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In Patching Development, Rajesh Veeraraghavan reports on a relatively positive case study of developing in India, shedding new light on the challenges and benefits of using information and technology to effectively reach marginalized citizens. The book argues that holding the state accountable for achieving the goals of a program requires a continuous series of responses that react to local implementation and information, a process of patching development.
This involves altering power equations through attention to small, incremental changes in institutions and technology, documents and other processes. While each patch may have only limited local significance, the cumulative impact can potentially transform state-society relations.
About the author
Rajesh Veeraraghavan is an Assistant Professor of Science Technology and International Affairs (STIA) Program at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.
Summary
Diving into an original and unusually positive case study from India, Patching Development shows how development programs can be designed to work.
How can development programs deliver benefits to marginalized citizens in ways that expand their rights and freedoms? Political will and good policy design are critical but often insufficient due to resistance from entrenched local power systems. In Patching Development, Rajesh Veeraraghavan presents an ethnography of one of the largest development programs in the world, the Indian National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), and examines NREGA's implementation in the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. He finds that the local system of power is extremely difficult to transform, not because of inertia, but because of coercive counter strategy from actors at the last mile and their ability to exploit information asymmetries. Upper-level NREGA bureaucrats in Andhra Pradesh do not possess the capacity to change the power axis through direct confrontation with local elites, but instead have relied on a continuous series of responses that react to local implementation and information, a process of patching development. "Patching development" is a top-down, fine-grained, iterative socio-technical process that makes local information about implementation visible through technology and enlists participation from marginalized citizens through social audits. These processes are neither neat nor orderly and have led to a contentious sphere where the exercise of power over documents, institutions and technology is intricate, fluid and highly situated. A highly original account with global significance, this book casts new light on the challenges and benefits of using information and technology in novel ways to implement development programs.
Additional text
How do you get cash payments for labor to the rural poor in the world's largest anti-poverty program? From the commanding heights of the bureaucracy to the front-lines of the village, from sophisticated software to grass roots social audits, Patching Development brilliantly shows us how the National Rural Employment Guarantee program in India has confronted the infamous problems of the last mile. The challenges and conflicts of implementing public policies to fight poverty have never been illuminated in such detail and with such analytic power.
