"pockets of effectiveness"

Growing poverty and failing services but an increasingly wealthy elite leads Mozambique to being described as a failing, patrimonial, resource-curse state. But new thinking in development studies suggests Mozambique could be following a plausible path to start pulling itself out of the hole.The new idea is "pockets of effectiveness"(PoEs) which are state-basedorganisations that function effectively in providing public goods and services, despite operating in an environment where effective public service delivery is not the norm.PoEs exist in many African countries, but have often been ignored for several reasons. Neoliberalism in the 1990s and 2000s blocked support for public institutions which shrunk and collapsed. Donor and lending agencies tried to impose "good governance" on the reduced state on the model of long-established northern states, and not newly independent African ones. 

Governance was recommended "without accounting for the ways in which politics and institutions actually operate" and thus without any realistic chance of success, comments Prof Giles Mohan of the Open University.Manchester University Prof Sam Hickey is leading a large PoE research programme with Prof Mohan. Their website http://bit.ly/pocketsofeffectivenessnow has 11 working papers, with reports on PoEs in Ghana, Kenya and Zambia, as well as a good background paper by Hickey.PoEs come about as a coalition between ruling elites and bureaucrats, often with the participation of donors or businesses. They come about when elite political survival demands effective government action, particularly economic. That leads governments at the highest level to protect the agencies from the worst excesses of political interference and to allow them autonomy. PoEs are led by people with both technical and political resources.Civil service rules are bypassed, and PoEs are based on developmental or regulated patronage -choosing people who are loyal, expert and competent. A key is a strong organisation culture and high levels of staff motivation. The PoE needs a problem solving and politically attuned approach. To make this work, different elite factions have to agree that an agency promoting an aspect of state building and development is necessary for elite survival.