Thinking and working apolitically - Teskey (2024)

This chapter, written by Graham Teskey and published in The Elgar Companion to the World Bank, traces the rise, evolution and partial decline of the “Thinking and Working Politically” (TWP) agenda. It situates TWP within the governance-focused momentum of the late 2000s and early 2010s, when research showed that technical solutions routinely failed without attention to power dynamics and political feasibility. The TWP Community of Practice, launched in 2013, championed more adaptive, politically informed approaches, alongside related ideas such as Doing Development Differently (DDD) and Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA).

Teskey outlines how TWP encouraged donors to move beyond rigid logframes toward iterative learning, flexible implementation and coalition-building. However, he argues that geopolitical shifts, reduced aid budgets, organisational disruption and renewed donor self-interest since 2014 have slowed adoption. Drawing ten lessons from a decade of practice, the chapter concludes that TWP remains essential but under-embedded, urging donors to enable genuine adaptation, strengthen learning, and apply politically aware methods to today’s development challenges.