Kerala Rising: From Exporting People to Exporting Ideas · Page 266 of 353

KERALA RISING · FROM EXPORTING PEOPLE TO EXPORTING IDEAS

KERALA RISING · FROM EXPORTING PEOPLE TO EXPORTING IDEAS
18. Risks, and what we expect to
get wrong
A framework that claims it will not fail anywhere
is not credible. The honest position is to name
the failure modes and show the control for each,
and to publish the assessment either way.
Some risks are specific to a program and were
named in its chapter. Others are structural: they
threaten the machine itself and apply to every
program. The serious ones, stated plainly, with the
mitigation that is built in rather than hoped for:
STRUCTURAL
RISK
WH Y I T I S
SE RI OUS
Scope creep
dilutes focus
Seven programs
invite a thin
spread that proves
nothing.
Strict sequencing; no
second program
activates before the
first passes its
independent
assessment.
If citizens stop
trusting the audit,
the loop breaks.
Per-program fraud
controls; random
human audit; the
corpus is public, so
gaming is visible and
correctable.
Verification is
gamed
TH E M I TI GA T I ON
A partner
An official can
department feels quietly kill a
threatened
program.
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The political-economy
rule: the partner
chairs activation and