I dug up my old notes on this book review. Here they are:
So, I’ve just spent some time going through the World Bank documents on its interventions in Lesotho. The Anti-Politics Machine is not doing great on epistemic checking
There is no recorded Thaba-Tseka Development Project, despite the period in which it should have taken place being covered
There is a Thaba-Bosiu development project (parts 1 and 2) taking place at the correct time.
Thaba-Bosiu and Thaba-Tseka are both regions of Lesotho
The spec doc for Thaba-Bosiu Part 2 references the alleged problems the economists were faced with (remittances from South African miners, poor crop yield … no complaint about cows)
It has a negative assessment doc at the end. It was an unsuccessful project. This would match
The funding doesn’t quite match up. The UK is mentioned as funding the “Thaba-Tseka” project, and is indeed funding Thaba-Bosiu. But Canada is I believe funding a road project instead
Something like 2⁄3 of the country is involved in Thaba-Bosiu Development II (It became renamed the “Basic Agricultural Services Program”)
There is no mention of ponies or wood involved in interventions anywhere. In fact, the part II retrospective includes the lack of focus on livestock as a problem (suggesting they didn’t do much of it)
They were focused on five major crops (maize, sorghum, beans, peas and wheat)
Also the quote in the book review of the quote in The Anti-Politics Machine of the quote in the report doesn’t show up in any of the documents I looked at (which basically covered every project in Lesotho by the World Bank in that time period). The writing style of the quote is also moderately distinct from that of the reports
AFAICT, the main intervention was fertiliser. The retrospective claims this failed because (a) the climate in Lesotho is uniquely bad and screened off fertilisation and (b) the Lesotho government fucked up messaging and also every other part of everything all the time and ultimately all the donors backed out.
The government really wanted to be self-sufficient in food production. None of the donors, the farmers or the world bank cared about this but the government focused its messaging heavily around this. The government ended up directing a lot of its efforts towards a new Food Self-Sufficiency Program which was seen as incompatible with the goals of Basic Agricultural Services Program.
The fact that the crop situation wasn’t working was recognised fairly early on. They started on an adaptive trial of crop research to figure out what would work better. This was hampered by donor coordination so only happened in a small area, but apparently worked quite well
All-in-all, sounds less bad than the Anti-Politics Machine makes it out to be, and also just generally very different? I’m not 100% certain I’ve managed to locate all the relevant programs though, so it’s possible something closer to the book’s description did happen
Wow, thanks for doing the legwork on this—seems like quite possibly I’m analyzing fiction? Annoying if true.
Google’s AI response to my search for the Thaba-Tseka Development Project says:
According to available World Bank documentation, the “Thaba-Tseka development project” is primarily referenced within the context of the “Lesotho Integrated Transport, Trade and Logistics Project,” which focuses on improving the road corridor connecting Katse to Thaba-Tseka, aiming to enhance regional connectivity and reduce trade costs at Lesotho’s borders with South Africa; key documents to reference would be those related to this project, particularly those detailing the road infrastructure development component between Katse and Thaba-Tseka.
Key points about the documentation:
Project Title: “Lesotho Integrated Transport, Trade and Logistics Project”
Focus Area: Upgrading the Katse to Thaba-Tseka road corridor
Relevant documents to explore: Project Appraisal Documents, Procurement documents related to road construction and improvement on the Katse-Thaba-Tseka stretch
There’s a good chance this is an AI hallucination, though; a cursory search of the main documents didn’t yield any references to a “Thaba-Tseka development project,” or the wood or ponies. I’m not familiar with World Bank documentation, though, and likely the right followup would involve looking at exactly what’s cited in the book.
But even if the Thaba-Tseka Development Project is real & accurately described, what is the justification for focusing on this project in particular? It seems likely that James Ferguson focused on it b/c it was especially inept & hence it’s not obviously representative of the World Bank’s work in general.
I agree that even if the book turned out to be entirely accurate we should not assume that this case is representative of the average development project, but we could still learn from it. Many hours from highly trained and well-paid people are allocated to planning and evaluating such projects, which expenditure is ostensibly to ensure quality. Even looking at worst cases helps us see what sort of quality is or is not being ensured.
I don’t completely disagree but there is also some danger of being systematically misleading.
I think your last 4 bullet points are really quite good & they probably apply to a number of organizations not just the World Bank. I’m inclined to view this as an illustration of organizational failure more than an evaluation of the World Bank. (Assuming of course that the book is accurate).
I will say tho that my opinion of development economics is quite low…
I built the explanatory model based on my experience employed by and reading about other vaguely analogous institutions, but an acquaintance who’d previously worked at the World Bank said it seemed like an accurate characterization of that institution as well.
I dug up my old notes on this book review. Here they are:
Wow, thanks for doing the legwork on this—seems like quite possibly I’m analyzing fiction? Annoying if true.
Google’s AI response to my search for the Thaba-Tseka Development Project says:
There’s a good chance this is an AI hallucination, though; a cursory search of the main documents didn’t yield any references to a “Thaba-Tseka development project,” or the wood or ponies. I’m not familiar with World Bank documentation, though, and likely the right followup would involve looking at exactly what’s cited in the book.
However, the other lead funder, the Canadian International Development Agency, does seem to have at least one publicly referenced document about a “Thaba-Tseka rural development program”: Evaluation, the Kingdom of Lesotho rural development : evaluation design for phase 1, the Thaba Tseka project
But even if the Thaba-Tseka Development Project is real & accurately described, what is the justification for focusing on this project in particular? It seems likely that James Ferguson focused on it b/c it was especially inept & hence it’s not obviously representative of the World Bank’s work in general.
I agree that even if the book turned out to be entirely accurate we should not assume that this case is representative of the average development project, but we could still learn from it. Many hours from highly trained and well-paid people are allocated to planning and evaluating such projects, which expenditure is ostensibly to ensure quality. Even looking at worst cases helps us see what sort of quality is or is not being ensured.
I don’t completely disagree but there is also some danger of being systematically misleading.
I think your last 4 bullet points are really quite good & they probably apply to a number of organizations not just the World Bank. I’m inclined to view this as an illustration of organizational failure more than an evaluation of the World Bank. (Assuming of course that the book is accurate).
I will say tho that my opinion of development economics is quite low…
I built the explanatory model based on my experience employed by and reading about other vaguely analogous institutions, but an acquaintance who’d previously worked at the World Bank said it seemed like an accurate characterization of that institution as well.