Is Best Practice Really Dead in Development Practice? How Administrative Leadership Is Improving Financial Management in Fragile Afghanistan

Is Best Practice Really Dead in Development Practice? How Administrative Leadership Is Improving Financial Management in Fragile Afghanistan The concept of “best practice” has few friends in development thinking and... [ view full abstract ]

Is Best Practice Really Dead in Development Practice?
How Administrative Leadership Is Improving Financial Management in Fragile Afghanistan

The concept of “best practice” has few friends in development thinking and practice. Best practice—essentially the idea that values, institutions and specific practices (such as an impartial professional civil service based on merit that are drawn from the west can be imported to developing countries)—would appear to be discredited if one follows the voluminous writing among scholars and practitioners who think about development and actually “do” it.
Similarly, the category of states labelled as “fragile” is also questioned as conceptually flawed, poorly measured and, perhaps most important, problematical when it leads to donor-led interventions that are supposed to reduce fragility. When you therefore combine best practice interventions into fragile states the result is said to be either disappointment or even counterproductive results that sustain the very conditions of fragility that the interventions are supposed to ameliorate.
An alternative narrative in development thinking and practice is taking root that gives voice to experimentation, trial-and-error modest interventions that are, first and foremost, embraced and even led by the recipients (or beneficiaries) of the interventions This alternative is said to be far superior to best practice approaches that are accused of “parachuting” experts into fragile countries ready to apply tried and tested ideas that have been well honed elsewhere, especially in the west. The critique is persuasive and seems to have been embraced by bi-lateral development agencies that increasingly recognize that plans and practices must be adapted to the local context. However, we argue that the celebration of the death of best practice in development may be premature. In some cases, best practice interventions may still have a place in development—in fact, may even be the preferred way in selected development contexts. We elaborate this perspective by describing how donor financed efforts, coupled with administrative leadership has improved public financial management (PFM) practices in Afghanistan, one of the most fragile countries in the world.