Trust and Mistrust: External Evaluators Assess Mexico's Anti-Poverty Programs

Publication Date: December 01, 2004

For much of its history as an independent nation, the government of Mexico provided a wide range of publicly-funded social services for the poor. Such "poverty alleviation" efforts included a free milk program, subsidies for the poor farmers,...

Aiding or Abetting? World Bank and the 1997 Judicial Reform Project

Publication Date: December 01, 2004

When the World Bank signed an agreement with the government of Peru in December, 1997 to provide a $22.5 million loan to help reform the country's antiquated and corrupt judicial system, the Bank knew it faced risks. Peru's President Alberto...

The White House Carves the Turkey

Publication Date: November 01, 2004

When a deputy director for environmental protection in the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff of the US Army learns that a project on which he'd worked for 14 months was about to be scrapped by the White House, he compares his fate to that...

Confrontation in Utah

Publication Date: November 01, 2004

When the new supervisor of the Manti-La Sal National Forest in San Juan County, Utah receives a letter from the local county commission demanding that she direct the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources to remove a significant number of elk from...

Spilling the Beans in Owaho

Publication Date: November 01, 2004

This case about the pressures that the press can pose for public employees focuses on a project leader in the US Forest Service who finds she must deal, on a regular basis, with an aggressive reporter who covers environmental issues, and who...

Reporting in the "Fog of War": The Story of Jessica Lynch

Publication Date: November 01, 2004

On the evening of April 1, 2003, Americans turning on their televisions for the latest news on the two-week-old war in Iraq got a happy surprise: Jessica Lynch, a young Army private missing in action, had been rescued from an Iraqi hospital...

Hong Kong Copes with SARS, 2003: The Amoy Gardens Outbreak (Epilogue)

Publication Date: November 01, 2004

This epilogue accompanies the case 1774.0. In the last days of March, 2003, the frightening new disease known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, seemed to threaten to spread out of any control in the one of the world's most...

Hong Kong Copes with SARS, 2003: The Amoy Gardens (Epilogue)

Publication Date: November 01, 2004

In the last days of March 2003, the frightening new disease known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, seemed to threaten to spread out of any control in the one of the world's most densely-populated cities: Hong Kong. After weeks of effort to...

Hong Kong Copes with SARS, 2003: The Amoy Gardens

Publication Date: November 01, 2004

In the last days of March 2003, the frightening new disease known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, seemed to threaten to spread out of any control in the one of the world's most densely-populated cities: Hong Kong. After weeks of effort to...

The Truth, The Whole Truth ... Or a Reasonable Facsimile?

Publication Date: November 01, 2004

A career program manager in the "National Space Department" faces a very delicate decision: as the person assigned to write the testimony for his boss for a congressional hearing on a failing program, should he come clean or should he fudge? The...

A Go-Getter in DOD

Publication Date: November 01, 2004

When a newly-appointed Department of Defense official takes her position, she finds that she must decide quickly how to deal with a "cowboy"-style employee who, although arguably getting impressive results, has been working outside established...

Parks and Partnership in New York City: The Spectrum of Engagement (B)

Publication Date: October 01, 2004

In a gradual but profound transition, New York's park system had become dependent on private partners. The private sector's involvement was pervasive by 2003, but came in very different forms. This case, a companion to Adrian Benepe's Challenge,...