By Akin Monehin

The political-economy test every serious reform eventually has to pass.

“This one will change things in the country permanently.”

“Are you sure sir?”

“Yes! We have done our homework; the policy is documented, the processes are being embedded as we speak, we are deliberate about building capability over the next 18 months. And most importantly, we are working with the National Assembly to put the legal foundations in place. This will outlive our generation.”

“So if you leave office in, say, three years’ time, your successor will not be able to undo it?”

“Ah; not easily. No. Do you appreciate what we are putting in place?”

“A few months ago, I might have agreed more quickly.”

“What changed?”

“Two people challenged my thinking.”

I had shared an earlier framework on how reforms move from political intent into institutional behaviour. The first reviewer, an experienced public-sector strategy and performance executive, agreed with the thesis but objected to something fundamental. The framework treats institutionalisation as a design problem,she went further, when it is primarily a political economy problem.

The honourable minister frowned.

“What does that mean in practice?”

The lady put it in practical terms: a reform can have legislation, a dedicated funding mechanism, an implementing institution and formal controls, and still under deliver if behaviour, monitoring and consequence management are not sufficiently embedded. The architecture may be in place while the incentives underneath it still favour the old system.

“So process is not enough.”

“No.”

“Legislation is not enough?”

“Necessary in many reforms. But not sufficient.”

“Capability?”

“Essential.”

“Then what are we missing?”

“Power.”

Every consequential reform changes something. It may change who decides, who controls information, who receives resources, who loses discretion, whose income is affected or whose established way of working becomes less valuable.

Reform therefore creates beneficiaries but it also creates people with reasons to resist.
The reviewer suggested a question that deserves to sit beside every reform plan: Who lost power or income when this reform worked, and what did they do about it?

She contrasted the Treasury Single Account with the Procurement Act. Her point was not that one was perfect and the other useless, but that formal design alone cannot explain institutional survival. One must also understand whose interests the new arrangement strengthens, whose it threatens, and whether those forces outlive the original champion.

“I know; every reform creates opposition – for sure”

“Indeed; every meaningful reform changes somebody’s reality.”

“And the minister should identify the losers …”

“… before the losers organise around the reform.”

He smiled.

Then I told him about the second response from a friend of mine who was a state Attorney General/Commissioner of Justice and a Rule of Law Advisor to the Presidency.

“My own instinct had been similar to yours: embed the process, strengthen the institution and, where appropriate, give the reform legal standing.”

“Reasonable.”

“I still think so. But the other reviewer sent me a sentence I have not forgotten.”

“What sentence?”: Anything can be dismantled, he said, with a straight face. Trump has shown that it does not matter how long an institution has existed…

He raised an eyebrow.

His deeper point was not partisan: longevity alone does not make an institution or policy untouchable. Political succession can challenge arrangements predecessors considered settled.

“The strongest protection for a reform is not making it impossible for a successor to change, but giving the successor reasons not to.”

Then he posed two harder questions: How can one make a new policy politically expensive for successors to alter? Or, put differently, How can one make the policy sufficiently valuable that it is in a successor’s interest to protect and sustain it?

“That is a different question,” the honourable minister said.

“Completely.”

Legal standing, process and structure matter. But legal existence and execution durability are not the same thing.

A law can remain while implementation weakens. An institution can survive while the behaviour the reform was meant to change quietly returns.

“The real test of institutionalisation is not whether people comply while you are in power, but whether the system still works when your power is gone.”

“So nothing is permanent?”

“Perhaps permanence is the wrong objective.”

“What is the right one?”

“Durability.”

I describe the Reform Durability Gap™ as the distance between a reform working because its champion is present and becoming sufficiently embedded in institutional capability, incentives and constituencies to survive without that champion.

The first reviewer made another challenge: reform frameworks often assume institutional capability that may not exist.

Processes, performance systems and digital tools do not operate themselves. Officers need the skill, authority and motivation to use them. And motivation has a history. A civil servant who has watched successive reform cycles arrive loudly and disappear quietly may stop investing discretionary effort in the next. That can look like resistance. It may also be rational adaptation.

“I know the saying that institutions learn to wait ministers out…”

“Sometimes.”

“That is bleak.”

“It is also useful, because it changes what a reformer must build.”

Three tests follow to have an enduring reform.

The first is the institutional test: what currently happens because you are Minister that must happen routinely when you are no longer there? Decisions, data, funding mechanisms, consequence management, capability and operating processes must migrate from personal authority into institutional practice.

The second is the political-economy test: who loses power, income, discretion or status if the reform succeeds, and what will they do about it? Then ask the mirror question: who benefits enough to defend the reform after its champion has gone? If opponents are concentrated and motivated while beneficiaries are diffuse and passive, formal institutionalisation may remain fragile.

The third is the successor test: “If somebody who disagreed with you politically became Minister tomorrow, what would make it rational for them to keep this reform?”

“That is a difficult test.”

“It should be.”

The point is not to make reform impossible to change. Democratic governments must be able to change policy. The question is whether the reform has created enough public value, capability, stakeholder support and political or economic consequence that a successor sees reasons to preserve what works rather than erase a predecessor’s signature.

“So I should design my reforms, imagining somebody who does not like me succeeds me?”

“You should design it for somebody who does not need to like you.”

He laughed.

Then he returned to where we had started.

“So perhaps ‘will this reform survive me?’ is the wrong question.”

“What would you ask instead?”

“Who will have a reason to keep it alive when I am gone?”

That was better.

Great reformers deserve recognition for what they change while they hold power. But institutionalisation begins when the reform no longer depends primarily on that power. Laws matter. Processes matter. Capability matters…. so do interests, incentives and succession.

The greater legacy is not a reform that carries your name, but one that no longer needs your name in order to survive.
Monehin is the author of best-selling ‘Execution Is a Lie’ and Managing Partner of Praxis Execution Advisory.

He has worked across more than 10 countries, with experience spanning British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Nigeria LNG and Shell, where he led Business Transformation as a member of Shell Deepwater executive leadership team. He now helps governments and organisations translate strategy, policy and knowledge into measurable results and impact.