WELCOME

MDS-509:
Studying Feasibility of Development Interventions

Session-3:
Basic skills and ethical code for feasibility analysis

Dr. Md. Nurul Amin

Associate Professor
Department of Public Administration
Jahangirnagar University
 Basic skills for feasibility analysis

(1) Analysts must know how to gather , organize, and communicate

information in situation in which deadlines are strict and access to
relevant people is limited;

(2) Analysts need a preparation for putting perspective social

problems in context.
 Basic skills for feasibility analysis

(3) Analysts need technical skills to enable them to predict better and
to assess more confidently the consequences of alternative
decisions. The disciplines of economics and statistics serve a
primary sources for these skills;

(4) Analysts must have the an understanding of political and

organizational behavior in order to predict, and perhaps influence,
the feasibility of adoption and the successful implementation of
state-lead development interventions.
Gathering information for feasibility
analysis

 Facts are relevant in estimation the extent and

nature of development interventions.
 Data can often helps us discover facts !
Gathering information for feasibility
analysis
Two points warrant note:
First, What one considers to be a fact will often depend upon
the theory one brings to bear;
Second, Virtually all the facts we bring to bear will be, to
some extent, uncertain.
Therefore, we are almost never in a position to prove any
assertion with logic alone. Rather, we must balance
sometime inconsistent evidence to reach conclusions about
appropriate assertions.
Gathering information for feasibility
analysis
Document research ( reviewing
relevant literature, dealing with both
theory and evidence, and location
Gathering existing sources of raw/primary data)
evidence for
feasibility Field research (conduction
analysis interview/survey research and
gathering original data)
Gathering information for feasibility
analysis
Journals, articles, books,
dissertations

Publications/ reports of
think tanks, interest group
Literature
and consulting firms
review
Popular press and blogs

Government publications
and research documents
 Gathering information for feasibility
analysis

Bureau of statistics/census
Data and
statistical
sources International development
organization
Gathering information for feasibility
analysis

A note on
documentation in the web age !
 Gathering information for feasibility
analysis

What information will interviewing most

effectively?

How can the efficacy of an interview be

judged?
Field
research How do you get interviewees to talk?

How should you decide when to interview

someone?
Gathering information for feasibility
analysis

Putting together document review and field

research (E. Bardach, 1974):

Documents to Documents lead to

documents people

People lead to People lead to

documents people
Professional ethics : alternative repose
to value conflict- voice , exit, and
disloyalty
 Ethical code or Ethos?

General guideline that deserve consideration:

(1) Feasibility analysis not work for clients who they believe have goals
that contradict the basic values of democracy and human rights, and
should regime rather than contribute to the realization of goals with
which they fundamentally disagree;
(2) Clients deserve complete honesty, including explicated assumptions
and uncensored alternatives, and that analyst should not use their
access to their information and influence with clients to further their
own private interest;
Ethical code or Ethos?

(3) Rather than wait for code of ethics, perhaps we should, as

Mark Lilla argues, work toward an ethos for the new
profession of policy/feasibility analysis;
(4) None the less, we should show considerable tolerance for
the ways our clients choose to resolve difficult value conflicts,
and we should maintain a realistic modesty about the
predictive power of our analysis.
Thank you