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International development is a complex process that goes well beyond economics and requires a balanced and inter-disciplinary approach. However, economics forms a key element of that inter-disciplinary framework. The present course emphasis on globalization, markets, privatization, foreign investment and exports as key elements of a viable development strategy. A basic knowledge of economics, both micro and macro, is essential to understand what drives economic growth. Students interested in poverty reduction have to answer questions such as: Does globalization help or hider poverty reduction? Is it better to provide subsidized food for the poor, or a cash grant (dole)?
Much of the advancement in development thought in recent decades has been guided by the trial-and-error of differing, carefully-monitored research approaches and the analysis and comparison of the resulting data through statistical methods. Statistical analysis informs development policies from education and re-hydration therapies to foreign direct investment and small business development programs. In this course, students will: (1) determine which statistical techniques are appropriate for your data, (2) execute and interpret basic statistical analyses, (3) practice the presentation of your analyses, and (4) read and evaluate development literature that uses statistical analysis.
The main purpose of this course is to learn the principles, methods, practices, and skills of research as they apply to international development. In operations, monitoring and evaluations, and such other branches of development, research skills and competencies are equally vital for effective performance. Conceptualizing, identifying, planning, and implementing a development project requires the best of research skills.
This course takes students one level beyond the introductory course to statistical methods. It covers one-way and two-way analysis of variance, repeated measures designs, simple and multiple regression and correlation analyses, analysis of covariance, simple and multiple logistic regressions. The statistical methods in this course are applied to both health and development dataset such as the WHO Health Indicators and World Bank Development Indicators.
IDEV 6220 - Introduction to Human Aspects ofDisasters and Complex Emergencies
This is usually a two-weekintensive summer course held in Geneva, Switzerland. The course, administered in partnership with theInternational Center for Health and Migration (ICMH), will focus primarily ondisaster relief and reconstruction. Individual lessons will address a variety of subtopics such as rapidassessment, psycho-social health, reproductive health, monitoring and evaluation,relief organizations, GIS, and communicable diseases. Classes will consist of lectures, guest lecturers,assignments and field trips.
IDEV 6230 – Food Aid and Food Security in HumanitarianSettings
This is usually a two-weekintensive summer course held in Rome, Italy. The course will explore thedynamics of the use of food aid, the largest single component of humanitarianemergencies. The course will review policies that guide the use of food aid, asprincipal controversies surrounding the use of food aid in emergency andtransition settings. The course will also explore assessment techniques used togauge the vulnerability of affected populations and their needs for food-basedinterventions. Lastly, the course will explore the food aid management systemand its logistics. Field visits will be conducted to the principal UN agenciesinvolved in food aid as well as diplomatic missions that determine food aidpolicies.
The purpose of this course is to provide learners with basic knowledge and skills of concepts, principles, and methodologies pertaining to the evaluation of health and development interventions. At the end of this course the learner should be able to judge the ability of a specific evaluation method or combination of methods to measure both the process and impact of a specific intervention with known objectives and to design and execute with assistance an evaluation project.
This course has been designed with the purpose of learning about GIS theory and application sin support of international development initiatives. Students enrolled in this course are required to spend 75% of their time in the computer lab in order to complete a series of exercises designed to learn basic GIS development using state-of-the-art GIS software with the ultimate goal of completing a class project.
This course focuses on knowledge and education as they bear on the challenges and strategies for developing countries. From a knowledge perspective, emphasis will be given the criticality of universal primary education, scientific and technical literacy, workforce training, local research and development activities, and knowledge acquisition and its subsequent integration and dissemination within the context of a developing country.
Violent conflict that engulfs countries, parts of countries and in some instances groups of countries and regions, have become commonplace, especially in the developing world. Today it is hard to understand development and do development without understanding conflict and coping with conflict. This course is designed to provide students an in-depth understanding of conflict and its relationship to sustainable development and international health.
Organizational Leadership and Management in Developing Countries is an interdisciplinary course which examines the complex challenges inherent in managing not-for-profit and governmental organizations in developing countries. Central to our examination is the role of social, political and financial influences upon policy space. Within this context, the class focuses upon negotiating constraints in policy development and implementation and draws comparatively from experiences in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the United States.
The purpose of this course is to develop a framework for the analysis and understanding of the theory, methods, approaches and information management related to large natural disasters in developing countries in the Americas. A number of recent political and social issues are addressed and analyzed within this framework. The course stresses the active participation of the students including research on case studies (i.e. Hurricanes Mitch and Georges, Venezuela floods, El Salvador earthquake, etc.) and training on SUMA tool for the management of human relief supplies.
Individual and organizational development necessitates behavioral and organizational change, and change requires learning. The Payson Center has developed a course, “Learning How to Learn with Technology” to equip individuals with the necessary tools for analyzing and solving problems and on-demand and on-time learning. These tools built upon the science of instructional design, developmental and social psychology, and artificial intelligence.
This course explores aspects of the potential impacts of new information and communication technologies (ICT) on International Development. The initial part of the course introduces the learner to issues pertinent to the phenomenal rates of global expansion of ICTs comparing among different countries and different world regions. Following this macro perspective, the course focuses on the several ICT technologies, as well as the sectors in which they can be applied in the developing world.
This graduate course provides students with an overview of environmental issues in developing nations, and it addresses strategies, policies, and technical approaches that will enhance environmental quality as part of the developmental process. The course begins with a survey of major environmental challenges, including resource depletion, pollution, and population, and a discussion of sustainable development as the over-arching solution to those challenges. Students will read and discuss case studies in the course packet, visit relevant websites, and prepare team presentations analyzing environmental issues in a developing nation or region of their choice.
Sustainable Human Development (SHD) is one of the core courses designed to help students learn some of the basic issues of international development. SHD will provide you with valuable concepts for understanding development. These concepts are certainly not perfect, or even complete. They include sets of standards and measures that will change as we learn more. In fact, our ability to describe how societies develop is evolving as we experience successes and failures in our efforts to direct development. The value of these concepts is that students will be able to combine them in various ways to build a flexible framework of understanding.
SHD 1& 2 concentrates on explaining measurement, concepts, and theories of sustainable human development. Students will also be able to apply concepts readily and immediately to the policy issues, and thus see the links that exist. For example, a discussion on the concept of inflation and inflation theories can be made readily meaningful if one were to look at inflation data in one or more countries and try to apply the theory to the real world.
This framework should give students both a discipline and a strategy for learning. As a discipline, it provides a common language and some common assumptions about what creates successful development and what are the relative priorities. As a strategy for learning, this framework invites those of you who would make the world better to set objectives and work toward them.
In this new millennium of rapid change, globalization, and the privatization of international development, we seek to understand how political activity intersects with economic activity and how that nexus impacts the Global South. While the course title reads “international” political economy, we should acknowledge that “global” might be a more appropriate term, thereby including increasingly important non-state actors. Students use the concepts and theories of global political economy to analyze aid, trade, investment, development policy, monetary relations, and regional integration in order to understand how the world has worked in the past, is working now, and is likely to work in the future.
The purpose of this course is to gain an in-depth understanding of the concept and practice of development as it has evolved since the end of World War II: what beliefs underlay various approaches, what structures and events have influenced these beliefs, how governments and institutions have responded, and how differing approaches have succeeded or failed. We analyze each decade through four dimensions: international context, development theories and strategies, donor policies and programs, and developing country performance.
The concept of development projects is relatively recent in history of international relations. It implies that a much more powerful nation choose to provide resources through development projects to less empowered nation to assist in that nation's economic or social development. Terms such as quality of life, improved economic conditions, empowerment, and greater participation in society are all use to qualify the end product of development projects. As we review systems tools for improving the functioning of development projects we must first clearly specify the outcomes expected.
IDEV 6710 – Foundations of Law and International Development
Knowledge of international law and its relationship to national legal systems is one of the fundamental elements of international development practice. The course “Foundations of Law and International Development” seeks to address this reality.
Since the mid-1980s, demand has been steadily increasing for development practitioners with an understanding of the law, and its application to development. Legal experts as well as non-lawyers with knowledge of the law provide support in a wide range of activities related to the field of international development.
Students pursing this course will receive an overview of the law as background to the field of international development. It will include a summary on what constitutes international law, how it is made, and how it is applied. The international law backdrop will lead into the interrelationship of domestic law and international law, and finally the law as it applies to countries in transition. This course is intended to permit the student to gain a broad understanding of many of the key issues and mechanics of the law and its practical applications to the growing field of international development, while permitting students to focus their skills and interests on topics of particular interest to the student.
Psychosocial and Behavioral Leadership Sciences represent one of the four academic pillars that underpin the Disaster Resilience Leaderships Sciences academic programs and is one of the four course core curriculum required for the Disaster Resilience Leadership Certificate. This pillar focuses on understanding the human behavior of survivors, workers and leaders in various contexts and how to facilitate thriving and human development. It centers on the role leadership plays in facilitating resilience in self and others (including large and small human systems) when faced with psychosocial trauma across all phases of the disaster life cycle. Specific topics covered include trauma theories, behavioral determinants of decision making, psychosocial needs of specific populations, and conflict management. Learning objectives focus on developing student competencies in these areas. The course employs case study, guest lectures by nationally-known experts, and simulation techniques, drawing on major and current global disaster threats. This year, the course will draw heavily from case study materials related to Hurricane Katrina, military operations, and the H1N1 pandemic. The course will be taught by Charles Figley, Ph.D., the Paul Henry Kurzweg Chair in Disaster Mental Health and Program Director for the Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy.
Pillar 2: Disaster Operations Leadership Management & Policy Certificate Course (3 credits)
Disaster Operations Leadership Management & Policy represents one of the four academic pillars that underpin the Disaster Resilience Leaderships Sciences academic programs and is one of the four course core curriculum required for the Disaster Resilience Leadership Certificate. This pillar focuses on understanding evidence-based best practices for disaster operations and all aspects of disaster resilience. It centers on the role leadership plays in guiding disaster operations and policy across all phases of the disaster life cycle from preparedness to response, recovery and future risk reduction. Specific topics covered include organizational theories of disaster management, logistics/supply chain management, decision-analytic frameworks and methods, approaches and issues related to protection of beneficiaries and staff, and advocacy in crisis management settings. Learning objectives focus on developing student competencies in these areas. The course employs case study and simulation techniques, drawing on current global disaster threats as well as Hurricane Katrina . This year, the course will draw heavily from case study materials related to the H1N1 pandemic in addition to Hurricane Katrina recovery. The course is taught by two former executive managers of major disaster management programs. Ky Luu, JD was formerly the Director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, the United States government’s major international disaster response agency. Marc Roy, J.D. was the Director of FEMA’s regional response to Hurricane Katrina. Professor Roy has extensive experience in the executive management of domestic disasters. Pillar 3: Leadership Analysis Certificate Course (3 credits)
Leadership Analysis represents one of the four academic pillars that underpin the Disaster Resilience Leaderships Sciences academic programs. This pillar focuses on understanding the most sophisticated and evidence-based methods of leadership and decision analyses, drawing on a new and growing field of decision analysis and network analysis. It centers on the role of leadership in decision making and organizational effectiveness across all phases of the disaster life cycle from preparedness to response to recovery and future risk reduction. The Academy has identified specific competency areas within this academic pillar, including defining leadership traits and competencies, leadership analysis theory, application of information technology tools and sensitivity analysis and a working knowledge of each competency area is expected in students completing this certificate course.
Although the competencies taught in the core certificate courses are meant to be applicable across all hazards, the courses will be taught according to a specific case scenario in order to provide context and foster practical application of lessons learned. This iteration of the certificate courses will be taught from a pandemic response perspective in order to stimulate timely discussion and practical application of theory and research.
Pillar 4: Environmental and Hazards Sciences Certificate Course (3 credits) Environmental and Hazards Sciences represents one of the four academic pillars that underpin the Disaster Resilience Leaderships Sciences academic programs. This pillar focuses on understanding the most effective methods of measuring the impact of and managing disaster-related consequences including all types of hazards for unwanted environmental disruptions. It centers on the role leadership plays in guiding environmental and hazards responses across all phases of the disaster life cycle from preparedness to response to recovery and future risk reduction. The Academy has identified specific competency areas within this academic pillar, including hazard modeling and mitigation, risk management and analysis and environmental justice and a working knowledge of each competency area is expected in students completing this certificate course.
Although the competencies taught in the core certificate courses are meant to be applicable across all hazards, the courses will be taught according to a specific case scenario in order to provide context and foster practical application of lessons learned. This iteration of the certificate courses will be taught from a pandemic response perspective in order to stimulate timely discussion and practical application of theory and research.
