Pathways to Progress: Exploring Successes and Opportunities

Workshops

Work­shop 1: Per­spec­tives for Amer­ica Latina: Val­ues in the con­text of development

Through the work­shop we are hop­ing stu­dents will a) be bet­ter informed about issues effect­ing the region b) be able to have a mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tion and open dia­logue about a cer­tain issue (or issues) fac­ing Latin America.

Work­shop 2: Cen­ter for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment work­shop: What makes PDIA and DDD dif­fer­ent from tra­di­tional approaches to development?

Devel­op­ment is a mirage. What you see is often not what you get. Schools are built but chil­dren do not learn. Health facil­i­ties exist but there are no doc­tors. In order to change the sta­tus quo, we need a par­a­digm shift in the way we do devel­op­ment. This begins by accept­ing that we do not have all the answers, but we can try, test, learn, iter­ate and adapt to find and fit solu­tions within their con­texts. In this work­shop, you will have an oppor­tu­nity to expe­ri­en­tially learn about the lat­est acronyms in devel­op­ment: Prob­lem Dri­ven Iter­a­tive Adap­ta­tion (PDIA) and Doing Devel­op­ment Dif­fer­ently (DDD).

Work­shop 3: Build­ing More Sus­tain­able and Effec­tive Health­care Sys­tems in African Coun­tries with a Robust Pre­ven­tion and Health Man­age­ment Sector

Dur­ing this iter­a­tive work¬shop, par­tic­i­pants will expe­ri­ence the appli­ca­tion of a Human Cen­tered Design Approach (HCD) in devel­op­ment. Par­tic­i­pants will begin think­ing like design­ers, mak­ing use of selec­tive tools and method­olo­gies com­mon in design, mar­ket­ing, and start-up approaches. In the end of the work­shop, par­tic­i­pants will get an appre­ci­a­tion for the pos­si­bil­i­ties of adopt­ing context-specific and politically-sensitive approach to address¬ing social problems.

Work­shop 4: The Secret of Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment: on Eco­nomic Com­plex­ity and Pro­duc­tive Know-How

Well-being is a nat­ural goal for mea­sur­ing devel­op­ment suc­cess. Rely­ing on a country’s per capita GDP to asses lev­els of well-being has many lim­i­ta­tions … but well-being is hard to mea­sure. We will dis­cuss how to track well-being and present an approach that BCG has devel­oped for coun­try com­par­isons on the basis of a broad mea­sure of well-being and that can serve as a diag­nos­tic tool for iden­ti­fy­ing pol­icy priorities.

Work­shop 5: The Emperor’s New Clothes: from evi­dence to empa­thy – a prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tion of a Human Cen­tered Design approach to development

In a world of scarce resources, mak­ing deci­sions on which pro­grams to fund or which inter­ven­tions to pri­or­i­tize is hard. In devel­op­ment, this sit­u­a­tion is mag­ni­fied by a myr­iad of unmet social and eco­nomic needs and even scarcer resources. To help guide these deci­sions, many devel­op­ment prac­ti­tion­ers have reverted to ‘evi­dence’ of what works and what does not work in devel­op­ment. Yet the abun­dance of this ex ante knowl­edge alone is not enough to help under­stand the com­plex ecolo­gies where devel­op­ment occurs.

Work­shop 6: The secret of eco­nomic growth: on eco­nomic com­plex­ity and pro­duc­tive know-how

Econ­o­mists believe the secret to eco­nomic growth is not edu­ca­tion, or cap­i­tal, but tech­nol­ogy. This ses­sion will present new research from the Har­vard Cen­ter for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment that finds this tech­nol­ogy is not a set of tools and for­mu­las, as con­ven­tion­ally described, but knowhow—the abil­ity of an indi­vid­ual to per­form a task to be highly pre­dic­tive of eco­nomic growth. The ses­sion will present a work­shop in which par­tic­i­pants will be trained in the use of the Atlas of Eco­nomic Com­plex­ity, a free online plat­form to visu­al­ize coun­try trade dynam­ics and the com­plex­ity of its export bas­ket. Par­tic­i­pant groups will present find­ings on a real-world exer­cise to rec­om­mend poten­tial oppor­tu­ni­ties for Kenyan exports to the U.S. to expand their knowhow and diver­sify eco­nomic pro­duc­tion. The goal of the ses­sion is to leave par­tic­i­pants with a new vision of devel­op­ment and with expe­ri­ence in using a pub­licly avail­able tool to enhance the eco­nomic growth strate­gies of coun­tries across the world.

Work­shop 7: Met­rics and their dis­con­tents: per­for­mance indi­ca­tors across devel­op­ment domains

Recent years have seen a sea change in mea­sure­ment and ‘pay for per­for­mance’ in devel­op­ment. This work­shop will explore the impli­ca­tions and tim­ing of dif­fer­ent mea­sure­ment schema, and will ask par­tic­i­pants to break into groups to dis­cuss what they see as the best pos­si­ble mea­sures for dif­fer­ent hypo­thet­i­cal devel­op­ment inter­ven­tions. The con­ver­sa­tion that ensues will explore the oppor­tu­ni­ties and lim­i­ta­tions of met­rics as a tool for improv­ing aid and project performance.

Work­shop 8: Careers In Development

A ques¬tion and answer series with pro¬fes¬sion¬als work¬ing in dif¬fer¬ent inter¬na¬tional devel¬op¬ment organ¬i¬za¬tions share their expe¬ri¬ences! A great panel to under¬stand the skills required to estab-lish a suc¬cess¬ful career in Inter¬na¬tional devel¬op-ment. An exclu¬sive con¬ver¬sa¬tion with senior offi-cials from the World Bank, BCG, JPAL and other organization!