The UK's Department for International Development (@DFID_UK) ceased to be yesterday. gov.uk/government/new… This is a bad idea for a number of reasons - not least, because of what it will likely mean for the #MissionDrivenBureaucrats who so typify DFID. 1/
While my current book manuscript on Mission-Driven Bureaucrats mentions DFID 0 times, my thinking on the topic is heavily influence by observing the agency for some time now. 2/
In my professional work in developing countries I was struck how different the DFID representatives often seemed to all the other donors'. The DFID folks seemed to have more autonomy to make decisions, and also to care more about outcomes over process. 3/
My first book, Navigation by Judgment, focuses on the first bit - the autonomy. It includes case studies of DFID as compared to USAID, linking DFID's success to its management style. 4/
In the UK discussing that book a few years ago, I had an interesting conversation with an MP. "You see", he said, "the problem with DFID is that those people are too dedicated to the mission, if you get my drift". I didn't - and neither does theory. 5/
Everything I think I know about organizational economics and public administration suggests that people devoted to the causes is a feature, not a bug. The MP meant, he explained, that DFID people would irritatingly focus on poverty reduction even when politically inconvenient.6/
And a lightbulb went off, a perhaps blindingly obvious but rarely-uttered point I'd never seen theorized: Politicians, and managers, can be a BARRIER to good work, can wish to thwart bureaucrats' fulfillment of their organizations' laudable missions. 7/
That insight is in no small part what my current work is about. Many of the #MissionDrivenBureaucrats of DFID have responded very much as my theory would predict: 8/
By noting how much of their identity was part of DFID - and how widely that was shared into a "we" of the organization. 9/
By worrying about staff losses and how that will detract from the agency's laudable goals, which so many of its employees share or have internalized. 10/
With pride, and sadness. 11/
And maybe a pint or three. 12/
*OK, the pint isn't an explicit part of my theory. But sure seemed appropriate to me!
*OK, the pint isn't an explicit part of my theory. But sure seemed appropriate to me!
These are but a few of literally scores of examples. There is so much evidence, as @scepticalranil put it, of "how many people live the work" at DFID. 13/
An organization fulfills its goals best by having employees that share its goals - that want to accomplish its goals. My twitter feed suggests that there is a risk of losing a good part of that in the transition, precisely because the mission of DFID will not be that of FCDO. 14/
I was in Canberra a year ago today, meeting with staff and leadership at Australia's merged aid and foreign office. I've never in my life met a more disheartened group of development assistance professionals. This report agrees. devpolicy.org/publications/r… 15/
You can't just change an organization's mission and expect to keep staff devoted to that mission. That MP has succeeded - or will. There will over time be fewer and fewer people at the new agency who privilege poverty over politics, global impact over tomorrow's headlines. 16/
That may be good for the current cabinet ministers. But it surely is sad. Not just for DFID staff, not just for Britons, but also - indeed, particularly - for those who DFID's mission primarily assisted. A lot of global welfare will surely be lost. 17/
Just to end on a slightly uplifting note, one way of mitigating this damage is for someone else to open their doors to those who want to leave DFID. If I ran a UN agency, or a bilateral donor, or a big NGO, I would be devising a pipeline for DFID staff who want to transition. 18/
I bet there are a lot of DFID #MissionDrivenBureaucrats would rather serve DFID's former mission than work for the UK Government, if the worries are borne out in what FCDO strives to achieve and thus these staff are indeed forced to choose between the two. (end)
