OPM has an ability to carry out surveys in amazing places, ranging from the deserts of Northern Kenya via the mountains of Pakistan to the tiny islands of the Maldives. People deal with the usual challenges of sand, snow, sea sickness, and occasionally with hazards such as lions or suicide bombers.
"For donors looking to adopt a similar approach to UNICEF, there is an important underlying message: to achieve the changes in service delivery that many donors want to see - and governments themselves want to make - effective PFM systems must be in place first. These are the foundations for enabling wider, more sustainable social change, as the PFM approach ensures funding is aligned with policy priorities and long-term goals, rather than simply financing short-term projects, however superficially attractive these may be."See the full note (just 4 pages) here.
It is likely that bigger and more well-established agencies will be better able to answer these questions than smaller ones, though these do not have to be international agencies. This is an important observation as it suggests that bigger, more experienced, and more independent organizations with a greater range and depth of skills and deeper knowledge of the countries in which they are working are more likely to make wiser choices about how to deploy their funds than are smaller and newer agencies, which are often run and staffed by people with little development and country experience. It should be added that there are not only many competent nationally based poverty-focused organizations but that many of these have a better understanding of poverty and especially how it might be eradicated faster than do some international agencies. Also, it must not be thought that it is only the bigger agencies that do good development work: many smaller, especially locally based, agencies perform very valuable work. Additionally, a number of smaller agencies set up by people now living in the industrialized world but based on a deep understanding of the local communities in need—such as Send a Cow—continue to have a significant impact. The challenge is finding out about them.
Oxford Policy Management (OPM) is a leading development consultancy with offices in Oxford, Islamabad, Delhi, Pretoria, Dhaka and Jakarta. We provide rigorous analysis, policy advice, management and training services to governments, international aid agencies and other public sector and non-government organisations. OPM aims to contribute in innovative ways to enhance economic and social progress in developing and transition economies, with a focus on the needs of the poorest people. We have worked in over 90 low and middle income countries over the last 30 years.
OPM is seeking to recruit an Assistant Consultant to work in its cross-cutting portfolio. The cross-cutting team is OPM's entry point for talented and passionate individuals with limited experience or no particular specialisation to work in development consultancy, and progress by either specialising in one of the other technical areas or remaining generalist. Skills are learnt through project work with senior consultants (including overseas fieldwork and ministry work as possible), a year-round training programme, and mentorship from an experienced senior consultant. We expect high performance, and reward it with promotions, salary increments and responsibility. The cross-cutting portfolio currently contains four assistant consultants and four consultants who work on and sometimes lead consulting and research projects across the rest of OPM’s specialist portfolios.
This role is full-time based in our Oxford office and the anticipated salary range is between £20,000 and £23,000.
Closing date is 01 April 2025For more see here. There are also a few other positions open, including an Assistant Consultant based in Jakarta and a Senior Health Economist.
The most emblematic quote on the necessity of migration, viewed as a constrained choice, was given by a group of young boys from non-migrant families, who considered themselves lucky (and rich) enough never to have to migrate themselves:
“Those people who go to Russia do not go on a whim, but out of despair, from a bad life. They are willing, for the future of their children, to endure many hardships. They have no other choice.”From a report just published by UNICEF (and prepared by OPM). Like sweatshop labour, many on the left seem to see migration driven by desperation as a problem. When clearly it is that desperation due to poverty that is the problem, and uncomfortable symptoms such as poor quality jobs and migration are actually generally alleviating the problem (not that more shouldn't be done to address poverty directly).
Cash transfers are an increasingly important component of social protection systems in most countries. Usually, cash transfers are evaluated against their effects on poverty or human capital, with their impact on social relations within and between households relegated to discrete comments on ‘stigma’, ‘resentment’ and sharing, including reduction of remittances and other support. Using evidence from Oxford Policy Management's evaluations of cash transfer programmes in Malawi and Zimbabwe, we suggest reconceptualising cash transfers as ongoing processes of intervention in a complex system of social relations. Cash transfer interventions operate through and affect this system at each stage: awareness-raising, targeting, payment, case management and monitoring and evaluation. We conclude that the impact of cash transfers on social relations is large and often negative. We argue that this is intrinsically important for wellbeing, but can also have negative consequences for material aspects of wellbeing, such as livelihoods.Which sounds to me like it could be construed as a pretty good argument for making transfers universal, perhaps starting like South Africa with support for children, pensions, and disabled people.
A 2006 Australian report ‘Capacity Building Evaluation’ states that the development community spends $15 billion annually on capacity development but is “unsure” of the return on its investment. In 2008, the World Bank concluded that no more than half of the $720m it spends on training each year actually resulted in enhanced capacity.That bears repeating - less than half of World Bank spending on training actually does anything.
- Making a prior political economy assessment of the barriers to capacity development and the prospects for building conditions for successful partnership.
- Not engaging unless the leadership group in the organisation is committed to the goals and is willing to allow space for change.
- Designing interventions that take account of the political and economic environment. For instance, organisational change strategies in civil services in South Asia must take into account the power and influence of cross-departmental cadres, and the strong bonds between batch-mates.
- Designing support programmes that allow enough time for new capacities to be institutionalised and are sufficiently flexible to survive political inattention, senior staff turnover, and periodic distractions. Important elements of this are establishing inclusive networks and engaging on a wide front to allow for changing partners and temporary reversals.
- Promoting a process of change that allows time and opportunity for confidence building through small successes amongst the leadership team, before addressing major challenges.
- Adopting a patient but persistent approach that keeps long-term behavioural goals in mind, exploits windows of opportunity, avoids unnecessary confrontations and focuses on results rather than publicising a badged reform.
