Open problem · Draft v0.5

Three Principles

Starting indicators for diagnosing the state of small areas

Gains from external support often do not last, and the same problems recur. We ask a narrow question: can public indicators show what state a place is in, so that what is prescribed matches where the place stands?

This is a request for critique, not for funding. It is a hypothesis and a prototype, not an answer.

The question

Which indicators show the state a place is in, and what to prescribe there?

Effort in water, safety and education is spread without a shared picture of where each place stands. Water points go out of service. Peace relapses into war. Budgets are shrinking. When money is short, mistakes in where and how to spend it cost more.

An idea from drylands

In degraded drylands, ecologists describe a site as being in a state: a resistant combination of soil and vegetation. Crossing a threshold moves it into another state, and going back needs active restoration. Soil constraints have to be addressed before planting. Scattering seed on bare ground tries to cross one threshold while another still holds.

We borrow three ideas from this. Places are in states. Different states call for different treatments, sometimes in a fixed order. And the state has to be diagnosed before a remedy is prescribed. The third idea is not new: growth diagnostics does this for countries. We propose to do it for small areas, across several dimensions including safety, with states defined by whether gains persist.

Tipping points in human development are contested. We treat them as a hypothesis to test, not a finding. We speak of states, not stages.

Four states, as a hypothesis

We would diagnose a place by asking questions in order, so that it falls into exactly one state. Places can move backward as well as forward.

1. Can services operate at all?

   S0 Unreachable No: protection and a minimum of support; seek access; re-assess regularly.

2. If external input stopped, would the foundations hold?

   S1 Externally held No: make the foundations durable first, with maintenance systems, protective capacity and local institutions.

3. The foundations hold. Do gains sustain themselves?

   S2 Stalled No: identify the most binding constraint and apply a targeted, larger push.

4. Gains sustain themselves.

   S3 Self-sustaining Monitor lightly and hand over.

The tree is a hypothesis. The definition of the states would be derived from persistence data, not set in advance.

Starting indicators

We start with safety, water and education, which are basic conditions on which other outcomes plausibly depend. This is a starting set, not a validated one.

Rules for classifying places

A label should not be a black box or a political decision in disguise. Six principles: published rules; reproducible; uncertainty shown; challenge and history; classification separate from allocation; sensitivity shown. They are set out in Section 6 of the brief.

What we have and have not done

• We searched for a public, small-area, multi-dimensional system that includes safety and is validated against whether gains persist, and did not find one. The search was not exhaustive, and we welcome counter-examples (Appendix A).
• The prototype map is at country level with hand-entered approximate values. Country is the wrong unit for this question.
• The four states are untested. The brief lists what would change our mind.

How to help

Critique of the state tree, the indicators and the persistence definitions. Pointers to similar work we should build on. Evidence for or against thresholds at small scale. A written comment or a 20 to 30 minute conversation, or public critique, is welcome.

Reach us on LinkedIn or X (@3principles_org). See also the field account from Nairobi.