Policy implementation: The organizational challenge

Many policy reform failures result from lack of attention to how reform implementation is organized. Policy change often requires difficult changes in stakeholder coalitions, shifts in the structures and rules of implementing agencies, and new patterns of interaction. This article explores the organizational challenges of implementing policy change and offers a framework for understanding the tasks associated with implementation. Drawing on the experience of the US Agency for International Development's Implementing Policy Change Project, it offers examples of effective organizational solutions to these tasks. The article concludes with a brief treatment of organizational mechanisms for bridging the transition between preexisting policy regimes and new ones. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd