Harvard Center for International Development

In this episode of our Road to GEM24 podcast series, Javed Malik, Program Director of the Malala Fund in Pakistan, dives into the realms of education, governance, and development. Tune in to listen to discussions on the role of evidence-based policymaking, challenges in education delivery, and the imperative of gender-focused interventions. Hosted by Usama Mohammed, a student at Harvard's Graduate School of Education

Join us as we dive into strategies to foster investment in female founders, with a special focus on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Our guests, Katherine Coffman from Harvard Business School and Hela Cheikhrouhou from the International Finance Corporation, shed light on the barriers and disparities faced by female founders and advocate for gender-specific approaches to funding. Hosted by Alison Kim, a student at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Dive into the vibrant LGBTQ+ movements of Lebanon and Mexico in our latest episode of "Zooming Into the LGBTQ+ Movement." Join us as we speak with two remarkable activists and entrepreneurs, Tarek Zeidan and Enrique Torre Molina. Tarek is the founder of Helem, the pioneering LGBTQ+ organization in the Arab world, while Enrique co-founded Colmena 41, an organization bridging entrepreneurship, advocacy, and narrative for the LGBTQ+ community. Stay tuned until the end to hear insights from all our guests on the future of international development in our "Zooming In and Out" segment. Hosted by Harvard Kennedy School MPA student, Evy Peña.

Join us as we zoom into the LGBTQ+ movement in Brazil and Kenya with Antonia Moreira (Atelier TRANSmoras Association) and Enosa Adera (Trans* Alliance). Antonia brings the power of fashion to the forefront, using it as a catalyst for advocacy and community building in Brazil. Meanwhile, in Kenya, Enosa confronts a legal landscape of criminalization, employing policy advocacy and representation to instigate transformative change. Evy Peña, HKS student, hosts this dynamic conversation uncovering the crossroads of identity, activism, and resilience.

Join Diego Garcia Blum, Director of the Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, and Professor Tim McCarthy, a Lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School and at the Harvard School of Education. Together, they navigate the complex terrain of the LGBTQ+ movement worldwide, delving into misinformation, elections, narrative strategies, and the enduring spirit of hope as the international sector continues to broaden its definition of gender. Hosted by Evy Peña, MPA student at HKS.

Join Harvard University's Center for International Development for the inaugural episode of 2024’s Road to GEM podcast series, setting the stage for CID's annual conference, which this year focuses on gender and development. In this episode, CID Executive Director Fatema Z. Sumar and Research Fellow Mara Bolis engage in a thought-provoking conversation about gender and international development—reflecting on the sector's progress, current status, and the path ahead. Drawing from their extensive field experiences, Fatema and Mara offer compelling perspectives on the necessary actions to shape a future where every individual, regardless of gender, can thrive. Hosted by Evy Peña, MPA student at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s “Road to GEM23” Climate & Development podcast. CID's "Road to GEM23" series precedes and helps launch CID’s Global Empowerment Meeting (or GEM), Growing in a Green World on May 10th and 11th. At CID, we work across a global network of researchers and practitioners to build, convene, and deploy talent to address the world’s most pressing challenges. On our Road to GEM23, we strive to elevate and learn from voices from the countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis and will feature important learnings from the leaders who will be active participants at GEM23. This week, we are joined by Atharv Agrawal, Wajed Nadine El-Halabi & Jina Yazdanpanah from University of Toronto to discuss their fog harvesting technology in Morocco and other climate related research. Read more about GEM here: www.hks.harvard.edu/gem

In this interview, Charles Hua, senior at Harvard College and CID student ambassador, speaks with Xavier Cortada and Adam Roberti. Cortada, a Cuban-American artist, seamlessly works across disciplines to engage communities, urging them to draw upon local experiences and unlock their inherent creativity. Adam Roberti is the executive director of the Xavier Cortada Foundation. Discover how Cortada and Riberti leverage socially engaged art as a powerful tool, creating experiences that educate, inspire, and mobilize communities to collectively combat climate and ecological crises. The conversation delves into the profound impact of art in solving community problems, emphasizing the importance of tapping into the creativity, knowledge, and wisdom of those residing on the front line, offering a unique perspective on how art can be a driving force for change.

Navigating Cities and Climate Change by Harvard Center for International Development

Join Charles Hua, senior at Harvard College and CID student ambassador, as he engages in a thought-provoking interview with Shayan Chowdury, Founder of Reach4Help. This tech nonprofit is on a mission to connect people in need with trusted volunteer help across more than 38 countries, effectively coordinating logistics to understand needs and mobilize resources where they're most needed. Chowdury shares the organization's response to disasters, such as floods and fires, recognizing them as direct effects of climate change. This realization compelled him to shift focus and tackle the root cause—climate change itself. Discover how Reach4Help adopts a bottom-approach, relying on the expertise of local communities and providing space for on-the-ground experts in disaster relief.

Unlock the power of data democratization in our latest episode featuring Wolfgang Fengler, CEO of World Data Lab. As the driving force behind an initiative that aims to democratize data globally, Fengler discusses the urgent need to shift from backward-looking data to to break down data into relevant and actionable pieces, with a focus on critical areas like global emissions for informed decision-making and sustainable development. Join us as we delve into the challenges of organizing and harnessing and breaking down available data into relevant and actionable pieces in order to democratize information.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Road to GEM23 Climate & Development podcast. At CID, we work across a global network of researchers and practitioners to build, convene, and deploy talent to address the world’s most pressing challenges. On our Road to GEM23, we strive to elevate and learn from voices from the countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis and will feature learnings from leading researchers and practitioners working to combat climate change. In this episode, we are joined by Shloka Nath, CEO of the India Climate Collaborative (ICC); and Manavi Bhardwaj, Senior Manager at ICC. The India Climate Collaborative is a first-of-its kind, India-focused collaborative that seeks to direct funding and visibility towards climate action in India. The ICC is incubated by the Tata Trusts, and legally registered as the Council of Philanthropies for Climate Action. Shloka and Manavi are joined by Manasa Acharya, a CID Student Ambassador alum and a graduate of urban planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design 23'. The three discussed the work of the India Climate Collaborative and the role of climate philanthropy to scale solutions in the country.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Road to GEM23 Climate & Development podcast. At CID, we work across a global network of researchers and practitioners to build, convene, and deploy talent to address the world’s most pressing challenges. On our Road to GEM23, we strive to elevate and learn from voices from the countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis and will feature learnings from leading researchers and practitioners working to combat climate change. In this episode, we are joined by Michael Oppenheimer is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), the Department of Geosciences, and the High Meadows Environmental Institute at Princeton University. He is also the Director of the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment (C-PREE) at SPIA. Oppenheimer previously worked with The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) where he served as chief scientist and manager of the Climate and Air Program. He continues to serve as a science advisor to EDF. Oppenheimer is also a long-time participant in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, most recently serving as a Coordinating Lead Author on IPCC’s Special Report on Oceans and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (2019) and as a Review Editor on the upcoming Sixth Assessment Report. Oppenheimer is joined by CID Student Ambassador Yan Liang to discuss climate adaptation policies and the systemic changes for improved mitigation and resiliency across sectors.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Road to GEM23 Climate & Development podcast. At CID, we work across a global network of researchers and practitioners to build, convene, and deploy talent to address the world’s most pressing challenges. On our Road to GEM23, we strive to elevate and learn from voices from the countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis and will feature learnings from leading researchers and practitioners working to combat climate change. In this episode, we are joined by Scott Sellwood, Policy Lead, Human Rights & Extractive Industries at Oxfam America. Scott is joined by CID Student Ambassador, Charles Hua, to discuss environmental justice and natural resource extraction during a transition towards clean energy globally. Read more about Scott on Oxfam's website here: https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/people/scott-sellwood/ And on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/scott_sellwood

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Road to GEM23 Climate & Development podcast. At CID, we work across a global network of researchers and practitioners to build, convene, and deploy talent to address the world’s most pressing challenges. On our Road to GEM23, we strive to elevate and learn from voices from the countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis and will feature learnings from leading researchers and practitioners working to combat climate change. In this episode, we are joined by Alvin Tian, A Post-Masters Research Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School. Alvin founded BlockCarbon, a blockchain-based project aimed at facilitating and accelerating China's efforts to achieve carbon net-zero. Alvin has been a Mason Fellow at Harvard and a Sloan Fellow at MIT, where he has also earned an MPA degree and an MBA degree. His fields of study at Harvard and MIT include climate change, international relations, impact investing, venture capital, renewable energy, and blockchain. Alvin is joined by CID Student Ambassador Charles Hua to discuss the pathway to carbon-zero

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Road to GEM23 Climate & Development podcast. At CID, we work across a global network of researchers and practitioners to build, convene, and deploy talent to address the world’s most pressing challenges. On our Road to GEM23, we strive to elevate and learn from voices from the countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis and will feature learnings from leading researchers and practitioners working to combat climate change. In this episode, we are joined by Kevin Li, a Master's in Public Policy candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School. Previously, he worked with Deloitte Climate & Sustainability, advising Chinese companies on decarbonization and ESG; he also worked with the United Nations in China coordinating UN operational activities for development in the country. Kevin is joined by CID Student Ambassador Charles Hua to discuss U.S.-China relations and global climate policy.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Road to GEM23 Climate & Development podcast. At CID, we work across a global network of researchers and practitioners to build, convene, and deploy talent to address the world’s most pressing challenges. On our Road to GEM23, we strive to elevate and learn from voices from the countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis and will feature learnings from leading researchers and practitioners working to combat climate change. In this episode, we are joined by Kritika Kharbanda, a Master’s in Design Studies graduate(‘23)at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, specializing in Energy and Environments. During her time at Harvard, she was also the Chang Social Innovation Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. Kritika also co-founder of Cardinal LCA, a digital platform that helps architects reduce greenhouse emissions from their buildings throughout all stages of design. Kritika is joined by CID Student Ambassador Charles Hua to discuss the needs, process, and roadblocks for decarbonizing the building sector, especially for developing countries. Learn more about Kritika on her LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kritika-kharbanda-kritika/

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Road to GEM23 Climate & Development podcast. At CID, we work across a global network of researchers and practitioners to build, convene, and deploy talent to address the world’s most pressing challenges. On our Road to GEM23, we strive to elevate and learn from voices from the countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis and will feature learnings from leading researchers and practitioners working to combat climate change. In this episode, we are joined by Reema Nanavaty, Director, SEWA (Self-Employed Women’s Association) in India. SEWA is the single largest Central Trade union registered on 12th April, 1972 with a membership of over 2.5 million (2023) poor, self-employed women workers from the informal economy across 18 states in India. Reema is joined by CID Student Ambassador and Graduate School of Design alum Manasa Acharya to discuss the implications of climate change on the informal workforce of women in India. SEWA has been working for over 5 decades to improve the livelihoods of poor self-employed women workers from the informal economy, through various initiatives using technology, technical training, microfinance, market linkages, natural resource management etc. Learn more: https://www.sewa.org/about-us/

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Road to GEM23 Climate & Development podcast. CID's Road to GEM23 series precedes and helps launch CID’s Global Empowerment Meeting 2023 (GEM23), Growing in a Green World on May 10th and 11th. At CID, we work across a global network of researchers and practitioners to build, convene, and deploy talent to address the world’s most pressing challenges. On our Road to GEM23, we strive to elevate and learn from voices from the countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis and will feature learnings from leading researchers and practitioners working to combat climate change. In this episode, we are joined by Rui Su, a consultant at the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) and the Social Sustainability and Inclusion (SSI) GP. She conducts data analytics on social resilience and inclusion by combining machine learning methods, geospatial analysis, and interactive visualization. CID Student Ambassador and Harvard Graduate Student at the Graduate School of Design, Manasa Acharya, interviewed Rui Su to learn more about her work with City Resilience Program (CRP) and using data to inform communities about climate change and resilience across the world.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Road to GEM23 Climate & Development podcast. CID's Road to GEM23 series precedes and helps launch CID’s Global Empowerment Meeting 2023 (GEM23), Growing in a Green World on May 10th and 11th. At CID, we work across a global network of researchers and practitioners to build, convene, and deploy talent to address the world’s most pressing challenges. On our Road to GEM23, we strive to elevate and learn from voices from the countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis and will feature learnings from leading researchers and practitioners working to combat climate change. In this episode, we are joined by Gavin Schmidt, Climatologist and Director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies who will describe the biggest challenges with modeling and predicting climate change effects across the world. CID Student Ambassador and Harvard Graduate Student Yan Liang interviewed Gavin Schmidt to learn more about his insights on the complex mechanisms that drive climate change and identifying and mitigating effects of climate change on society in the coming years.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Road to GEM23 Climate & Development podcast. CID's Road to GEM23 series precedes and helps launch CID’s Global Empowerment Meeting 2023 (GEM23), Growing in a Green World on May 10th and 11th. At CID, we work across a global network of researchers and practitioners to build, convene, and deploy talent to address the world’s most pressing challenges. On our Road to GEM23, we strive to elevate and learn from voices from the countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis and will feature learnings from leading researchers and practitioners working to combat climate change. In this episode, we are joined by Joshua Schoop, Principal Director for Technology & Innovation and Director for Day One Project at Federation of American Scientists, and Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, Vice Chair for implementation of the UN Climate Convention; Director of the School for Biocultural Leadership at Geoversity. CID Student Ambassador and Harvard Graduate School of Education Master's Candidate, Aining Liang, interviewed Joshua and Juan Carlos to learn more about their insights related to climate change adaptation, especially for developing economies.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Road to GEM23 Climate & Development podcast. CID's Road to GEM23 series precedes and helps launch CID’s Global Empowerment Meeting 2023 (GEM23), Growing in a Green World on May 10th and 11th. At CID, we work across a global network of researchers and practitioners to build, convene, and deploy talent to address the world’s most pressing challenges. On our Road to GEM23, we strive to elevate and learn from voices from the countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis and will feature learnings from leading researchers and practitioners working to combat climate change. In this episode, we are joined by Joseph Aldy, Professor of the Practice of Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. His research focuses on climate change policy, energy policy, and regulatory policy. In 2009-2010, Aldy served as the Special Assistant to the President for Energy and Environment, reporting through both the National Economic Council and the Office of Energy and Climate Change at the White House. Professor Aldy is joined by Charles Hua, a CID Student Ambassador and Senior at Harvard College. Charles and Professor Aldy discussed the use of Solar Geoengineering, or solar radiation management, to manage climate risks and outlined how this strategy could be a part of the climate mitigation and adaptation toolkit for emerging economies.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s “Road to GEM23” Climate & Development podcast. CID's "Road to GEM23" series precedes and helps launch CID’s Global Empowerment Meeting (or GEM), Growing in a Green World on May 10th and 11th. At CID, we work across a global network of researchers and practitioners to build, convene, and deploy talent to address the world’s most pressing challenges. On our Road to GEM23, we strive to elevate and learn from voices from the countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis and will feature important learnings from the leaders who will be active participants at GEM23. This week, we are joined by Joseph Asunka, CEO of Afrobarometer, a pan-African survey research organization. Afrobarometer has been collecting, analyzing, and disseminating data on the views and experiences of ordinary Africans with regard to governance, democracy, the economy, and society since 1999. CID Student Ambassador Emile Giovannie Zounon, A Master of Education Candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, sat down with Joseph to discuss African citizen perceptions towards climate change and governance on the continent. Read more about GEM23 here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/gem Read more

This podcast was originally recorded on November 18, 2022, for the CID Speaker Series featuring Aleem Walji, Senior Advisor - Strategy, Innovation and Partnerships at the Institute for Capacity Development, International Monetary Fund. Aleem continued the conversation with CID Student Ambassador, Aining Liang, after an appearance at the CID Speaker Series event. Exponential technologies will not improve the lives of the poor by default. Design choices will determine who benefits from digital disruption and who is left behind. Two decades ago, many predicted that a digital divide would marginalize already underserved populations. While there are examples of digital exclusion, technologies like the mobile phone, mobile money and new delivery models have led to significant innovation and inclusion in financial services, health, education and agriculture. Recent advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning and distributed ledgers, however, are not ‘inclusive by design’. Hardware is not distributed equally and most poor populations do not have reliable access to broadband, computing power or electricity. Delivery model innovation and how tech-enabled enterprises partner with the local, state and federal governments will determine whether these technologies will benefit the poor, result in greater inclusivity and drive greater equity.

This podcast was originally recorded on October 7, 2022, for the CID Speaker Series featuring Séverine Autesserre, Author and Professor and Chair of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University. Séverine continued the conversation with CID Student Ambassador, Aining Liang, after an appearance at the CID Speaker Series event. Séverine's latest book "The Frontlines of Peace" tells the stories of the ordinary yet extraordinary individuals and communities that have found effective ways to confront violence. Drawing on 20 years of work in peacebuilding, including in-depth research in 12 conflict zones around the world as well as comparisons with social initiatives in North America and Europe, Séverine shows that peace can grow in the most unlikely circumstances, with the help of the most unlikely heroes. The Frontlines of Peace opens our eyes to the well-intentioned but systematically flawed peace industry, shedding light on how typical aid interventions have been getting it wrong, and—more importantly—how a few of them have been getting it right.

This podcast was originally recorded on September 23, 2022, for the CID Speaker Series featuring Karim Sarhan, Research Fellow at Harvard's Center for International Development and Partner at Sharkawy & Sarhan Law Firm. Karim continued the conversation with CID Student Ambassador, Kevin Chen, after an appearance at the CID Speaker Series event. Karim presents his latest paper with CID, "Bringing Development Strategy Back In: New Insights from China, South Korea, and Singapore." The paper attempts to answer the following question: can countries’ economic success be attributed, even partially, to a well-designed and effectively implemented development strategy? It presents a framework for a “Grand Strategy of Development” as a new conceptual lens for understanding the economic transformation that happened in China, South Korea and Singapore​.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Beyond COVID podcast. This podcast is a series of conversations with CID faculty experts on various key dimensions of COVID response and recovery. Our goal with these conversations, and with CID’s Beyond COVID research initiative, is to make use of lessons learned and capitalize on emergent innovations sparked by the pandemic in order to address losses and reimagine global development in the post-COVID era. On June 5, 2022, we were joined by Gordon Hanson, the Peter Wertheim Professor in Urban Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. CID Student Ambassador Eiffy Luo sat down with Gordon to discuss global labor market macro-policy and economic growth post-COVID.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Beyond COVID podcast. This podcast is a series of conversations with CID faculty experts on various key dimensions of COVID response and recovery. Our goal with these conversations, and with CID’s Beyond COVID research initiative, is to make use of lessons learned and capitalize on emergent innovations sparked by the pandemic in order to address losses and reimagine global development in the post-COVID era. On April 20, 2022, we were joined by David Deming, Professor of Education and Economics at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Professor of Political Economy at the Harvard Kennedy School. CID Student Ambassador Nicah Santos sat down with David to discuss education, job preparedness, and the future of work.

This podcast was originally recorded on Friday, April 8, 2022, for the CID Speaker Series featuring Robert Lawrence, Albert L. Williams Professor of International Trade and Investment at John F. Kennedy School of Government. Robert continued the conversation with CID Student Ambassador, Kevin Chen, after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event. Professor Lawrence discusses the causes and consequences of the diminished role of manufacturing as a driver of economic growth and inclusion in developed and developing countries. The talk explains why the share of manufacturing follows an inverted U-shaped curve as countries develop; considers why that curve has shifted downwards and inwards over time; shows that all developed and many developing countries, even those with large trade surpluses in manufacturing are now on the downward slope of the curve; and evaluates the implications recent industrial policy initiatives in the light of this experience.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Beyond COVID podcast. This podcast is a series of conversations with CID faculty experts on various key dimensions of COVID response and recovery. Our goal with these conversations, and with CID’s Beyond COVID research initiative, is to make use of lessons learned and capitalize on emergent innovations sparked by the pandemic in order to address losses and reimagine global development in the post-COVID era. On March 11, 2022, we were joined by Aisha Yousafzai, Associate Professor of Global Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. CID Student Ambassador Aqil Merchant sat down with Aisha to discuss early childhood development.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Beyond COVID podcast. This podcast is a series of conversations with CID faculty experts on various key dimensions of COVID response and recovery. Our goal with these conversations, and with CID’s Beyond COVID research initiative, is to make use of lessons learned and capitalize on emergent innovations sparked by the pandemic in order to address losses and reimagine global development in the post-COVID era. On March 3, 2022, we were joined by Walter Willett, Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. CID Student Ambassador Kerianne DiBattista sat down with Walter to discuss nutrition, climate change, and COVID-19.

This podcast was originally recorded on Friday, February 25, 2022, for the CID Speaker Series featuring Debbie Aung Din, Co-Founder of Proximity Designs. Debbie continued the conversation with CID Student Ambassador, Sohee Hyung, after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event. Growing a sustainable social business that achieves impact at scale is no easy feat. And leading an organization in Myanmar, with concurrent political, health, economic and environmental crises, presents acute challenges to deliver on your mission and strategy. Proximity Designs, a 17-year veteran social enterprise committed to boosting the incomes and well-being of vulnerable farm families in Myanmar, has matured and adapted through it all. Founded by HKS alumni, Jim Taylor and Debbie Aung Din (MPA '90) in 2004 to address poverty and market gaps faced by 70% of the country's population, Proximity has designed and delivered a portfolio of affordable agriculture technology, agronomy and financial services to over 1.2 million rural households. With Harvard CID, Debbie will share her journey in social entrepreneurship, what it takes to start and scale a social enterprise, how to create innovative products for the bottom of the pyramid and lessons on leading an organization during times of crisis.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Beyond COVID podcast. This podcast is a series of conversations on various key dimensions of COVID response and recovery. Our goal with these conversations, and with CID’s Beyond COVID research initiative, is to make use of lessons learned and capitalize on emergent innovations sparked by the pandemic in order to address losses and reimagine global development in the post-COVID era. On a special edition of the Beyond COVID Podcast originally recorded on February 25, 2022, we heard from an external perspective: Dr. Steven Phillips, Vice President of Science and Strategy at the COVID Collaborative. CID Student Ambassador Aqil Merchant sat down with Dr. Phillips to discuss COVID-19 vaccine distribution and longer-term pandemic preparedness.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Beyond COVID podcast. This podcast is a series of conversations with CID faculty experts on various key dimensions of COVID response and recovery. Our goal with these conversations, and with CID’s Beyond COVID research initiative, is to make use of lessons learned and capitalize on emergent innovations sparked by the pandemic in order to address losses and reimagine global development in the post-COVID era. On February 18, 2022, we were joined by Tarun Khanna, Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at the Harvard Business School, Director of the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard, and Co-Chair of The Lancet Citizens’ Commission on Reimagining India’s Health System. CID Student Ambassador Devangana Rana sat down with Tarun to discuss his work with the Lancet Citizens’ Commission and more generally his insights on building resilient and equitable health systems.

This podcast was originally recorded on Friday, February 11, 2022, for the CID Speaker Series featuring Jacqueline (Jackie) Klopp, Co-director of the Center for Sustainable Urban Development and a Research Scholar at Columbia University. Jackie continued the conversation with CID Student Ambassador, Manasa Acharya, after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event. Many rapidly growing African cities are experiencing large-scale transportation investment in a time of climate change and deep inequalities. Current choices around this critical urban infrastructure will have enormous impacts into the future- on public health, land-use, carbon emissions, and overall urban livability with the danger of high carbon, low livability lock-in. Despite the importance of these decisions, they tend to be made in profoundly exclusive ways. Using Nairobi as a case study, this talk explores the politics of decision making in the urban transport sector and argues that one important approach to enhancing accountability and advocacy for more just, low carbon transport in African cities involves nurturing locally driven "Digital Data Commons". Such open, shared and publicly discussed data on transportation, equity and emissions, can enhance transparency on impacts of decisions and help provoke badly needed, more inclusive planning and investment conversations.

This podcast was originally recorded on Friday, February 04, 2022, for the CID Speaker Series featuring Meagan Dooley, the Global Program Officer at Tetra Tech, and George Ingram, a Senior Fellow - Global Economy and Development, Center for Sustainable Development at Brookings. Dooley and Ingram continued the conversation with CID Student Ambassador, Daniella Ineza, after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event. Digital infrastructure and government services are no longer just nice to have, but essential elements of a 21st century nation. Yet digital capabilities are ideologically neutral and can thus serve authoritarian as well as democratic tendencies. Therefore, development donors must be wary of whom they partner with and how they deliver assistance for digital government. The speakers will present a new working paper identifying the key elements of digital government, presenting data on how developing countries are adopting digital government, and providing recommendations for donor support to help spur a digital transformation in developing countries.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Beyond COVID podcast. This podcast is a series of conversations with CID faculty experts on various key dimensions of COVID response and recovery. Our goal with these conversations, and with CID’s Beyond COVID research initiative, is to make use of lessons learned and capitalize on emergent innovations sparked by the pandemic in order to address losses and reimagine global development in the post-COVID era. This week, we are joined by Karen Dynan, Professor of the Practice in the Department of Economics at Harvard University and Former Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy and Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. CID Student Ambassador Nicah Santos sat down with Karen on December 16, 2021, to discuss resilient macroeconomic policies and inclusive economic growth.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Beyond COVID podcast. This podcast is a series of conversations with CID faculty experts on various key dimensions of COVID response and recovery. Our goal with these conversations, and with CID’s Beyond COVID research initiative, is to make use of lessons learned and capitalize on emergent innovations sparked by the pandemic in order to address losses and reimagine global development in the post-COVID era. This week, we are joined by Raffaella Sadun, Professor of Business Administration in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School. CID Student Ambassador Sohee Hyung sat down with Raffaella on December 1, 2021, to discuss resilient health systems and hospital management.

This podcast was originally recorded on Friday, December 3rd, 2021 for the CID Speaker Series featuring Sharmi Surianarain, Chief Impact Officer of the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator. Surianarain continued the conversation with our CID Student Ambassador, Jamar Williams, after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event. South Africa has the highest youth unemployment rate in the world. Annually, approximately 1 million young people exit schooling and enter the labor market. Within a year, nearly two-thirds are unemployed and discouraged, meaning only one-third find any kind of work or continue to further education. Harambee develops solutions to promote inclusive growth and reduce unemployment by identifying and creating jobs and work experiences for young people, breaking barriers for young people to access work, and linking young work-seekers to formal and informal work opportunities. In this session, Harambee and its key research partners share lessons from 10 years of impact and partnership with government, business, and civil society to achieve practical and scalable impact. In addressing South Africa’s challenge, Harambee believes an African blueprint can be prototyped to help solve a global challenge.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Beyond COVID podcast. This podcast is a series of conversations with CID faculty experts on various key dimensions of COVID response and recovery. Our goal with these conversations, and with CID’s Beyond COVID research initiative, is to make use of lessons learned and capitalize on emergent innovations sparked by the pandemic in order to address losses and reimagine global development in the post-COVID era. This week, we are joined by Margaret (Maggie) McConnell, Associate Professor of global health economics in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. CID Student Ambassador Harsh Sahni (Mason Fellow, HKS) sat down with Maggie on November 15th, 2021, to discuss how to build resilient health systems.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Beyond COVID podcast. This podcast is a series of conversations with CID faculty experts on various key dimensions of COVID response and recovery. Our goal with these conversations, and with CID’s Beyond COVID research initiative, is to make use of lessons learned and capitalize on emergent innovations sparked by the pandemic in order to address losses and reimagine global development in the post-COVID era. This week, we are joined by Zoe Marks, Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. CID Student Ambassador Aqil Merchant (Harvard College) sat down with Zoe on November 10th, 2021, to discuss how to build resilient education systems.

This podcast was originally recorded on Friday, October 29th, 2021 for the CID Speaker Series featuring Latanya Mapp Frett, President of Global Fund for Women. Frett continued the conversation with our CID Student Ambassador, Kerianne DiBattista, after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event, Co-sponsored by the Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) at the Harvard Kennedy School. From the Green Wave to #EndSARS, movements drive social transformation but lack resources and support. Feminist funds are changing that. They up-end the development model by providing flexible funding straight to local grassroots leaders and groups to use as they wish. Instead of dictating priorities, feminist funds follow grantees’ leadership, supporting them in addressing needs, opportunities, and challenges as they arise, on their own terms. Traditional philanthropy can resemble an old boys’ club. Only 0.42%—less than half of 1%—of all foundation grants are dedicated to women's rights. Feminist funders take a different approach. Think less top-down decision making, exploitation, and poverty porn; and more solidarity, trust, and building collective power.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Beyond COVID podcast. This podcast is a series of conversations with CID faculty experts on various key dimensions of COVID response and recovery. Our goal with these conversations, and with CID’s Beyond COVID research initiative, is to make use of lessons learned and capitalize on emergent innovations sparked by the pandemic in order to address losses and reimagine global development in the post-COVID era. This week, we are joined by Asim Khwaja, CID Director and the Sumitomo-Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development Professor of International Finance and Development at the Harvard Kennedy School. CID Student Ambassador Devangana Rana(Harvard College) sat down with Asim on October 19, 2021, to discuss how to build resilient education systems.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Beyond COVID podcast. This podcast is a series of conversations with CID faculty experts on various key dimensions of COVID response and recovery. Our goal with these conversations, and with CID’s Beyond COVID research initiative, is to make use of lessons learned and capitalize on emergent innovations sparked by the pandemic in order to address losses and reimagine global development in the post-covid era. This week, we are joined by Emmerich Davies, Assistant Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. CID Student Ambassador Aqil Merchant (Harvard College) sat down with Emmerich on October 13, 2021, to discuss how to build resilient education systems.

This podcast was originally recorded on Friday, October 15, 2021 for the CID Speaker Series featuring Andrew Stern, Founder and CEO of The Global Development Incubator(GDI). Stern continued the conversation with our CID Student Ambassador, Mandla Isaacs, after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event. Creating impact at the scale of the problems we are trying to solve in the world is hard -- be it climate change, global migration or agricultural finance. GDI aims to take good ideas and turn them into great solutions -- and ones that can attempt to make a dent in the big problems of our time. In addition to designing and launching new product or service solutions, GDI also creates multi-stakeholder initiatives that bring together governments, companies and nonprofit organizations to solve big problems, such as: How do we build a sustainable agricultural finance market in East Africa? Or, can we create more durable and ethical solutions for refugees and migrants? Or, how do we protect large swaths of forests around the world, with a minimum size being equivalent to the State of Vermont? GDI designs, builds and launches efforts like these and can share some of the lessons learned and pitfalls of attempting to do so.

Originally recorded on Friday, October 1, 2021 for the CID Speaker Series, featuring Dianne Calvi, President and CEO of Village Enterprise. Calvi continued the conversation with our CID Student Ambassador, Maryam Guerrab, after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event where they shared insights on addressing extreme poverty and the Village Enterprise model. Great progress has been made in alleviating extreme poverty. According to the World Bank, the number of people living in extreme poverty dropped significantly from 1.9 billion people in 1990 to 689 million in 2017. But due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that progress has stalled for the first time in 25 years. What does the evidence point to as possible solutions to this problem? The evidence suggests that entrepreneurship and innovation play important roles in driving poverty alleviation. Identifying and scaling up the most cost-effective, evidence-based solutions has never been more urgent as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and conflict could push hundreds of millions of people into extreme poverty. Microloans, cash transfers, and poverty graduation are three different approaches to providing the extreme poor with a path out of extreme poverty.

Originally recorded on Friday, September 17, 2021 for the CID Speaker Series, featuring ​Philippe Aghion, Professor at the College de France, at INSEAD, and at the London School of Economics. Aghion continued the conversation with our CID Student Ambassador Ana Alvarez after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event where they shared insights from his research and book, The Power of Creative Destruction. Creative destruction is the process whereby new innovations displace old technologies. This talk will use the lens of creative destruction and of the so-called Schumpeterian growth paradigm to: (i) address some main enigma in the history of economic growth; (ii) question common wisdoms on growth policy design; (iii) rethink the future of capitalism, and how to direct the power of creative destruction to achieve sustained, greener, and more inclusive prosperity. Philippe Aghion is a Professor at the College de France, at INSEAD, and at the London School of Economics, and a fellow of the Econometric Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research focuses on the economics of growth. With Peter Howitt, he pioneered the so-called Schumpeterian Growth paradigm which was subsequently used to analyze the design of growth policies and the role of the state in the growth process. Much of this work is summarized in their joint book Endogenous Growth Theory (MIT Press, 1998) and The Economics of Growth (MIT Press, 2009), in his book with Rachel Griffith on Competition and Growth (MIT Press, 2006), and in his survey “What Do We Learn from Schumpeterian Growth Theory” (joint with U. Akcigit and P. Howitt.) In 2001, Philippe Aghion received the Yrjo Jahnsson Award of the best European economist under age 45, in 2009 he received the John Von Neumann Award, and in March 2020 he shared the BBVA “Frontier of Knowledge Award” with Peter Howitt for “developing an economic growth theory based on the innovation that emerges from the process of creative destruction.”

Originally recorded on June 9, 2021, after CID's Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) Faculty Director Rema Hanna's appearance at the HKS Faculty Webcast Series where she moderated a panel on making data-driven policy decisions in uncertain times. Hanna sat down with Sarah Lattrell, CID's Communications and Events Manager, to continue the discussion. Watch the original panel: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/node/305111 Rema Hanna, faculty chair of Leading Smart Policy Design: A Multisectoral Approach to Economic Decisions and CID's Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) Faculty Director, moderated a panel of Harvard faculty in "Using Data to Create Effective Policy in Uncertain Times". The panel featured Matthew Andrews, Asim I. Khwaja, and Karen Dynan addressing questions about how to use data effectively in making policy decisions and how data can inform policies aimed towards COVID recovery.

The views expressed by the speakers are their own and do not reflect the views of the World Bank Group. Originally recorded on April 23, 2021 for the CID Speaker Series, featuring ​Paul Corral, Nandini Krishan, Daniel Gerszon Mahler, and Tara Vishwanath, The World Bank. The guests continued the conversation with CID Student Ambassador Ana Alvarez, after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event where they shared insights from a new report, “Fragility and Conflict: On the Front Lines of the Fight against Poverty.” Globally, the prevalence of fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS) continues to rise. The number of forcibly displaced people worldwide has more than doubled since 2012, exceeding 74 million in 2018. A new report estimates that by 2030 up to two-thirds of the global extreme poor may be living in FCS, making it evident that without intensified action, the global poverty goals will not be met. The new report, “Fragility and Conflict: On the Front Lines of the Fight against Poverty,” notes that the 43 countries in the world with the highest poverty rates are in FCS and/or Sub-Saharan Africa. Economies facing chronic fragility and conflict have had poverty rates stuck at over 40 percent in the past decade, while countries that have escaped FCS have cut their poverty rates by more than half. Today, a person living in an economy facing chronic fragility and conflict is 10 times more likely to be poor than a person living in a country that hasn’t been in conflict or fragility in the past 20 years. The authors of this new report will joined us for the CID Speaker Series to discuss their findings. Live-tweet thread: https://twitter.com/HarvardCID/status/1385625931725873152?s=20 YouTube recording: https://youtu.be/TzvfcnOLY9s

Originally recorded on April 30, 2021 for the CID Speaker Series, featuring ​Kate Raworth, Economist & Co-Founder of the Doughnut Economics Action Lab. Raworth continued the conversation with our CID Student Ambassador after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event where they shared insights from her research and book, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist. Doughnut Economics starts with the goal of meeting the needs of all people within the means of the living planet. Achieving this calls for economies that are regenerative and distributive by design. What would it look like to put this into practice at the level of the city? Kate Raworth will present the core ideas of Doughnut Economics and share stories of how the idea is being put into action in cities and places worldwide. Kate Raworth is an economist focused on making economics fit for the 21st century. Her book Doughnut Economics: seven ways to think like a 21st century economist is an international bestseller that has been translated into 20 languages, and was long-listed for the 2017 Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year award. She is co-founder of Doughnut Economics Ac+on Lab, working with cities, businesses, communities, governments and educators to turn Doughnut Economics from a radical idea into transformation. She teaches at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute and is Professor of Practice at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.

Originally recorded on April 9, 2021 for the CID Speaker Series, featuring Priyadarshani Joshi, Senior Project Officer of Research with the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report. Priyadarshani Joshi continued the conversation with CID Student Ambassador after her appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event where she shared insights from her recent work on understanding how countries are coping with COVID-19 . The COVID-19 pandemic represents a historic disruption of education systems around the world. The Global Education Monitoring Report is an independent team housed at UNESCO analyses and contributes to the global discussion around educational progress in the Sustainable Development Goals Agenda through authoritative, evidence-based analyses; and by convening perspectives from a range of national and global experts. This presentation focuses on select recent contributions made by the GEM Report team (and others) on understanding how countries are coping with COVID-19 currently, the growing evidence base on financing, equity and systemic concerns, and what strategies are in place to try and recover from the pandemic.

Originally recorded on March 26, 2021 for the CID Speaker Series, featuring Sarah Rose and Erin Collinson from the Center for Global Development and Harvard Kennedy School Faculty Asim I. Khwaja & Dani Rodrik, and moderated by Professor Rema Hanna. Sarah Rose, Policy Fellow at the Center for Global Development, continued the conversation after her appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event held on March 26, 2021, where she discussed incorporating evidence in US development policy and programming. As the Biden Administration underscores its priority in utilizing evidence to inform policy, how can development practitioners practically do so? How can USAID and other development officials promote and ensure the collection of accurate and timely evidence, and how can they ensure the use of evidence to inform development policy and programming. During the panel, experts will provide their advice and insights on how to ensure evidence informs US development policy.

Originally recorded on March 12, 2021 Alix Zwane, Chief Executive Officer of the Global Innovation Fund, continued the discussion after a virtual CID Speaker Series event held on March 12, 2021 exploring their work further with CID Student Ambassador Sama Kubba. Successfully meeting international development goals in the post pandemic era calls for a renewed commitment to honesty both on a micro level and a macro level about what development assistance can and should seek to achieve. The debate about official assistance is often bookended by, at best, misplaced good intent and, at worst, falsehoods told to reinforce the status quo. Supporting innovation and R&D is at the heart of both an honest development agenda and the clearest path toward pushing decision-making more locally while still being true to our values around environmental, social, and governance standards such as gender equity and climate resilience. Alix Peterson Zwane is Chief Executive Officer of the Global Innovation Fund. She has 20 years of experience advancing the agenda of evidence-based aid and international development as an investor, a social entrepreneur, and an innovator herself. Alix has worked at the intersection of the evidence and innovation agendas from a diverse set of posts. She was the first employee and Executive Director at Evidence Action, a non-profit that develops service delivery models to scale evidence-based programs. Under Alix's leadership, Evidence Action catalyzed school-based deworming for hundreds of millions of children around the world, and safe drinking water for millions of people in four countries. Alix launched Evidence Action Beta, an incubator for innovations in development. Alix has also advocated for evidence-based philanthropy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Google.org, where she set strategy and made investments to support new public service models that work for the poor and developed models for outcome-based grant-making. She began her career in management consulting and was a member of the faculty of the Agricultural and Resource Economics Department at University of California, Berkeley. Alix has published in Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and elsewhere. She previously served on the board of directors of Innovations for Poverty Action, the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation, and Evidence Action. She holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University and is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. Born and raised in Colorado, she divides her time between Washington, D.C. and London.

Originally recorded on February 26, 2021. Shawn Baker, Chief Nutritionist for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) continued the discussion after a virtual CID Speaker Series event held on February 26, 2021, exploring their work further with CID Student Ambassador Sama Kubba. The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented threat to nutrition. It is simultaneously disrupting every sector that families rely on to nourish their children. As families’ incomes drop, they can no longer afford nutritious foods. Producers and sellers of nutritious foods are struggling to stay afloat. Health systems are overwhelmed, and families are more reluctant to access needed healthcare, while necessary efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 are decreasing coverage of life-saving care. In December, startling projections of the secondary impacts from COVID-19 on maternal and child nutrition and economic development were released. Shawn Baker, USAID's Chief Nutritionist, will share the latest data on the devastating impacts of COVID-19 on nutrition, as well as insights into how USAID and its partners are using this data to adapt programming and ensure a more effective, coordinated response to address this global nutrition crisis. Shawn Baker is the Chief Nutritionist for the US Agency for International Development (USAID). In this position, he chairs the Agency’s Nutrition Leadership Council, oversees the vision and strategy of the Agency’s Center for Nutrition in the Bureau for Resilience and Food Security, and coordinates related efforts across USAID. He also guides USAID’s investments and engagement with partners to address malnutrition in developing countries.

Originally recorded on February 12, 2021. Philippe Le Houérou, former CEO of the IFC continued the discussion after a virtual CID Speaker Series event held on February 12, 2021, exploring their work further with CID Student Ambassador Rohit Subramanian. Philippe Le Houérou discussed the reforms and changes implemented at the International Finance Corporations (IFC) from 20016-to 2020. The IFC is the arm of the World Bank Group that invests in (and with) the private sector in emerging and developing economies and shared his views on the role of the private sector and development finance in the 21st century, the link between public and private partnerships, and key challenges and constraints facing the poorest countries.

Originally recorded on January 29th, 2021. Michael Clemens, Director of Migration, Displacement, and Humanitarian Policy, Center for Global Development and Thomas Ginn, Research Fellow, Center for Global Development continue their discussion after a virtual CID Speaker Series event held on January 29th, 2021, exploring their work further with CID Student Ambassador Sama Kubba. Countries restrict the overall extent of international travel and migration to balance the expected costs and benefits of mobility. Given the ever-present threat of new, future pandemics, how should permanent restrictions on mobility respond? A simple theoretical framework predicts that reduced exposure to pre-pandemic international mobility causes a slightly slower arrival of the pathogen. A standard epidemiological model predicts no decrease in the harm of the pathogen if travel ceases thereafter and only a slight decrease in the harm (for plausible parameters) if travel does not cease. Researchers at the Center for Global Development, including featured speakers Michael Clemens and Thomas Ginn, test these predictions across four global pandemics in three different centuries: the influenza pandemics that began in 1889, 1918, 1957, and 2009. They find that in all cases, even a draconian 50 percent reduction in pre-pandemic international mobility is associated with 1–2 weeks later arrival and no detectable reduction in final mortality. The case for permanent limits on international mobility to reduce the harm of future pandemics is weak.

Originally recorded on December 4, 2020. Carolina Sanchez-Paramo, Global Director of Poverty & Equity Global Practice at the World Bank, continues her discussion after a virtual CID Speaker Series event on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated economic crisis on households, which are significant, pervasive, and worsening in some cases. The design and implementation of an effective policy response requires that decision makers have access to timely information about who is affected and how. With COVID-19 having brought traditional data collection efforts to a halt, last spring the World Bank launched an unprecedented data collection effort aimed at filling this critical information gap. As part of this effort, phone surveys are currently under implementation or preparation in over 100 countries to obtain real-time information on the socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic on households and individuals. Carolina Sanchez is the Global Director of Poverty & Equity Global Practice at the World Bank. In her talk, she drew from from this data and other analysis to present the latest evidence on the poverty and distributional impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated economic crisis.

Originally recorded on November 13th, 2020. CID Director Asim I. Khwaja joined us after CID's virtual Speaker Series event for further discussion on his research proposal for governments to face the challenges of COVID-19 faster and better, using the Smart Containment with Active Learning (SCALE) strategy. SCALE is an active learning strategy that tests and refines policy in real-time through a context-specific approach, according to the local prevalence of COVID-19. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments face a difficult tradeoff, particularly in developing countries. Government officials must decide either to keep their economies open and risk thousands of lives or implement a lockdown and risk economic collapse, which may also result in many non-COVID related deaths. Even worse they must make these decisions without knowing what the real tradeoff between them is. Lockdowns hit low-income countries especially hard. Larger informal workforces mean newly vulnerable populations are harder to target for support. Chains of food production and distribution are more fragile. With many people living on the margins of starvation, a higher prevalence of disease, and poor healthcare, non COVID related morbidity risks are high. The government also has limited money and public capacity to rely upon. ---- To learn more about SCALE, please visit CID's website: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid/publications/smart-containment-with-active-learning

Originally recorded on November 20, 2020 Jenny Perlman Robinson and Molly Curtiss joined us at CID's virtual Speaker Series event and sat down with us for further discussion on their work on scaling and education at the Center for Universal Education(CUE), Brookings Institution. Despite growing evidence on what works to improve access and quality in education, the world continues to face a global learning crisis, with 258 million children already out of school and 617 million children and adolescents in school but not learning the basics even before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools around the globe. While there are many initiatives working to address this challenge at a small-scale, they often do not translate into the large-scale, systemic change required. Since 2014, the Millions Learning project, led by the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at the Brookings Institution, has examined how and under what conditions education policies and programs have gone to scale in developing contexts. Drawing upon literature and case studies from around the world, the 2016 report, Millions Learning: Scaling up quality education in developing countries, identified 14 core ingredients that, in different combinations depending on the context, contribute to scaling effective practices and approaches that improve learning. Now in the second phase of the project, CUE is implementing Real-time Scaling Labs, an action research project undertaken in partnership with local institutions and governments in several countries to support, learn from, and document the scaling process in real-time. The ultimate goal of these labs is to support initiatives as they deepen and expand while simultaneously gaining deeper insight into how policymakers, civil society, and the private sector can most effectively work together to bring about large-scale transformation in the quality of children’s learning and their development. This presentation will share key insights and lessons learned from the Millions Learning project to date, including the key drivers of scaling impact in education and common scaling barriers, alongside illustrative examples from the Real-time Scaling Labs currently underway. Jenny Perlman Robinson is senior fellow at the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at the Brookings Institution where she leads CUE’s efforts to build the evidence and produce practical guidance for scaling effective education initiatives through the Millions Learning project. Molly Curtiss is a senior research analyst at the Brookings Institution Center for Universal Education (CUE), where she has worked on the Millions Learning project since 2017.

At this week's virtual CID Speaker Series event, Catalyzing Global Leadership to Contain the Impact of COVID-19 we are joined by featured guest Peter Sands, Executive Director of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria after his appearance at the virtual JKF Jr. Forum on October 28, 2020. How do we galvanize a global response to COVID-19 that truly leaves no-one behind? So far OECD countries have mobilized over $10 trillion for their own domestic responses, but foreign aid to low and middle countries remains broadly flat. Will we succeed in making everyone safe from COVID-19, or will we replicate what we did with HIV and tuberculosis, the two most recent big pandemics affecting humanity, which are largely eliminated as a public health threat in rich countries, but still kill millions in poor, vulnerable and marginalized communities?

At this week's virtual CID Speaker Series event we are joined by Neil Gregory, Chief Thought Leadership Officer of the International Finance Corporation or the private investment arm of the World Bank Group for a discussion moderated by Shawn Cole, a professor in the Finance Unit at Harvard Business School, where he teaches and conducts research on financial services, social enterprise, and impact investing. // Recorded virtually October 23, 2020. Impact investing in private markets could be as large as $2.1 trillion in assets under management, but only a quarter of that, $505 billion, is clearly measured for its impact, both for development impact and financial returns, according to the report Growing Impact—New Insights into the Practice of Impact Investing. Impact investing can be defined as “investments made into companies or organizations with the intent to contribute to measurable positive social or environmental impact, alongside financial returns.” This week's speaker is Neil Gregory, Chief Thought Leadership Officer of the International Finance Corporation, the private investment arm of the World Bank Group. The conversation moderator is Shawn Cole, a professor in the Finance Unit at Harvard Business School, where he teaches and conducts research on financial services, social enterprise, and impact investing. Neil is going to speak on The Operating Principles for Impact Management, launched in April 2019 to provide a framework for investors to ensure that impact considerations are purposefully integrated throughout the investment life cycle. The Impact Principles bring greater discipline and transparency to the impact investing market, requiring annual disclosure statements and independent verification of Signatories' impact management systems and processes. As the number of Signatories continues to grow, these asset managers, asset owners, Multilateral Development Banks and Development Finance Institutions have become a collaborative community, working together to shape the future of impact investing. Neil Gregory is Chief Thought Leadership Officer of the International Finance Corporation, the private investment arm of the World Bank Group. He has held a range of senior strategy and management roles at IFC, including research, business planning, investment and advisory functions. He was previously Adviser to the UK Executive Director of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and an Economic Adviser to the UK Government. He has extensive work experience in South Asia, China, Africa and the Caribbean. A British national, Neil has MA and MSc degrees in Economics from Cambridge and Oxford and an MBA from Georgetown.

On this week's Speaker Series virtual event, we were joined by George Gray Molina, Chief Economist at UN Development Programme's Global Policy Bureau. COVID-19 and the response to the pandemic is driving millions of informal sector and self-employed workers into poverty. George Gray Molina discussed the findings of a recent UNDP brief that provides estimates of a temporary basic income for all poor and vulnerable people in the developing world. // Recorded virtually on October 9, 2020. Speaker: ​George Gray Molina, Chief Economist at UNDP's Global Policy Bureau About the speaker: George Gray Molina is Chief Economist at UN Development Programme's Global Policy Bureau. His policy and research work focuses on poverty, inequality and policy reforms in the developing world. He has over twenty years of work experience in government, the United Nations, and academia. In his home country, Bolivia, he was head of UDAPE, the Ministry of the Presidency's economic think tank and professor of public policy at the Catholic University of Bolivia. He has also worked as Chief Economist at UNDP's Latin American and Caribbean bureau and has taught public policy at Columbia's SIPA MPA program. He holds a BA in Economics and Anthropology at Cornell University, an MPP at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, a Dphil in Politics at Nuffield College, Oxford University and has conducted post-doc research on global economic governance at Princeton and Oxford.

On this week's Speaker Series podcast, we are joined by Dr. Aditya Bahadur, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Earth Institute at Columbia University for a discussion on Urban Resilience Traps: Pivoting to A New Paradigm for Reducing Climate Risk in Cities of the Global South. Aditya sat down with CID's Executive Coordinator Rosemary Berberian for a conversation on his research and upcoming book. // Recorded on February 28, 2020 at Harvard Kennedy School. ABOUT THE TALK The fact that most of the world’s population now lives in urban areas that are facing sharply rising threats from climate change impacts means that the time for ‘business as usual’ is truly over. Since the advent of ‘urban resilience’ as a paradigm, governments and non-governmental actors have adopted certain modes of reducing risk that are no longer effective in dealing with the climate challenges that towns and cities face. Therefore, in this book we draw on empirical evidence from across the world to argue that the time is ripe to break out of these established ways of working or as we call them, ‘urban resilience traps’ and pivot to a new set of approaches that are fit for purpose. The book explores cutting edge examples of how big data and artificial intelligence can be coupled with traditional methods of collecting climate information to provide a richer and more granular picture of the challenges that cities face; it draws on emerging examples of transformative climate action to demonstrate pathways of building resilience sustainably and at scale; it illustrates the limits of formal planning and outlines approaches of engaging with informality as part of resilience; it makes a strong argument for balancing the prevailing emphasis on techno-managerial and infrastructure oriented solutions for resilience with a focus on building climate capabilities and competencies of those running cities; and finally, it argues for a shift from the singular focus on international climate finance as the primary source of funds towards a closer examination of the importance of the private sector, emerging innovative finance mechanisms and public budgets as sources of finance for building resilience at scale. ABOUT THE SPEAKER Dr. Aditya Bahadur is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York where he is writing a book on urban resilience. Previously he served as the Regional Programme Development Manager with the UK Government funded Action on Climate Today Programme (2016-2019) based at Oxford Policy Management. He has 12 years of experience in research, evaluation and practice of disaster risk reduction, climate change and development. In the past he served as the Research Coordinator of the BRACED Programme (one of the world's largest community level resilience building initiatives, running across 9 countries). He has also advised IFAD, the Hewlett Foundation, the Shell Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, ActionAid and a number UN organs on pathways of climate resilient development. He has published widely on these issues including in highly regarded academic journals. His work has been cited over a thousand times, including by the IPCC and he is a contributing author to the forthcoming IPCC assessment report (AR6). He completed his undergraduate studies at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University and has an MA and a PhD in Development Studies (focus on climate change resilience) from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK. Aditya was granted a Fellowship by the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS) in 2014 and the World Social Science Fellowship in 2015. He was Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute (2013-2016) and has been awarded the Fulbright-Kalam Postdoctoral Climate Fellowship in 2018.

On this week's Speaker Series podcast, we are joined by Marla Spivack, Research Fellow at CID’s Building State Capability program, and the Research Manager of the Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE) program where she leads an array of research activities focused on synthesizing the findings of RISE country team work. Marla sat down with CID Student Ambassador Emma Cameron to discuss her research on Diagnosing Education Systems following her talk at the CID Speaker Series. // Recorded on February 21, 2020 at Harvard Kennedy School. The rapid expansion of schooling is one of international development’s most remarkable achievements. In nearly every country the average child can expect to complete basic schooling. At the same time, in many developing countries, more than half of children complete primary school without mastering basic reading and math skills. Despite laudable progress on schooling, much of the world faces a learning crisis. Large-scale efforts to address the symptoms of this crisis often take the form of “more” – pushing children to spend more years in school, providing more inputs, and spending more money – and have failed to produce significant learning gains. More of the same isn’t working, highlighting the need for systemic change. Systems change will require moving beyond identifying symptoms of the learning crisis towards articulating a diagnostic characterization of its causes. This talk will make the case for systems analysis and outline a new approach to education systems diagnostics, rooted in an accountability framework. We argue that this approach can explain systems’ poor performance, identify priority areas for reform, and suggest principals for effective intervention to make meaningful progress on national learning goals. ABOUT THE SPEAKER Marla Spivack is a Research Fellow at CID’s Building State Capability program, and the Research Manager of the Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE) program. She leads an array of research activities focused on synthesizing the findings of RISE country team work. Prior to joining CID, she worked on social protection, rural development, and micro-credit programs with government agencies and the World Bank in a range of contexts including India, Mexico, and Zambia. She has also contributed to work on migration and development with researchers at the Center for Global Development. She holds a Masters in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) from the Harvard Kennedy School and a BA in Economics from Tufts University. Learn more about Marla's work at: https://www.riseprogramme.org/people/marla-spivack

On this week's Speaker Series podcast, we are joined by Annette Idler, a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. She is also the Director of Studies at the Changing Character of War Centre, Senior Research Fellow at Pembroke College, and at the Department of Politics and International Relations, all University of Oxford. Annette sat down with CID Student Ambassador Mark Conmy to discuss her research from her latest book; Borderland Battles: Violence, Crime, and Governance at the Edges of Colombia's War. // Recorded on February 14, 2020 at Harvard Kennedy School. ABOUT THE TALK Annette Idler will discuss the findings of her timely new book, Borderland Battles: Violence, Crime, and Governance at the Edges of Colombia’s War (Oxford University Press, 2019). The post–cold war era has seen an unmistakable trend toward the proliferation of violent non-state groups-variously labeled terrorists, rebels, paramilitaries, gangs, and criminals-near borders in unstable regions especially. Applying a "borderland lens" to security dynamics and drawing on challenging fieldwork including more than 600 interviews in and on the war-torn borderlands of Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, in Borderland Battles, the speaker examines the micro-dynamics among violent non-state groups. She finds striking patterns: borderland spaces consistently intensify the security impacts of how these groups compete for territorial control, cooperate in illicit cross-border activities, and replace the state in exerting governance functions. ABOUT THE SPEAKER Dr. Annette Idler is Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. She is also the Director of Studies at the Changing Character of War Centre, Senior Research Fellow at Pembroke College, and at the Department of Politics and International Relations, all University of Oxford. Dr Idler’s work focuses on the interface of conflict, security, and transnational organized crime. Over the past decade, she has conducted extensive fieldwork in and on crisis-affected regions of Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Myanmar and Somalia, including more than 600 interviews with local stakeholders. Dr Idler is the author of Borderland Battles: Violence, Crime, and Governance at the Edges of Colombia’s War (Oxford University Press, 2019) and co-editor of Transforming the War on Drugs: Warriors, Victims, and Vulnerable Regions (Hurst Publishers, forthcoming in 2020). Her work appeared in journals such as the Journal of Global Security Studies and Stability: International Journal of Security and Development. Dr Idler advises governments and international organizations, she is a regular expert for internationally renowned media outlets, and she served on the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council's Fellow on International Security. She holds a doctorate from the Department of International Development, University of Oxford, an MA in International Relations from King’s College London’s Department of War Studies, and a double bachelor degree from University Complutense of Madrid, Spain; and Regensburg University, Germany.

On this week's Speaker Series podcast, we are joined by Miguel Angel Santos, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Director of Applied Research at CID's Growth Lab, as well as Tim O’Brien, Senior Manager of Applied Research at CID's Growth Lab. Miguel and Tim sat down with CID Student Ambassador Valeria Mendiola to discuss their research from Jordan on Macroeconomic Stability and Long-Term Growth. ABOUT THE TALK From February 2018 through September 2019, the Growth Lab conducted an applied research project in Jordan centered on understanding and addressing the country’s macroeconomic disequilibria and identifying the most binding constraints to economic growth. The project team applied growth diagnostic and economic complexity methodologies in coordination with the Government of Jordan and developed over 40 problem-specific research deliverables to support government policymaking and implementation. The project, which was supported through a grant from the Open Society Foundations, helped to inform Jordan’s overall growth strategy under Prime Minister Omar Razzaz, improve policy direction in several areas (fiscal, labor markets, energy, investment promotion), and harmonize donor programming in Jordan (including by the IMF, World Bank, USAID, DFID and EBRD). During this event, team members will present key findings on the Jordanian economy, discuss innovations in applying growth diagnostic and economic complexity applications that emerged from the project, and reflect on challenges and lessons learned from this applied research effort. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Miguel Angel Santos is an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the Director of Applied Research at the Center for International Development (CID) at Harvard University. At CID, he has been involved in various research projects aimed at helping governments to rethink their development strategies, both at the national and sub-national levels. Since he joined CID in August 2014, he has been involved in projects at the national level in Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela, and at the sub-national level in Mexico in the states of Chiapas, Baja California, Tabasco and Campeche; and the city of Hermosillo at Sonora state. He has also performed as project manager in the projects leading to the build-up of the Mexican Atlas of Economic Complexity, and the Peruvian Atlas of Economic Complexity. Tim O’Brien joined CID in 2015 and has worked on both Growth Lab and Building State Capability projects. He is currently the Senior Manager of Applied Research at CID's Growth Lab. He has led growth diagnostic research in Albania and Sri Lanka. Tim served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi from 2008-2010 and has experience working with the World Bank and in environmental engineering. Tim’s research interests center on the challenges of economic transformation and adapting to climate change in developing countries and vulnerable communities.

On this week's Speaker Series podcast, we are joined by Rt. Hon. Andrew Mitchell, who was recently re-elected to the British House of Commons. Mitchell is a fellow at Cambridge University; a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University; and a Honorary Professor in School of Social Sciences for the University of Birmingham. Mitchell sat down with CID Student Ambassador Mark Conmy to discuss the Causes and Consequences of Brexit. ABOUT THE TALK Brexit has caused the most significant upheaval in British politics for decades. Its ramifications are being felt far beyond Britain’s shores. What caused the UK to advance down this route? How will it all end? CID’s Visiting Fellow Andrew Mitchell—re-elected to the House of Commons in Britain last month—answers these questions. ABOUT THE SPEAKER Andrew Mitchell was Secretary of State for International Development in the British Government from May 2010 until he became Government Chief Whip in September 2012. He was appointed to the Privy Council in 2010. Prior to joining the cabinet in 2010, he also held numerous junior positions in Government (1992-1997) and in opposition (2003-2010). He has been the Member of Parliament for Sutton Coldfield since 2001. He was a member of the National Security Council in Britain and a Governor of the World Bank between 2010 and 2012. Andrew is a Senior Adviser to Investec (since 2013) and Ernst & Young (since 2016). In 2017 he was appointed as a Senior Adviser to the African Development Bank (AfDB). Previously he served in the Army (Royal Tank Regiment) as a UN Peacekeeper before joining the international Investment Bank, Lazard where he worked on and off for 30 years. He was a Director of Lazard Asia and Lazard India as well as of Lazard London. He is a fellow at Cambridge University; a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University; and a Honorary Professor in School of Social Sciences for the University of Birmingham.

In today’s world, most workers are highly specialized, but this specialization can come at a cost – especially for those on the wrong team. New research by Growth Lab Research Director Frank Neffke assesses the importance of the skills of coworkers. Finding coworkers who complement and not substitute one’s skills can significantly impact earning potential. The impact is equal to having a college degree. Coworker complementarity also drives careers and supports urban and large plant wage premiums. Learn more about this new research on The Value of Complementary Coworkers: https://growthlab.cid.harvard.edu/academic-research/complementarity About Frank Neffke: Frank Neffke is the Research Director of the Growth Lab at the Center for International Development. He joined the team in 2012. His research focuses on economic transformation and growth, from the macro level of structural change in regional and national economies to the micro level of firm diversification and the career paths of individuals. This research has shed light on topics ranging from structural transformation and new growth paths in regional economies, economic complexity and the role of cities, local labor markets, the importance of division of labor, human capital and teams in modern economies, the consequences of job displacement and the future of work. Before joining the CID, Frank worked as an assistant professor at the Erasmus School of Economics in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He holds a Ph. D. in Economic Geography from Utrecht University and Master degrees in Econometrics and Philosophy from the University of Amsterdam.

On this week's Speaker Series podcast, we are joined by Zainab Qureshi, the LEAPS (Learning and Educational Achievement in Pakistan Schools) Senior Program Manager at the Center for International Development’s EPoD (Evidence for Policy Design). Zainab will be speaking about EPoD’s research on alleviating system-level constraints to improve student learning outcomes in Pakistan. // Originally recorded on December 6, 2019. About the talk: School enrollment is up in Pakistan, but student learning outcomes remain vastly sub-standard. At same time, widespread local entrepreneurship has dramatically changed Pakistan's education landscape, with 42% of school-going children now attending low cost private schools. Transformational research by the LEAPS program shows that improving education quality will require moving beyond the traditional approach of input augmentation towards a new, systems-based approach that explores how to catalyze innovation in the entire education ecosystem and help schools help themselves. This talk will outline the Learning and Educational Achievement in Pakistan Schools (LEAPS) team’s research on how to alleviate system-level constraints to improve student learning outcomes. Lead researchers on LEAPS are Prof. Tahir Andrabi (Pomona), Prof. Jishnu Das (Georgetown) and Prof. Asim Ijaz Khwaja (Harvard Kennedy School). About the Speaker: Zainab Qureshi is the LEAPS Senior Program Manager at EPoD, overseeing implementation of Education and policy research in Pakistan. She has previously worked at various organizations across the Education sector in Pakistan, implementing low cost Education delivery programs and developing an alternate model of education for low income schools. She holds a Master’s in Education (Ed.M.) from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a BA in Economics and International Development from McGill University.

How important are social constraints and information gaps about the labor market in explaining the low rates of female labor force participation (FLFP) in societies that are undergoing change, but have conservative gender norms? To answer this question, we conducted a field experiment embedded in a survey of female university students at a large public university in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We randomly provided one subset of individuals with information on the labor market and aspirations of their female peers (T1), while another subset was provided with this information along with a prime that made the role of parents and family more salient (T2). We find that expectations of working among those in the Control group are quite high, yet students underestimate the expected labor force attachment of their female peers. We show that information matters: relative to the Control group, expectations about own labor force participation are significantly higher in the T1 group. We find little evidence that dissemination of information was counteracted by local gender norms: impacts for the T2 group are significant and often larger than those for T1 group. These impacts are primarily driven by students who report wanting to share their responses with their parents. However, T2 leads to higher expectations of working in a sector that is more culturally accepted for women (education). With Monira Essa Aloud (King Saud University), Sara Al-Rashood (King Saud University), Ina Ganguli (University of Massachusetts Amherst) and Basit Zafar (Arizona State University) //Interview originally recorded on 11/8/2019. Ina Ganguli sat down with a CID Student Ambassador to discuss experimental evidence from EPoD sponsored work on the Labor Market Aspirations of Saudi Women. About the Speaker: Ina Ganguli is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Associate Director of the UMass Computational Social Science Institute (CSSI). Her primary research areas are labor economics and the economics of science and innovation. She holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University, a Masters in Public Policy from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Arts from Northwestern University. She is a Research Affiliate of the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard University (LISH) and a Research Fellow at the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE) at the Stockholm School of Economics. In 2018 she received the Russian National Prize in Applied Economics and previously received honorable mention for the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research Dissertation Award. She has been a U.S. Embassy Policy Specialist Fellow in Russia, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan, a Fulbright Scholar in Ukraine, and a Bundestag International Parliamentary Program Fellow in Germany.

What does it take to grow entrepreneurial ecosystems in the developing world? The talk will share some lessons from our experience at Alter across 14 markets in SE Asia and Africa. Specifically, the talk will focus on three aspects of early-stage entrepreneurship in such markets: (i) thin capital markets and the implications for early stage companies and ventures; (ii) the demand-supply gaps in the high-skill labor market (and the role of the diaspora); and (iii) the potential for using a network-based sourcing and investment model within small, dense ecosystems. // Interview recorded on October 25, 2019. In this Speaker Series podcast, CID Student Ambassador Valeria sits down for a discussion with Ozair Ali, co-founder and COO of Alter Global - a network of tech entrepreneurs across emerging cities in the world. Ozair works with entrepreneurs to provide them with access to talent and capital. Ozair has previously worked at the Central Bank of Pakistan and at CID at Harvard University. He holds an MBA from Stanford University and an MPA/ID from Harvard University. Podcast edited by Charles Hua '22

Support for gender equality has increased globally, and studies of this trend usually examine individual- and/or country-level factors. However, this overlooks subnational variation. City-dwellers are more likely to support gender equality in education, employment, leadership, and leisure. Alice Evans, lecturer at Kings College London, sat down with Salimah Samji, Director of the Building State Capability program at CID to discuss her investigation into the causes of rural–urban differences through comparative, qualitative research in Cambodia. Dr. Alice Evans is a Lecturer at King's College London as well as a Research Associate at CID’s Building State Capacity program. She researches social norms and how they change and is currently writing a book on how societies come to support gender equality. Interview originally recorded on October 30, 2018. View the transcript of this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-%20Alice%20Evans%20on%20Gender%20and%20Social%20Change.pdf

We are at a crossroads in the humanitarian community. Despite global commitments made in 2016 to shift power away from international to local actors to lead during crisis response, little has changed. We know that humanitarian action led by responsible governments in crisis-affected countries, assisted and held accountable by civil society, can more quickly save lives and act more appropriately to meet the needs of local populations. Simply put, governments and civil society in crisis-affected contexts should be leading humanitarian action wherever possible, with international actors assuming a supporting role. How do we get there? Fatema will share examples from recent crises in Mozambique, Indonesia, and the Philippines and explore how we can transform global humanitarian response towards local humanitarian leadership. In this CID Speaker Series podcast, CID student ambassador Mark sits down with Fatema Sumar, VP for Global Programs at Oxfam America to discuss the need for transformation in humanitarian response towards local humanitarian leadership. // Interview recorded on October 11, 2019. About the Speaker: Fatema Z. Sumar joined Oxfam America in 2018 as Vice President of Global Programs, where she oversees our regional development and humanitarian response programs. Fatema comes to Oxfam with a distinguished career in the U.S. government, leading U.S. efforts to advance sustainable development and economic policy in emerging markets and fragile countries. Most recently, she served as Regional Deputy Vice President for Europe, Asia, Pacific, and Latin America at the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), where she managed investments focused on international growth and poverty reduction. Prior to MCC, she served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia at the U.S. Department of State and as a Senior Professional Staff Member on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Fatema holds a Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School and a Bachelor of Arts in Government from Cornell University. She studied abroad at the American University in Cairo. View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-%20Transforming%20Humanitarian%20Response.pdf

Harvard’s Center for International Development brought together students and scholars from across the university to celebrate 2019 Nobel Laureate Michael Kremer as he spoke about his own innovative work as well as that of his colleagues and co-laureates in the field of international development. Kremer is a member of the CID’s Faculty Advisory Council, which oversees the University-wide research center working on development challenges and solutions to global poverty. The event took place on Tuesday, November 5th in the Smith Center’s public auditorium and drew more than 200 attendees to Harvard Commons to hear Kremer speak. Throughout the evening, Kremer’s insights, the questions posed, and the sheer diversity of the expertise represented in the room came together to send a clear message: international development necessarily requires and inevitably draws scholars from a variety of fields and disciplines. Kremer’s work testifies to the synergistic relationship between research and practice: efforts to affect real change in the world are most fruitful when the academic exercises of theory and experimentation are undertaken alongside and directly informed by policymakers, practitioners, and the research beneficiaries themselves. Check CID's Youtube page for a video recording of the event: https://www.youtube.com/user/HarvardCID Follow our Twitter for more upcoming events from CID: https://twitter.com/HarvardCID View the transcript of this conversation here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-%20Michael%20Kremer%20to%20Harvard%20Students.pdf

Roughly one in every five births occurs in India. Data reveal that despite improvements in the last decade, Indian children are still among the most unhealthy in the world. In the state of Uttar Pradesh, which is home to 200 million people, 45 out of every 1000 babies die in the first month of life. That is a higher rate of neonatal death than any country in the world except Pakistan. Why does child health remain an enduring challenge for the Indian population? Despite recent government programs to encourage hospital birth and build toilets, discrimination against women and people from the lower castes continues to harm child health. Today on CID's Speaker Series Podcast, Rohan Sandhu, CID student Ambassador, interviews Diane Coffey, a demographer who studies social influences on health in India. Diane co-directs r.i.c.e., a research institute for compassionate economics, which does research and policy advocacy for child health in India. www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid Interview recorded on October 4th, 2019. About Diane: Diane Coffey is a demographer who studies social influences on health in India. One area of her research focuses on the intergenerational transmission of poor population health resulting from India's exceptionally poor maternal nutrition. Another area of her research investigates the causes and consequences of open defecation in rural India. Diane has an MPA and a PhD Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, and is currently an assistant professor of Sociology and Population Research at the University of Texas at Austin. She co-directs r.i.c.e., a research institute for compassionate economics, which does research and policy advocacy for child health in India. View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-%20Progress%20and%20Enduring%20Challenges%20for%20the%20Health%20of%20Children%20in%20India.pdf

Urban violence is one of the most divisive and allegedly intractable issues of our time. But as CID Senior Research Fellow Thomas Abt writes in his new book Bleeding Out, we actually possess all the tools necessary to stem violence in our cities. Coupling the latest social science with firsthand experiences in policymaking, Abt proposes a relentless focus on violence itself—not drugs, gangs, or guns. Because violence is clustering among small groups of people and places, it can be predicted and prevented using a series of evidence-informed, data-driven strategies, both in the United States and in Latin America, where 41 of the 50 most violent cities are located. In this CID Speaker Series podcast produced by Growth Lab, Rushabh Sanghvi, Research Assistant at the Growth Lab interviews Thomas Abt on his latest book and its practical solutions to the global emergency of urban violence. // https://amzn.to/2YwjsLN // Interview recorded on September 27th, 2019. About Thomas Abt: Thomas Abt is a Senior Research Fellow with the Center for International Development, where he leads CID’s Security and Development Seminar Series. He is also a member of the Campbell Collaboration Criminal Justice Steering Committee, member of the Advisory Board of the Police Executive Programme at the University of Cambridge, and a Senior Fellow with the Igarapé Institute in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Both in the United States and globally, Abt writes, teaches, and studies the use of evidence-informed approaches to reduce urban violence, among other criminal justice topics. His new book, Bleeding Out: The Devastating Consequences of Urban Violence - and a Bold New Plan for Peace in the Streets, was published by Basic Books in June 2019. Abt’s work is frequently featured in major media outlets such as the Atlantic, Economist, Foreign Affairs, New Yorker, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, and National Public Radio. Before joining Harvard, Abt served as Deputy Secretary for Public Safety to Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York, where he oversaw all criminal justice and homeland security agencies, including the Divisions of Corrections and Community Supervision, Criminal Justice Services, Homeland Security and Emergency Services, and the State Police. During his tenure, Abt led the development of New York’s GIVE (Gun-Involved Violence Elimination) Initiative, which employs evidence-informed, data-driven approaches to reduce gun violence. Before his work in New York, Abt served as Chief of Staff to the Office of Justice Programs at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked with the nation’s principal criminal justice grant-making and research agencies to integrate evidence, policy, and practice. He played a lead role in establishing the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention, a network of federal agencies and local communities working together to reduce youth and gang violence. Abt was also founding member of the Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative, a place-based development effort that was recognized by the Kennedy School as one of the Top 25 Innovations in Government for 2013. Abt received a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Michigan and a law degree with honors from the Georgetown University Law Center. View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-%20bleeding%20out.pdf

The logical extension of today’s ferment in America about white privilege and male entitlement is, at the global level, about the responsibility of the United States and its citizens to the world’s poor, of all races and cultures, and especially to the world’s disempowered women in poor countries. What are the responsibilities to them of us, with privilege and power? Today on the return CID's weekly Speaker Series podcast, Growth Lab Research Assistant Ana Grisanti speaks with Nancy Birdsall about key themes in her upcoming work memoir. Nancy draws on her own life experience being born into membership of the benighted cosmopolitan elite and stumbling into work as a development economist, as a metaphor for growing awareness of the depth and costs of inequality in the world; the centrality to development of the women’s movement and women’s agency in a world of persistent patriarchy; and the challenge of global governance in a system of sovereign nations facing new risks in an interdependent, “shrinking” world. About the Speaker: Nancy Birdsall is president emeritus and a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, a policy-oriented research institution that opened its doors in Washington, DC in October 2001. Prior to launching the center, Birdsall served for three years as senior associate and director of the Economic Reform Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her work at Carnegie focused on issues of globalization and inequality, as well as on the reform of the international financial institutions. From 1993 to 1998, Birdsall was executive vice-president of the Inter-American Development Bank, the largest of the regional development banks, where she oversaw a $30 billion public and private loan portfolio. Before joining the Inter-American Development Bank, she spent 14 years in research, policy, and management positions at the World Bank, most recently as director of the Policy Research Department. Birdsall has been researching and writing on economic development issues for more than 25 years. Her most recent work focuses on the relationship between income distribution and economic growth and the role of regional public goods in development. Birdsall holds a PhD in economics from Yale University and an MA in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. You can learn more about Nancy's work at https://www.cgdev.org/expert/nancy-birdsall. Nancy welcomes comments directly at nbirdsall@cgdev.org. View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-%20From%20the%20U.S..pdf

The creators of the Atlas of Economic Complexity - Harvard Growth Lab’s free online tool that translates economic growth research into policy actions to expand global prosperity - are proud to introduce: Country Profiles, a first-of-its-kind platform that revolutionizes how to think about economic strategy, policy, and investment opportunities for over 130 countries. Country Profiles invite users to take an interactive, step-by-step journey to analyze a country’s economic dynamics and future growth prospects, including identifying what new industries are poised to take-off. In this podcast, Annie White, Senior Product Manager for the Atlas of Economic Complexity and interviews Professor Ricardo Hausmann, Director of Harvard’s Growth Lab, about their new Country Profiles. www.atlas.cid.harvard.edu Recorded on Sept. 5th, 2019 View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-Introducing%20the%20Atlas%20of%20Economic.pdf

In this podcast, Annie White and Tim Cheston discuss newly released Growth Lab research - 2027 Global Growth Projections. The projections of annualized growth rates to 2027 are based on the latest 2017 trade data and our newly updated measure of economic complexity, which captures the diversity and sophistication of productive capabilities embedded in a country’s exports. Uganda, Egypt, Myanmar, China, and Vietnam top the list of the fastest-growing economies to 2027, all expected to grow by at least six percent annually. Growth Lab researchers predict that countries who have diversified their production into more complex sectors, like Vietnam and China, are those that will experience the fastest growth in the coming decade. Annie White, Product Manager of the Atlas of Economic Complexity interviews Tim Cheston, Senior Manager, Applied Research at CID’s Growth Lab and a member of the team leading the Atlas of Economic Complexity. The Atlas is our online tool that can visualize a country’s total trade, track changes over time and explore growth opportunities for more than a hundred countries worldwide. Access the 2027 Growth Projections and updated Economic Complexity Rankings: www.atlas.cid.harvard.edu (See transcript here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/2027%20Global%20Growth%20Projections%20_mp3.plain_text.pdf)

Argentina is currently facing yet another economic crisis. Eduardo Levy Yeyati, Dean of the School of Government at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, believes there are deep roots in Argentina that make the economic crisis Aristotelian in nature. There are both economic and political factors that have contributed to the current fiscal situation, which make it difficult to rectify when considering the impact of shorter election cycles on economic policy strategy. For Argentina to find its way out of this crisis, Eduardo places importance on finding consensus among stakeholders to improve existing policies. In this podcast, Growth Lab research fellow Carolina Pan and Eduardo as they discuss the contributing factors to this economic situation in Argentina and the means by which the country can prevent future crises. https://growthlab.cid.harvard.edu/ Interview recorded on May 8, 2019. About Eduardo Levy Yeyati: Eduardo Levy Yeyati, is the Dean of School of Government of Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, and the founder and Academic Director of its Center for Evidence-based Policy (CEPE-Di Tella). He is also principal researcher at Argentina´s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), and founding partner of Elypsis, an economic research firm, and a regular consultant for multilateral financial organizations, and public and private institutions. Prior to that, he was an advisor to the Office of the Chief of Cabinet in Argentina (where he led the program Argentina 2030), honorary president of the National Council of Production (which he helped launch in 2016), Director at the Bank of Investment and Trade Credit (BICE), President of the Center for Public Policy (CIPPEC, an Argentine think tank), Head of Latin American Research and Emerging Markets Strategy at Barclays Capital, Financial Sector Advisor for Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Bank, and Chief Economist of the Central Bank of Argentina. A regular consultant for multilateral financial organizations and public and private institutions in developing economies, and a former Senior Fellow at Brookings (2009-2014) and recipient of Harvard´s Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professorship in Latin American Studies (2006), his academic work on development and emerging market banking and finance is ranked #1 among Argentina´s economists by RePEc´s research database. He is a regular contributor to local and international media. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in Engineering from Universidad de Buenos Aires. View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-ArgentinaCrisis.pdf

Since 2013, the Center for International Development has been collaborating with the Government of Albania to identify binding constraints to economic growth and create policy solutions to solve them. CID’s Growth Lab and Building State Capability programs have used the tools of growth diagnostics and problem driven iterative adaptation (PDIA) to help drive economic growth in the country. CID Researchers Ermal Frasheri and Tim McNaught have seen firsthand how theory informs public policy and how insights from public policymaking, in turn, enrich our theoretical frameworks. Today on CID’s Speaker Series podcast, Jason Keene, student at the Harvard Kennedy School, interviews Ermal and Tim, who give an overarching perspective on the project, addressing questions such as: where did we start, where are we now, and what is our approach to country projects? Learn more about the project: https://albania.growthlab.cid.harvard.edu/ Interview recorded on May 3, 2019. About Ermal Frasheri: Ermal Frasheri joined the Center for International Development's Growth Lab as a Research Fellow in 2014. Ermal finished his doctoral studies, S.J.D, at Harvard Law School, where he worked in the areas of law and economic development, international law, European integration, and social and political theories. He has written papers on legal reform and comparative law, European Union, financial services, international law, and his dissertation examined the relationship between regional integration in the context of European integration and development strategies. Ermal has taught at Harvard in various roles since 2006 in the fields of political and social theories, European integration and EU law, democracy, international institutions, and sociology. He was awarded a teaching excellence award by Harvard, and was appointed a Byse Fellow at Harvard Law School (fall 207) where he taught a series of workshops on Law and Development. He has also taught International Law at Babson College, and European Union law at New England Law – Boston. Currently, Ermal teaches courses on Law and Corruption, and International Law and Migration at the Sturm College of Law, University of Denver. About Tim McNaught: Tim McNaught joined CID's Building State Capability program as a Fellow in 2016, focusing primarily on engagements with the governments of Sri Lanka and Albania. He currently is working on the Building PFM Capabilities in Africa program. Prior to joining CID, he worked as an economist for the Ministry of Finance in Timor-Leste, specializing in fiscal policy. He developed his strong interest in economic development while serving as a United States Peace Corps Volunteer in Azerbaijan. Tim holds a Master in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Miami. View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-Public%20Policy%20in%20Action.pdf

The Other Slavery examines the system of bondage that targeted Native Americans, a system that was every bit as terrible, degrading, and vast as African slavery. Anywhere between 2.5 and 5 million Native Americans may have been enslaved throughout the hemisphere in the centuries between the arrival of Columbus and the beginning of the 20th century. And, interestingly, in contrast to African slavery which targeted mostly adult males, the majority of these Indian slaves were women and children. Today on CID’s Speaker Series podcast, Anna Mysliewic, student at the Harvard Kennedy School, interviews Andres Resendez, author of The Other Slavery and Professor of History at UCDavis. Purchase the book: https://amzn.to/2WBpzNr Interview recorded on April 26, 2019. About Andrés Reséndez: Andrés Reséndez is a professor of history and author. His specialties are early European exploration and colonization of the Americas, the U.S-Mexico border region, and the early history of the Pacific Ocean. His latest book, The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016), was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award and winner of the 2017 California Book Awards in nonfiction and the 2017 Bancroft Prize from Columbia University. He teaches courses on food and history, Latin America, and Mexico. He is currently working on a new book provisionally titled Conquering the Pacific: The Story of How a Mulatto Pilot and a Friar-Mariner Learned to Navigate the Largest Ocean and Launched our Global World. View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-The%20Other%20Slavery.pdf

Environmental degradation reduces the environmental capacity to meet social and ecological needs of societies, which is exacerbated by natural hazards and extreme climate events, and often intensify existing vulnerabilities. Marginalized groups in cities, particularly women and poor, are disproportionately at risk to face negative consequences of such environmental stressors. To better understand relationship between women empowerment and environmental degradation in cities, researchers Ammar Malik and Amit Patel surveyed 1,199 households in 12 informal settlements of New Delhi (India), Dhaka (Bangladesh), and Islamabad and Lahore (Pakistan). Today on CID’s Speaker Series podcast, Ghazi Mirza, student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, interviews Ammar Malik and Amit Patel, who tested several linkages between empowerment and measures of environmental degradation and found many significant associations. Read the policy brief: https://bit.ly/2vY8Qos Interview recorded on April 19, 2019. About Ammar Malik: Ammar A. Malik is the Director of EPoD Research. He leads research-policy engagements that derive actionable policy insights from rigorous research. He oversees EPoD’s labor market and education research portfolios in the Middle East, identifying and supporting opportunities for data and economic analysis to inform local policies that empower underrepresented groups and support social and economic development. About Amit Patel: Amit Patel, PhD: Amit Patel is Assistant Professor at University of Massachusetts Boston’s McCormack Graduate School for Policy and Global Studies. Amit’s research focuses on bottom-up approaches to improve socio-economic outcomes for urban poor. His main research projects funded by the National Science Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Urban Institute, and the World Bank focus on housing and health disparities concerning urban poor living in slums in the Global South. He regularly teaches courses on public policy theories, urban politics and policies, and advanced quantitative methods. Amit has a PhD in public policy from George Mason University and prior training in management, urban and regional planning, and architecture. When he is not in the field or in front of the computer, you will find him behind the camera. View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-Empowering%20Women%20in%20South%20Asia.pdf

The majority of the world’s 450 million smallholder farmers and the 2 billion people who depend on them live in rural villages in developing countries, growing crops at close to subsistence levels to feed their families. Small changes in agricultural practices can substantially improve productivity and profitability, but farmers continue to lack the advice they need to close the yield gap and maximize their incomes. However, mobile phone ownership and access to mobile phones are increasing in developing countries, presenting a huge opportunity to provide digital agricultural advisory services. Today on CID’s Speaker Series podcast, Jason Keene, student at the Harvard Kennedy School, interviews Jonathan Lehe, Director of New Programs at Precision Agriculture for Development, who discusses how PAD is working to improve the lives of farmers in developing countries. www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid Interview recorded on April 5, 2019. About Jonathan Lehe: Jonathan Lehe is PAD's Global Research Manager. Mr. Lehe holds a Masters in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) from the Harvard Kennedy School. He has more than 10 years of experience in the global health and education sectors, managing research projects and implementation of programs to scale up access to critical public services in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. He has previously worked at the Clinton Health Access Initiative, and consulted for the World Bank, Bridge International Academies, and MIT's Jameel Poverty Action Lab. View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-Improving%20Smallholder%20Farmers.pdf

The Building State Capability (BSC) program at CID uses the Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) approach to help organizations develop the capability to solve complex problems and to implement public policies. PDIA is a process of facilitated emergence, which focuses on problems (not solutions) and follows a step by step process (not a rigid plan) that allows for flexible learning and adaptation. Today on CID’s Speaker Series podcast, Anna Mysliewic, student at the Harvard Kennedy School, interviews Salimah, who discusses the challenges and experiences BSC has faced when implementing PDIA in the field. Salimah draws on examples from BSC’s work in Albania and Sri Lanka, as well as the recent launch of the PDIAToolkit, a Do-it-Yourself kit for teams to use when solving complex problems. To learn more about PDIA: bsc.cid.harvard.edu Download the PDIAToolkit (in English and Spanish): bsc.cid.harvard.edu/PDIAtoolkit Interview recorded on March 1, 2019. About Salimah Samji: Salimah Samji is the Director of Building State Capability (BSC). She has more than 15 years of experience working in international development on the delivery of public services, transparency and accountability, strategic planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning. She joined CID in 2012 to help create the BSC program. Today, she is responsible for providing vision, strategic leadership, oversight and managing projects and research initiatives. Salimah also leads BSC’s work on digital learning. Before joining CID, she was an independent consultant working for the World Bank on issues of governance, and the Hewlett Foundation on strategic planning for one of their grantees. She has worked as a senior program manager at Google.org, leading a transparency and accountability initiative focused on empowering citizens and decision-makers, by making information on service delivery outcomes publicly available. Salimah has also worked at the World Bank as a social/rural development and monitoring and evaluation specialist in South Asia. She has a Bachelor of Mathematics from the University of Waterloo (Canada) and a Masters in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) from the Harvard Kennedy School. She is a qualified Casualty Actuary who changed careers after working for 18 months in Afghan refugee camps with a Canadian NGO (FOCUS Humanitarian Assistance) based in Pakistan. Salimah has worked and lived in Kenya, India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Canada and the USA. View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-PDIA%20in%20action.pdf

At a time when 65 million people are displaced from their homes and more than 800 million people go to bed hungry every night, how can we make a real difference in tackling poverty & social injustices? Fatema Sumar has been a diplomat and development leader, working in the U.S. Senate, the U.S. State Department, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Currently, Fatema is Vice President of Global Programs at Oxfam America, a division that focuses on humanitarian aid and response, local partnerships that improve disaster response, and food systems and security. Today on CID’s Speaker Series podcast, Ghazi Mirza, student at the Harvard Graduate School of Educaton, interviews Fatema, who gives us an in-depth look into her role at Oxfam America, the organization’s approach to development, and what they’re currently focused on in the development space. www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid Interview recorded on March 29, 2019. About Fatema Sumar: Fatema Z. Sumar joined Oxfam America in 2018 as Vice President of Global Programs, where she oversees our regional development and humanitarian response programs. Fatema comes to Oxfam with a distinguished career in the U.S. government, leading U.S. efforts to advance sustainable development and economic policy in emerging markets and fragile countries. Most recently, she served as Regional Deputy Vice President for Europe, Asia, Pacific, and Latin America at the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), where she managed investments focused on international growth and poverty reduction. Prior to MCC, she served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia at the U.S. Department of State and as a Senior Professional Staff Member on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Fatema holds a Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School and a Bachelor of Arts in Government from Cornell University. She studied abroad at the American University in Cairo. View the transcript for the episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-%20Tackling%20Poverty%20Through%20Diplomacy%20and%20Development.pdf

Between 1999 and 2009, Jordan experienced a huge growth acceleration, tripling its exports and increasing income per capita by 38%. Since then, its economy has been thrown off balance, impacted by a number of external shocks that include the global financial crisis, the Arab Spring, and the Syrian Civil War. For the past year, CID has been working in the country with the goal of understanding what is hindering income growth per capita and drafting a roadmap to help Jordan get back on a sustainable growth track. This week on CID’s Research Spotlight podcast, we talk to CID fellows and project managers Miguel Angel Santos and Tim O’Brien on the methodologies and findings of this research project. To read the full paper: bit.ly/2FNNBtY Interview recorded on March 18, 2019. About Miguel Angel Santos: Miguel Angel Santos is an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the Director of Applied Research at the Center for International Development (CID) at Harvard University. At CID, he has been involved in various research projects aimed at helping governments to rethink their development strategies, both at the national and sub-national levels. Since he joined CID in August 2014, he has been involved in projects at the national level in Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela, and at the sub-national level in Mexico in the states of Chiapas, Baja California, Tabasco and Campeche; and the city of Hermosillo at Sonora state. He has also performed as project manager in the projects leading to the build-up of the Mexican Atlas of Economic Complexity, and the Peruvian Atlas of Economic Complexity. Before joining the field of international development, Miguel worked for ten years in corporate finance and business development in Latin America, performing as Director of Finance for the Cisneros Group of Companies (1997-2003), Head of Corporate Finance for Mercantil Servicios Financieros (2005-2007), and Business Vice-President for Sony Pictures and Entertainment Latin America (2008-2009). At that point, he decided to switch tracks and get involved in development economics. He holds two Master of Science degrees in International Finance and Trade (2011) and Economics (2012) from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, a Master in Public Administration from Harvard University (2014), and a Ph.D. in Economics at Universidad de Barcelona (2016). He was the head of the Macroeconomic Policy Team for presidential candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski in the Venezuelan elections of 2012. About Tim O’Brien: Tim O’Brien joined CID in 2015 and has worked on both Growth Lab and Building State Capability projects. He has led growth diagnostic research in Albania and Sri Lanka. Tim holds a Master in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) degree from the Harvard Kennedy School and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Northwestern University. Tim served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi from 2008-2010 and has experience working with the World Bank and in environmental engineering. Tim’s research interests center on the challenges of economic transformation and adapting to climate change in developing countries and vulnerable communities. View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-Jordan-elements%20of%20a%20growth%20strategy.pdf

Earlier this year, thousands of Bangladesh garment workers clashed with the police as they tried to push for higher wages. One person was killed as the police fired rubber bullets and tear gas against the protesters. This is unfortunately common throughout low-end supply chains. Governments try to repress laborers in order to curb minimum wage increases and keep costs low. This week Salimah Samji, Director of CID’s Building State Capability Program talks to Alice Evans Lecturer at Kings College London and Associate at the Building State Capability Program on possible solutions to this pressing issue. Read Alice Evans' report on Increasing Pro-Labour Reforms: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/publications/incentivising-pro-labour-reforms // www.bsc.cid.harvard.edu // Interview recorded on February 13, 2019. About Alice Evans: Alice Evans is writing a book on "The Global Politics of Decent Work". Through comparative research on strengthening corporate accountability, Alice explores how to resolve global collective action problems and improve workers' rights. She has published on the causes of falling inequality in Latin America; social movements; rising support for gender equality; cities as catalysts of social change; and the politics of maternal mortality. She is a Lecturer at King's College London, with previous appointments at Cambridge and the LSE. View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-Labor%20rights.pdf

Salimah Samji, Building State Capability Program Director talks to Anjikwi Mshelbwala, who took the PDIA online course offered by the Building State Capability Program in the Fall of 2017. Anjikwi, an ICT Officer at ActionAid talks about his experience applying the insights from the program in his native Nigeria and describes how the learnings he got from the course have helped him solve complex development problems ever since. *** - Learn more about CID's Building State Capability Program at: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/ - Download the free PDIA toolkit at: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/PDIAtoolkit - Download the Building State Capability book at: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/building-state-capability-evidence-analysis-action View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-JPDIA%20Alumni%20Solving%20complex.pdf

Over the last eight years, the Syrian Civil War has left millions of people internally displaced and many more have fled the country to protect themselves and their families. This humanitarian crisis has left the region and its people to face incredible challenges in their everyday lives. Andrew Mitchell, British Member of Parliament and former Secretary of State for International Development considers the situation to be a catastrophe from which the international community can learn many lessons on how to support those in the country, as well as refugees throughout the world. Today on CID’s Speaker Series podcast, Nawal Qutub, student at the Harvard Graduate School of Educaton, interviews Andrew Mitchell, who discusses the humanitarian crisis in Syria following the Civil War and how the international community can assist with rebuilding the country once peace is restored. // www.growthlab.cid.harvard.edu // Interview recorded on February 22, 2019. About Rt. Hon. Andrew Mitchell: Rt Hon. Andrew Mitchell is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sutton Coldfield since 2001. He was the MP for Gedling from 1987 to 1997. He served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for International Development from 2010 to 2012. Mitchell was elected President of the Cambridge Union in 1978. Before university, he served for several months as a United Nations military peacekeeper in Cyprus. He has extensive pre-government experience of the developing world, and is the founder of Project Umubano, a Conservative Party social action project in Rwanda and Sierra Leone in central and west Africa, launched in 2007. Mitchell was returned as MP for Sutton Coldfield at the 2017 general election, with a reduced majority.

Following the brutal rape and murder of a young woman in Delhi in 2012, filmmaker Leslee Udwin traveled to India to examine the situation and attempt to understand what led to such a violent attack. She released her documentary “India’s Daughter” in 2015, and subsequently founded ThinkEqual, a non-profit organization with the mission to educate young children in social emotional learning to reduce violence throughout the world. Today on CID’s Speaker Series podcast, Abeela Latif, student at the Harvard Graduate School of Educaton, interviews Leslee Udwin, who discusses the difficult journey of making the film and how this experience inspired her to begin the ThinkEqual global education initiative. -- About Leslee Udwin: Leslee was voted by the NY Times the No 2 Most Impactful Woman of 2015 (second to Hillary Clinton), and has been awarded the prestigious Swedish Anna Lindh Human Rights Prize (previously won by Madeleine Albright). She has also been named Safe’s Global Hero of 2015, Global Thinker by Foreign Policy. A BAFTA and multi-award winning filmmaker and Human Rights Campaigner, Leslee’s documentary “India’s Daughter”, has been critically acclaimed around the globe, won 32 awards (including the Peabody Award and the Amnesty International Media Award for Best Documentary 2016) and sparked a global movement to end violence against women and girls. The searing insights yielded by the 2½ journey making “India’s Daughter”, led Leslee to found UK-and-US-based Not for Profit global education initiative “Think Equal”. To get involved with ThinkEqual, please contact leslee.udwin@thinkequal.org. Interview recorded on February 15, 2019. View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-Preventing%20Violence.pdf

Today on this BSC podcast, Salimah Samji, Director of the Building State Capability program at CID has a conversation with Professor Matt Andrews, Faculty Director of the Building State Capability program to discuss public policy implementation failures. To learn more about the Implementing Public Policy course, visit bit.ly/2QAnf69. To read the Public Policy Failures paper, visit bit.ly/2DWoLs5. // www.bsc.cid.harvard.edu // Interview recorded on January 18, 2019. About Matt Andrews: Matt Andrews is Senior Lecturer in Public Policy. His research focuses on public sector reform, particularly budgeting and financial management reform, and participatory governance in developing and transitional governments. Recent articles focus on forging a theoretical understanding of the nontechnical factors influencing success in reform processes. Specific emphasis lies on the informal institutional context of reform, as well as leadership structures within government-wide networks. This research developed out of his work in the provincial government of Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa and more recently from his tenure as a Public Sector Specialist working in the Europe and Central Asia Region of the World Bank. He brings this experience to courses on public management and development. He holds a BCom (Hons) degree from the University of Natal, Durban (South Africa), an MSc from the University of London, and a PhD in Public Administration from the Maxwell School, Syracuse University.

Across the world, people in urban rather than rural areas are more likely to support gender equality. To explain this global trend, Alice Evans has engaged with geographically diverse literature and comparative rural–urban ethnographic research from Zambia. Her research showed that people living in interconnected, heterogeneous, and densely populated areas are more likely to see women performing socially valued, masculine roles. Today on the BSC podcast, Salimah Samji, Director of the Building State Capability program at CID interviews Alice Evans, Lecturer at Kings College London, who discusses what drives social change, and how people come to support gender equality. // www.bsc.cid.harvard.edu // Interview recorded on October 30, 2018. About Alice Evans: Alice Evans is writing a book on "The Global Politics of Decent Work". Through comparative research on strengthening corporate accountability, Alice explores how to resolve global collective action problems and improve workers' rights. She has published on the causes of falling inequality in Latin America; social movements; rising support for gender equality; cities as catalysts of social change; and the politics of maternal mortality. She is a Lecturer at King's College London, with previous appointments at Cambridge and the LSE.

Starting in November 2015, the Center for International Development’s Growth Lab has been engaged in economic policy research with the Government of Sri Lanka. Led by Professor Ricardo Hausmann, the team has focused on a single question: what is holding back investment in Sri Lanka – especially in new and non-traditional export-oriented sectors – and what can the government do about it? In this podcast, members of the Sri Lanka team explain what they learned from the project which includes: First, a lack of new economic “knowhow” has meant that there are few easy opportunities for innovative investors to exploit. Next, the investors who do arrive find significant roadblocks to their success; these include policy barriers to reaching markets and key inputs, and infrastructural gaps at the regional level. Today on CID’s Speaker Series podcast, Anna Mysliewic, Masters in Public Policy student at the Harvard Kennedy School, interviews Dan and Tim, who share their learnings from the project and how they partnered with key counterparts in the government and civil society to support potential solutions, and better understand the deeper institutional gaps that prevent proactive policymaking. // www.growthlab.cid.harvard.edu // www.bsc.cid.harvard.edu // Interview recorded on November 16, 2018. About the speakers: Daniel Stock rejoined the Center for International Development's Growth Lab as a Research Fellow in 2015. He also held this position from 2011-2013. He studies how countries apply proactive strategies to promote structural transformation. His research focuses on using network models to uncover new opportunities for diversifying exports and attracting new sources of investment. Prior to joining CID, Daniel was a Junior Professional Associate at the World Bank, working with governments to improve the investment climate for local businesses and FDI. Daniel has also worked as a researcher at the MIT Media Lab's Macro Connections group, and a Research Intern at the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Santiago, Chile. Daniel earned a B.S. in Quantitative Economics and International Relations from Tufts University. Tim O’Brien joined the Center for International Development in 2015, working on both Growth Lab and Building State Capability projects.He has led growth diagnostic research in Albania and Sri Lanka. Tim holds a Master in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) degree from the Harvard Kennedy School and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Northwestern University. Tim served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi from 2008-2010 and has experience working with the World Bank and in environmental engineering. Tim’s research interests center on the challenges of economic transformation and adapting to climate change in developing countries and vulnerable communities. Sehar Noor is a Research Assistant at the Center for International Development's Growth Lab. Sehar graduated from Rollins College in May 2016 with honors in Economics and International Affairs. While at Rollins, she served as captain of the debate team, and studied abroad in Cuba and China. Her previous experience includes conducting fieldwork in disaster relief camps as an intern for the Aga Khan Rural Support Program in Gilgit, Pakistan, and interning with the Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Unit of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Practitioners face many challenges when diagnosing growth constraints and setting a country on a path to greater prosperity - including navigating the political context and getting good policy ideas implemented. Miguel Angel Santos, Douglas Barrios and Tim O’Brien are seasoned researchers at the Center for International Development’s Growth Lab that have worked in Jordan, Sri Lanka, Mexico, and other countries, developing growth strategies on both national and sub-national levels. Today on CID’s Research Spotlight podcast, Friederike Strub, Masters in Public Policy student at the Harvard Kennedy School, interviews Miguel, Douglas, and Tim, who share their experiences with Growth Diagnostics in the broader context of the global sustainable development agenda, exploring how they take into account inequality and social inclusion, as well as environmental sustainability, when designing macroeconomic policy solutions. // www.growthlab.cid.harvard.edu // Interview recorded on October 30, 2018.

This podcast comes from a panel discussion that took place at the Building State Capability program’s symposium on October 30th 2018. The panel discussion focused on How to Mobilize Political Elites and Citizens? as Salimah Samji, Director of the Building State Capability program, asked Alice Evans, Lecturer at Kings College London, Rakesh Rajani, Vice President of programs at Co-Impact and Lilly Tsai, Faculty Director and Professor at MIT’s Governance Lab, to share their experiences of mobilizing both political elites and citizens to facilitate social change. // www.bsc.cid.harvard.edu // Audio recorded on October 30, 2018.

Conducting business in fragile states can be a difficult challenge for corporations, governments, and other stakeholders alike. According to the Doing Business Indicators report by the World Bank, Afghanistan has historically been ranked near the bottom of the list. Based on economic reforms implemented by the government of Afghanistan, the country has seen significant positive improvement in this year’s Doing Business Indicators rankings. Specifically, Ajmal Ahmady, Senior Advisor to the President of Afghanistan on Banking and Finance, identified the challenges of doing business in Afghanistan and began working on economic reforms to improve the business environment. Today on CID’s Speaker Series podcast, Nawal Qutub, student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, interviews Ajmal Ahmady, who provides further insight on the reforms he implemented with regard to doing business in Afghanistan. // www.growthlab.cid.harvard.edu // Interview recorded on November 9, 2018. About Ajmal Ahmady: Ajmal Ahmady is Senior Advisor to the President of Afghanistan on Banking and Finance. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School, a Master of Economics and Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, and a Bachelors in Mathematics and Economics from UCLA. He previously spent eight years in the asset management industry investing in global macro, emerging markets, and corporate strategies for some of the largest asset managers in the world. He has also worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, the World Bank, an EM private equity group, the US Treasury Department and the Afghan Ministry of Finance.

A contemporary challenge is inequality, which is reinforced when it’s taken for granted. But, it can be disrupted when marginalised people gain self-esteem; challenge hitherto unquestioned inequalities; and gain confidence in the possibility of social change. These ideas are illustrated with ethnographic research from Latin America, where income inequality has recently declined. By highlighting some ways in which ideas matter, Alice Evans’ paper on Politicising Inequality: The Power of Ideas, seeks to persuade political economists to go beyond ‘incentives’. She suggests that future efforts to tackle inequality might harness the power of ideas: tackling ‘norm perceptions’ (beliefs about what others think and do); publicising positive deviance; and strengthening social movements. Today on CID’s Speaker Series podcast, Katya Gonzalez-Willette, Events and Outreach Assistant at CID, interviews Alice Evans, Associate at the Building State Capability program at CID and Lecturer at Kings College London, who provides further insight on why ideas matter for curbing inequality and how social mobilisation can catalyse greater government commitment to socially inclusive economic growth. // www.bsc.cid.harvard.edu // Interview recorded on November 1, 2018. About Alice Evans: Alice Evans is writing a book on "The Global Politics of Decent Work". Through comparative research on strengthening corporate accountability, Alice explores how to resolve global collective action problems and improve workers' rights. She has published on the causes of falling inequality in Latin America; social movements; rising support for gender equality; cities as catalysts of social change; and the politics of maternal mortality. She is a Lecturer at King's College London, with previous appointments at Cambridge and the LSE.

Today on CID’s Research Spotlight podcast, Ghazi Mirza, graduate student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, interviews Professor Asim Khwaja, Co-Director of Evidence for Policy Design, who provides further insight on the work that he and EPoD are conducting, their “theory of change”, and the use of both quantitative and qualitative data to enrich their findings. // www.epod.cid.harvard.edu // Interview recorded on October 22, 2018. About Asim Khwaja: Asim Ijaz Khwaja is the Sumitomo-Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development Professor of International Finance and Development at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Co-Director of Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) and co-founder of the Center for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP). His areas of interest include economic development, finance, education, political economy, institutions, and contract theory/mechanism design. His research combines extensive fieldwork, rigorous empirical analysis, and microeconomic theory to answer questions that are motivated by and engage with policy. He has been published in leading economics journals, such as the American Economic Review and the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and has received coverage in numerous media outlets, such as The Economist, The New York Times, the Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, Al-Jazeera, BBC, and CNN. His recent work ranges from understanding market failures in emerging financial markets to examining the private education market in low-income countries. He was selected as a Carnegie Scholar in 2009 to pursue research on how religious institutions impact individual beliefs. Khwaja received BS degrees in economics and in mathematics with computer science from MIT, and a PhD in economics from Harvard. A Pakistani, U.K., and U.S. citizen, he was born in London, U.K., lived for eight years in Kano, Nigeria, the next eight in Lahore, Pakistan, and the past eighteen years in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He continues to enjoy interacting with people around the globe. Khwaja also serves as the faculty co-chair of a week-long executive education program, "Rethinking Financial Inclusion: Smart Design for Policy and Practice," aimed primarily at professionals involved in the design and regulation of financial products and services for low-income populations.