Harry Jones

Harry Jones is a Research Fellow in the RAPID group at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), the UK’s leading think tank on international development. His work focuses on decision-making in policy making and implementation in developing countries. He has carried out research, advisory services, evaluations and inputs to programme design and implementation in a number of countries in Africa and Asia. This work combines an understanding of the policy process and use of knowledge with an analysis of power and political economy, directed towards providing practical yet innovative advice, as exemplified by his book on Knowledge, Policy and Power recently published by the Policy Press. His pragmatic work on complexity theory has also received considerable attention, including a two year research project surveying principles and frameworks for implementing programmes in the face of complex problems.

He graduated from Balliol College, Oxford University, with a first class masters degree in mathematics and philosophy and university-wide prizes for work on political theory and the philosophy of social science, this has since been supplemented with short courses in game theory, complex social systems, sociology, and political economy analysis from a variety of quality institutions. He joined the ODI soon after university, and was promoted four times in five years to become the youngest member of the senior research staff. Over that time he has advised DFID, the World Bank, various UN organisations, and developing country governments. He has been based in Nepal since May 2011 working on a large DFID-funded initiative, where he is currently managing a project looking to promote changes in policy and practice through the targeted deployment of research and expertise.