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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.
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.
This study-abroad program DEMOCRACY, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, AND CONFLICT is offered by the Payson Center for International Development and Technology Transfer of Tulane University as a part of its ongoing program of courses designed for development professionals and graduate students. The Sri Lanka program is conducted in collaboration with the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Kandy, Sri Lanka.
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.
SHD II builds on what is learned in SHD I. In SHD I, one is taught how to define and measure sustainable human development. In SHD II we apply these definitions, concepts and measurements to understand how development is actually accomplished. We start with an overview of broad economic growth and then move on to the different principal sectors such as health, education, environment, poverty reduction and political development. It must be stressed here that while we study the different sectors, it is important to bear in mind the broader economic and socio-political framework in which the given sector operates. The two are intimately connected, and understanding those interrelationships is an important element of the learning experience.
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.
Five Decades of Development”, analyzes the concept and practice of development as it evolved since the end of WWII and is organized around 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.
