# 1. The challenge to operationalize “doing development differently”

Pointing out that something is not working is hard. Explaining why something is not working is harder. Developing and operationalizing alternatives that are sound, supportable, implementable and (ultimately, demonstrably) ‘better’ is typically harder still.

For many years now, the traditional, orthodox approach to development – one focused on transferring ‘best practice’ solutions and with limited assessment of endogenous constraints or supports – has been critiqued as a donor‐driven endeavor, too often concerned with providing uniform solutions rather than crafting context‐specific (‘best fit’) responses to locally nominated and prioritized problems. Traditional models, grounded as they are on the assumption that complex development challenges can be solved if sufficient money and expert technical advice are provided, work reasonably well for the types of problems for which they were designed, but have borne little fruit as their reach has expanded into more complex domains, such as public sector reform, which has frequently generated a plethora of institutions that _look_ deceptively like those of their OECD counterparts but have little of the underlying functionality (Andrews 2013). The fact that a variety of countries have achieved a measure of inclusive economic development by way of _contextualized_ institutional solutions, rather than copying the forms of others, confirms that a great deal of development consists of complex challenges for which we do not have ready‐made answers.<sup>2</sup> What we do know is that transferring formal, institutional solutions from OECD countries to developing counterparts seldom succeeds in generating functional success.

As Booth (2018) lays out, institutions comprise both formal and informal elements, such that if we only ever transfer the more visible, formal elements we end up with structures, laws and organizations that do not have the supportive base necessary for them to be functional.<sup>3</sup> Moreover, institutions are shaped and impacted by idiosyncratic patterns of politics that cannot be replicated elsewhere,<sup>4</sup> as well as by the way power is distributed among various individuals and groups in society.<sup>5</sup> This unavoidable uncertainty within complex systems makes the wholesale transference of prefabricated solutions into countries like Nigeria not only unrealistic but potentially harmful, if in so doing it weakens domestic problem‐solving procedures or de‐legitimizes the very idea of reform.

The observations of complexity and isomorphism clearly apply in the Nigerian context. Analysis of even successful cases of functional change in Nigeria show that “reforms in Nigeria are reversible, rarely considered complete or predictable in their path” and that “[r]esults never follow best practice in terms of technical content and often represent small steps toward better development outcomes” (World Bank 2015, 5). Political economy analysis (PEA) confirms the salience of politics and leadership in the Nigerian context, highlighting the importance of state leadership and of ensuring that the federal level actors allow sufficient autonomy for the states to act (Porter and Watts 2017). In other words, like every other country, Nigeria has a slew of existing rules, often “below the waterline”, that will condition the success or failure of any reform attempt. A development approach that ignores these rules can expect little traction.

> 2 See, among many others, Chang (2007), Rodrik (2007), Booth and Cammack (2013), Kelsall (2013), Booth (2015), Buntaine, Parks and Buch (2017) and World Bank (2017).

> 3 The foundational work is North (1990, 2003), but many others – before and since – have developed this thesis: e.g., Future State (2005, 2010), Carothers and De Gramont (2013), Unsworth (2015), and Yanguas and Hulme (2015).

> 4 E.g., Bates (1989, 2014), Leftwich (2007), North et al. (2009), IPPG (2010), Putzel and Di John (2012), North et al. 2013).

> 5 See Khan (1995), Khan and Sundaram (2000), Shirley (2008), Khan (2010), Pincus and Robinson (2014), Hickey et al. (2015), Hough and Grier (2015), and Khan (2017).

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