In the end, that's a blind alley - we have to get back to being able to think on our feet and react.

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

Somewhere like Russia or China, decision-makers have far fewer constraints on acting than in more open systems.

I see [activists] getting really angry that people won't just do what the evidence tells them, and that's not very helpful. You need to actually think why that is.

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

Until you have looked in depth at the system and found out where women in Egypt are not being cut through female genital mutilation, or where kids in Vietnam are not malnourished, or where hospitals in America are getting rid of the superbugs anyway - unless you have that level of curiosity about what's going on without you, you will always come in with your great new recipe and just ignore what's going on, and that will make you much less effective at what you're trying to achieve.

If you were disabled in Russia, you had to re-register every year, and it took up to six months to re-register, so people who lost limbs in Afghanistan had to prove that their leg hadn't grown back.