Navigation by Judgment

Why and When Top Down Management of Foreign Aid Doesn't Work

Dan Honig

Argues that tight controls and narrow focus on reaching pre-set targets can prevent frontline workers from using their skills and creativity to solve problems on the ground, undermining the performance of foreign aid projects
Honig draws on a novel database of over 14,000 discrete development projects across nine agencies and eight qualitative studies in making his argument
Pressure to demonstrate results can undermine performance, particularly when environments are unpredictable and task performance hard to reliably and accurately measure

Navigation by Judgment

Why and When Top Down Management of Foreign Aid Doesn't Work

Dan Honig

Description

Foreign aid organizations collectively spend hundreds of billions of dollars annually, with mixed results. Part of the problem in these endeavors lies in their execution. When should foreign aid organizations empower actors on the front lines of delivery to guide aid interventions, and when should distant headquarters lead?

In Navigation by Judgment, Dan Honig argues that high-quality implementation of foreign aid programs often requires contextual information that cannot be seen by those in distant headquarters. Tight controls and a focus on reaching pre-set measurable targets often prevent front-line workers from using skill, local knowledge, and creativity to solve problems in ways that maximize the impact of foreign aid. Drawing on a novel database of over 14,000 discrete development projects across nine aid agencies and eight paired case studies of development projects, Honig concludes that aid agencies will often benefit from giving field agents the authority to use their own judgments to guide aid delivery. This "navigation by judgment" is particularly valuable when environments are unpredictable and when accomplishing an aid program's goals is hard to accurately measure.

Highlighting a crucial obstacle for effective global aid, Navigation by Judgment shows that the management of aid projects matters for aid effectiveness.

Navigation by Judgment

Why and When Top Down Management of Foreign Aid Doesn't Work

Dan Honig

Preface
Acknowledgments
Part I: The What, Why, and When of Navigation by Judgment
Chapter 1. Introduction - The Management of Foreign Aid
Chapter 2. When to Let Go: The Costs and Benefits of Navigation by Judgment
Chapter 3. Agents - Who Does the Judging?
Chapter 4. Authorizing Environments & the Perils of Legitimacy Seeking
Part II: How Does Navigation by Judgment Fare in Practice?
Chapter 5. How to Know What Works Better, When: Data, Methods, and Empirical Operationalization
Chapter 6. Journey Without Maps - Environmental Unpredictability and Navigation Strategy
Chapter 7. Tailoring Management to Suit the Task - Project Verifiability and Navigation Strategy
Part III: Implications
Chapter 8. Delegation and Control Revisited
Chapter 9. Conclusion - Implications for the Aid Industry & Beyond
Appendices
Appendix I: Data Collection
Appendix II: Additional Econometric Analysis
Bibliography

Navigation by Judgment

Why and When Top Down Management of Foreign Aid Doesn't Work

Dan Honig

Author Information

Dan Honig is an Assistant Professor of International Development at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His research focuses on the relationship between organizational structure, management practice, and performance in developing country governments and foreign aid agencies. Honig has held a variety of positions outside of the academy. He served as special assistant and an advisor to successive ministers of finance in Liberia; ran an NGO focused on youth entrepreneurship in agriculture in East Timor; and has worked for local and international organizations in a number of developing countries. A proud Michigander, he holds a BA from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from Harvard's Kennedy School.