Under what conditions does an understanding of political economy strengthen aid-supported development efforts? This paper sheds light on this question by reflecting on the experience and engagements of a small team of policy researchers in the Politics and Governance Programme (PoGo) of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI). Since around 2009, the work of this group has been largely focused on supporting the movement towards politically smarter development assistance. Three particular areas of work are considered in the paper: problem-focused political economy studies; training in applied political economy analysis (PEA) for development agency staff; and direct engagement with donor operations.
Our experience as explained in this paper suggests placing more emphasis on the weaknesses of PEA as an entry point for transforming development work and the feasibility of approaching the same challenges from a different angle – starting with ways of working.
