never want to argue, and there's people writing papers, I know Lan Twitch writing paper, it's a necessary and sufficient condition.
[1:14:23] Speaker 1: You know, I mean look, there's a lot of endogeneity there on there.
[1:14:28] Speaker 1: You know, I'm pretty sure that for countries to sustain they will have to make it inclusive, otherwise the revolt will be there and the whole thing.
[1:14:36] Speaker 1: So there's there's something there.
[1:14:38] Speaker 1: But um, you know, the the argument that it's it's the wrong focus for some of these poorest countries, no, it's it's not.
[1:14:47] Speaker 1: It's actually probably a reason very reasonable focus because we just need to do it.
[1:14:51] Speaker 1: I mean, I did recently looked at the numbers and um, you low-income countries in 1990, uh, as I said, they grew per by 5.4%.
[1:15:01] Speaker 1: Uh, the countries that moved out of the low-income status lower middle income or above brought their poverty down 70% in extreme poverty in the World Bank measures to uh 13%.
[1:15:14] Speaker 1: Um while the ones who didn't manage to progress into lower income country or both, they went from 70% to 68%.
[1:15:25] Speaker 1: Okay.
[1:15:26] Speaker 1: You know, it is a big part of it, and it's never but we need to enough focus on it.
[1:15:33] Speaker 1: And I do think the international community with all the you know, and that included Diffit, you know, we are so on poverty, but it's just no point often working on the side if if we can't get these economies to function.
[1:15:45] Speaker 1: And that's just saying, look, I want to spend my energies on it.
[1:15:49] Speaker 1: I have huge respect for all the others that they're doing.
[1:15:51] Speaker 1: You know, I'm a microeconomist from training, I economist, but but we seem to have gotten it, and we need just focus on it as well.
[1:15:59] Speaker 1: So yeah.
[1:16:00] Speaker 1: And and I don't know, uh, going further, you know, whether it's instrumental, it's never the end goal, it's always just an instrumental thing, the whole growth focus.
[1:16:10] Speaker 1: You know, I just take it, but instrumentalism also means it seems to be a fairly good way of progressing something.
[1:16:18] Speaker 1: And enlarging the cake gives you the opportunity to do all of things.
[1:16:22] Speaker 1: And without a large enough cake, we just can't do it.
[1:16:27] Speaker: Okay.
[1:16:27] Speaker: And and last question, I know I know we're at time.
[1:16:30] Speaker: So I after our chat in 2022, right?
[1:16:35] Speaker: I think Open Philanthropy, now coefficient giving, they reached out to you for uh advice, I believe, on on what a new sort of economic growth cause area could actually look like, and the of growth-oriented ideas you thought could be highly that could be funded, right?
[1:16:53] Speaker: Um it's been a few years since you wrote that up, uh, but now this cause area it's up and running.
[1:16:59] Speaker: I think one of your your former co-authors, um, Justin is is running it at coefficient giving.
[1:17:05] Speaker: So looking back at your list of ideas to drive growth, which of those that you listed have sort of increased in your ratings since since writing it and and which have have decreased and uh why?
[1:17:20] Speaker 2: So, well, um I you know, I may well suffer now from having the a good enough memory and a recall of exactly all the that I had.
[1:17:31] Speaker 1: But look, yeah, one of the things that I wrote up is also things we're trying to do, you know, being somewhere uh in a more neutral, honest sort of way, helping countries to think through the growth and a bit of the second opinion, the ownership, the things we're doing ourselves, of course, part of that list, and it's I still would say it's a pretty useful thing to do.
[1:17:51] Speaker 1: There are related uh but things that definitely moved up in my list, and it has a little bit to do with uh with the as well.
[1:17:59] Speaker 1: You know, things to do with more going beyond work around with natural resources, going beyond it is going to be very important.
[1:18:14] Speaker 1: I mentioned already with the whole scramble for for uh for minerals, yeah.
[1:18:20] Speaker 1: Minerals or whatever.
[1:18:21] Speaker 1: Um all that stuff will and the incentives in the to make it less important, uh, that's where it comes transparency around it, you know, it makes it more important because it is somehow one of these factors that unfortunately quite a lot of these elite bargains that get stuck is they can't somehow get out of these elite bargains where just distribution of the rents from uh from natural and that's going to become more and more important holds in the end growth packets.
[1:18:54] Speaker 1: Again, it's not a technical thing, it's a lot to do economy, and that links to the proposals around illicit I don't and so one of the things that was weak in that set of proposals is that I don't know exactly how we're going to shift global political economy that actually they're taking it more seriously, not least because you we may fight it in London and then it all pops up in Dubai and Singapore.
[1:19:17] Speaker 1: Uh, you know, it is it is it is that kind of issue, uh, it's listed finance, whether it's about, you know, um all the things that happen with uh with with contracting all this kind of the whole chain of that uh is there, you the corruption work.
[1:19:35] Speaker 1: Um you know it's not that corruption itself is the biggest but definitely corruption in natural resource contracts is an is definitely an essential part of elite bargains that happens there, that's big and it has massive This is not about a teacher asking for a small pride for for the teaching.
[1:19:52] Speaker 1: This is real consequences for the big the growth picture in the country.
[1:19:56] Speaker 1: So it's these things that I would find more important.
[1:20:00] Speaker 1: But the harder thing is there, is like, well, what are the points and how can we actually do something where it can be impactful?
[1:20:07] Speaker 1: Okay, it's not about documenting and shouting, because days we know that just talking about it doesn't shift many the given that geopolitics doesn't shift many of So actually really finding way of how do we re change So that's a bunch of it.
[1:20:23] Speaker 1: Yeah, and the other bunch is is probably um again without an easy solution, but it's how you build up um capacity locally in countries that doesn't get vulnerable too quickly to the local political economy, but at the same time can operate and so you know, can operate and doing some of the things that also we do as externals now.
[1:20:54] Speaker 1: You know, I mean I wish we could do it, but in these with weak institutions and weak accountability, that also uh if they don't like uh it what you say, you know, you can be sidelined for a very long time, or indeed working with grain, working with a less than perfect government, trying do a few reasonable things can mean that the next time never have a job anymore or whatever, that's that that's can we begin to find ways of of building that?
[1:21:23] Speaker 1: And uh yeah, so it's something there, and yeah, there's a a few there.
[1:21:28] Speaker 1: But you know, I want to also emphasize my list was very you know, given what the international communities and the AT agency are already doing, I think the other part of it that are probably underestimated, that we also more about how we get them to function better, not least politics, how we do that, and it's not just about and transparency and NGO meetings of the World Bank with the NGOs.
[1:21:54] Speaker 1: It's actually more generally thinking, you know, how do work in that reality properly?
[1:22:00] Speaker 1: You know, how do you work properly in it?
[1:22:02] Speaker 1: And that has to do with maybe educating these the boards of these places, but that of course we come back to geopolitics, you know, the geopolitics is probably going to make these more transactional, more willing to do what they used to do in the 1980s, slightly ideological and so on, rather than anything else.
[1:22:20] Speaker 1: So it's, I don't know exactly, but but finding ways to get them to function better uh and doing it.
[1:22:27] Speaker 1: Look, maybe also that I've been so pleasantly surprised much interest there has been from inside these organizations at a very senior level in some of the things I've been talking about.
[1:22:41] Speaker 1: Because they recognize anyone who's made their hands dirty in the ground on the ground with governments trying to do they recognize it seems what I clearly had experienced, and that's a very pleasing feeling that you know there's so people have written to me that are in the system at all kinds of levels that says, Look, I recognize this, you know, I that that thing to do.
[1:23:06] Speaker 1: But not quite knowing how do we do it in these big to make somehow making that a bigger reality.
[1:23:15] Speaker 1: Because, you know, in the end, I hope what I was writing about is trying to also make all these outsiders more effective being impactful without being patronizing, without being uh things, and that's there's still more about it.
[1:23:31] Speaker 1: I know uh the uh coefficient giving is still looking ideas around it, but it's hard because you know the the things we're talking about are largely probabilistic because you you're not delivering something with a very direct result, trying to actually kind of help somehow to shift the dial, if it works, it would be amazing, i.e.
[1:23:55] Speaker 1: But the probabilities of success are definitely well below and um, and so that's the kind of thing, you know, can you get people in the comfort zone to more systematically think invest in ideas and and initiatives that are in its return So that's a that's another part, and it's hard in the of aid organizations.
[1:24:20] Speaker 1: I've worked inside them.
[1:24:22] Speaker 1: You want to be able to tell to parliament, you know, every penny had an impact, every pound we spent, every dollar had an impact.
[1:24:30] Speaker 1: Now that's not the game we're in because I can't prove it.
[1:24:34] Speaker 1: There will be countries where we fail and we're not getting anywhere, maybe we'll we'll shift the dial in a few places very large returns.
[1:24:41] Speaker 1: But that's what uh what the business is.
[1:24:44] Speaker: Yeah.
[1:24:44] Speaker: Okay, great.
[1:24:46] Speaker: Well, that's it for the podcast.
[1:24:47] Speaker: So, Stefan Durkan, thank you for coming on as always.
[1:24:51] Speaker: Well, thank you, kurtis, for uh for prearing me.
[1:24:55] Speaker 1: And anyone who's managed to listen to this part, it's great.
[1:24:58] Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
[1:25:01] Speaker: Thanks for listening to the Africa Urban Lab podcast.
[1:25:04] Speaker: To listen to our other episodes, follow us on your favorite platform or subscribe to our YouTube channel.
[1:25:12] Speaker: And pretty please, if you like the episode, share it with your friends and your network.
[1:25:17] Speaker: It really, really helps grow the show.
[1:25:19] Speaker: We appreciate it and we appreciate you.
[1:25:22] Speaker: Thanks so much.

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