Delivery units look like the holy grail of development: political will combined with technical focus. Indeed, they can work extremely well, especially where the focus is on technically straightforward, measurable priorities such as teacher attendance, student attendance or facilities construction.
A unit may also be an appropriate intervention to improve an education system or a specific issue from ‘poor’ to ‘adequate’. However, please don’t believe anyone who sells a unit as a silver bullet solution for transformational change across an education system. In my experience, they get the best results in combination with a wider set of interventions to bring about performance improvement.
Of course, delivery systems vary considerably by sector and country. Bear in mind that there is no one ‘ideal structure’ for a unit. Context is key. A heavily populated, centralised country like Malaysia will require a different approach to a vast, decentralised nation like Tanzania. Local innovation is often more effective than a top-down technocratic solution.
Act with humility
Rather than wield the big stick over the civil service, the unit’s role is to add value by supporting interventions where performance is off-track. It’s worth remembering that the unit itself does not deliver. Instead, it plays a role in supporting the system to deliver. You must remain self-critical and keep a close connection with frontline workers when analysing problems and developing solutions.
There are some genuine caveats that come with a delivery unit. They can bring a preoccupation with structure over substance. They can create parallel structures, systems and processes. They risk focusing on what’s easily measurable in the short term rather than what’s genuinely important in the long term. Unscrupulous governments will always find ways to pervert or manipulate them to suit their own interests. In the same way that a caterpillar can make itself look poisonous to a hungry bird, those ministries go through the right motions, but nothing ever changes.
Nevertheless, they can provide valuable cut-through and rapid progress. To keep control of the outcomes, it’s important to keep sight of the unit’s basic principles. Focus on a small number of things. Set up a direct line to the frontline. See the world through the eyes of individual citizens rather than government financiers. Get evidence and resources flowing both ways.
A few years ago, I might have given a resounding thumbs-up for delivery units. But now, my response is more circumspect. The first step should always be to look at existing structures. If you can embed what you want to achieve as part of what you’re doing already, then you don’t need a delivery unit. If you can’t, then a unit is perhaps the right call. I’ve seen talented people in government use them to improve delivery and make a massive difference to communities. But it won’t happen without genuine political will.