Economists who studied in the '80s tend to have a pretty crude neoclassical view that's just about freeing up prices and markets, and then you'll get the growth and everybody benefits. And they'll just repeat that, because if you're a minister or a senior civil servant, you don't have time to read anything anymore. You get very fixed in your views.

Lots of people in the open system are very determined to try and strengthen evidence-based policy.

What you don't do is just say, "I've got all the ideas and all the knowledge, and listen to me."

The question, "When did you last listen to a poor person properly and try to understand what's going on inside their own experience?" enables you to connect.

I sound like a church nut, but look at the role of the churches in the civil rights movement in the States. People are brought together in other ways that can become drivers of change.

When you get talking to people in positions of power, you find that often their worldview is framed either in terms of their disciplinary studies at university and/or the country where they first got interest in development.

Economists who studied in the '80s tend to have a pretty crude neoclassical view that's just about freeing up prices and markets, and then you'll get the growth and everybody benefits. And they'll just repeat that, because if you're a minister or a senior civil servant, you don't have time to read anything anymore. You get very fixed in your views.