Joseph Wales

Research Officer, Politics and Governance

Joe joined the Politics and Governance team at ODI in August 2012. He is a graduate of Oxford University and has an MPA in International Development from the London School of Economics.

Before ODI he worked in Mexico and India for small NGOs, designing and analysing the outcomes of randomised controlled trials testing the effectiveness of interventions in public education.

His worked at ODI has included political economy analysis of the road sector and human resources for health in Nepal; providing statistical analysis and support for the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium; and working with Development Progress to analyse the factors behind improvements to education quality in Chile.

Outputs

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Outputs

The technical is political: understanding the political implications of sector characteristics for education service delivery

Publication - Research reports and studies - 2 September 2013

Daniel Harris, Richard Batley, Claire Mcloughlin and Joseph Wales

The education sector has characteristics that have political as well as technical implications. They affect the ways in which individuals and groups interact in relation to the delivery of education services. Achieving improvements in sector outcomes demands strategies that are politically feasible and effective as well as technically sufficient.

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Human resources for health in Nepal - the politics of access in remote areas

Publication - Research reports and studies - 31 March 2013

Daniel Harris, Joseph Wales, Harry Jones and Dr. Tirtha Rana, with Roshan Lal Chitrakar

This country evidence note explores the political economy dynamics associated with attempts to ensure access to qualified human resources for health (HRH) in remote rural areas of Nepal where low ratios of skilled health personnel per head of population persist.

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Avoiding political potholes on the road to development

Opinion - Articles and blogs - 24 January 2013

'Government decisions over road investments are based on complex political calculations...This means conditionality alone is unlikely to be effective in many cases.'

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Development of the Netherlands Institute on Multi-party Democracy theory of change

Projects - October 2012 to January 2013

This project aims to support the Netherlands Institute on Multi-party Democracy to further develop and refine the Theory of Change underpinning their work.

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The political economy of roads: an overview and analysis of existing literature

Publication - Bibliography and literature reviews - 1 October 2012

Joseph Wales with Leni Wild

This piece draws on literature from a range of countries and contexts to provide a structured political economy analysis in relation to the roads sector. It explores how a variety of governance conditions interact with the particular characteristics of the road sector to facilitate or impede positive results and reforms.

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