Panel 8: Silent cri­sis: Address­ing youth unemployment

The global eco­nomic cri­sis and slow recov­ery has left mil­lions with­out a job. Youth have been the hard­est hit. In 2013, 12.6% or 73 mil­lion young peo­ple around the world faced dif­fi­culty tran­si­tion­ing from school to the job mar­ket. Unem­ploy­ment has a ‘scar­ring effect’ on youth: ero­sion of skills, reduced wages, and weak­ened future labor force par­tic­i­pa­tion; effects may per­sist for as long as ten years. It also bur­dens the gov­ern­ment from increased spend­ing on social ben­e­fits, loss in human cap­i­tal, and damp­ened growth prospects. The Arab Spring showed that unem­ploy­ment may even exac­er­bate social exclu­sion, crime, and insta­bil­ity. Given that we now have the largest gen­er­a­tion of youth in his­tory, how should we move for­ward? This panel will exam­ine inno­v­a­tive and col­lab­o­ra­tive ways in which var­i­ous stake­hold­ers can address the issue of youth unemployment.

Direc­tor: Kay Kim

Speak­ers:

VIDUR CHOPRA (MODERATOR) is a doc­toral stu­dent at the Har­vard Grad­u­ate School of Edu­ca­tion where his research is sit­u­ated at the inter­sec­tions of con­flict, edu­ca­tion and youth engage­ment. Much of his pro­fes­sional expe­ri­ence has focused on edu­ca­tion in the devel­op­ing world. He has rich field expe­ri­ence in India and has worked on edu­ca­tion related issues in refugee camps at the Somali-Ethiopian bor­der and in Burundi. He has also had shorter stints in Bhutan, Syria and the U.S., includ­ing expe­ri­ence at UNICEF’s head­quar­ters in New York. He’s also a dragon boat rac­ing enthu­si­ast and an avid traveler.

WILLIAM S. REESE is the Pres­i­dent and CEO of the Inter­na­tional Youth Foun­da­tion. Pre­vi­ously, he was the Pres­i­dent and CEO of Part­ners of the Amer­i­cas. He also served with the Peace Corps, first as a vol­un­teer in Sal­vador, then as direc­tor of Brazil oper­a­tions, and as deputy direc­tor of the Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean region. He is a board mem­ber of sev­eral orga­ni­za­tions includ­ing The Prince’s Youth Busi­ness Inter­na­tional, Inter­Ac­tion and Alcatel-Lucent Foun­da­tion. Mr. Reese received his BA in Polit­i­cal Sci­ence from Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity and is a grad­u­ate of the Busi­ness School’s Exec­u­tive Program.

POONAM AHLUWALIA has devel­oped two inno­v­a­tive pro­grams that shaped the global youth employ­ment agenda: YES Cam­paign and Youth­Trade. Her 14 years of tire­less work at YES Cam­paign helped place youth employ­ment on the global agenda. Through her inno­v­a­tive low-touch, high impact approach to devel­op­ment, over 400 projects world­wide have been ini­ti­ated and imple­mented by youth. Youth­Trade is an inno­v­a­tive archi­tec­ture that cer­ti­fies mission-driven youth entrepreneur’s busi­nesses and pro­vides access to mar­kets, while increas­ing prod­uct demand. Youth­Trade prod­ucts can be found at Whole Foods Mar­ket and Nord­strom. Ahluwalia sits on the World Eco­nomic Forum’s Global Agenda Coun­cil for Youth Unemployment.

NAMITA DATTA is a Senior Results Man­age­ment Spe­cial­ist in IFC’s Depart­ment of Devel­op­ment Impact and is a core mem­ber of the IFC Jobs Team that has recently launched a global pro­gram called Lets Work– a global part­ner­ship to cre­ate bet­ter pri­vate sec­tor jobs. She has led a study that esti­mated employ­ment effects of infra­struc­ture projects, devel­op­ing a method­olog­i­cal approach that is now being used by other IFIs and devel­op­ment orga­ni­za­tions. She holds var­i­ous advi­sory posi­tions within the World Bank and has a PhD from Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity, an MIA from Colom­bia Uni­ver­sity, and an MBA from the Indian Insti­tute of Management.

SABEEN MALIK is a Senior Pol­icy Advi­sor in the Office of Global Youth Issues at the US Depart­ment of State. Sabeen has worked on sev­eral White House ini­tia­tives includ­ing the Global Entre­pre­neur­ship Sum­mit and The President’s Advi­sory Coun­cil on Global Entre­pre­neur­ship. She has also trav­eled in the Mid­dle East, South Asia, Europe, and East Asia look­ing at eco­nomic issues with the next gen­er­a­tion of lead­ers on inno­va­tion in the new knowl­edge econ­omy. Sabeen has spo­ken widely on wide rang­ing top­ics and has a unique per­spec­tive on the role eco­nomic devel­op­ment and mar­ket inno­va­tion issues will play in emerg­ing economies.

Panel 9:The promise of women’s eco­nomic empowerment

This panel will focus on under­stand­ing the impor­tance of women’s eco­nomic empow­er­ment, elu­ci­dat­ing the main bar­ri­ers to eco­nomic inde­pen­dence, and dis­cussing cur­rent and poten­tial mech­a­nisms to mak­ing eco­nomic empow­er­ment a greater real­ity for women across the globe. A diverse panel of lead­ers in the sec­tor will explore ques­tions such as: Why does women’s eco­nomic empow­er­ment impact not just women but soci­eties at large? What are the con­se­quences when women do not have eco­nomic inde­pen­dence? To what extent is this a polit­i­cal prob­lem, a cul­tural prob­lem, or a dif­fer­ent sys­temic issue? And what can be done for women’s eco­nomic empow­er­ment now, and into the future?

Direc­tors: Luba Guzei and Del­phine O

Speak­ers:

KALPANA JAIN (Mod­er­a­tor), Senior Jour­nal­ist, Times of India, is a senior jour­nal­ist and a for­mer Nie­man Fel­low, whose report­ing at The Times of India played a sig­nif­i­cant role in ele­vat­ing pub­lic health as an impor­tant topic of news cov­er­age. She is cur­rently based at Har­vard Uni­ver­sity, where she has been work­ing with the fac­ulty in iden­ti­fy­ing and writ­ing case-based teach­ing mate­r­ial, writ­ing pol­icy papers and assist­ing with teach­ing. She was a Mason Fel­low at Har­vard Kennedy School where she com­pleted a mid career Mas­ters in Pub­lic Admin­is­tra­tion. In 2010, she was awarded William A. Starr fel­low­ship for inno­v­a­tive think­ing in jour­nal­ism and John Ken­neth Gal­braith Fel­low­ship for out­stand­ing aca­d­e­mic and pro­fes­sional achieve­ments at Har­vard. A case study researched and writ­ten by her, on a woman’s coura­geous lead­er­ship in end­ing decades’ old prac­tice of debt-bondage in a rural area of India, was fea­tured on Har­vard Kennedy School’s web­page as an exam­ple of out­stand­ing work.

DOROTHY TUMA, Direc­tor of DMT Con­sul­tants ltd., has spent the last spent the last ten years on three ini­tia­tives: increas­ing the income earn­ing capac­ity of incred­i­bly resilient, yet highly dis­ad­van­taged women in rural Uganda; run­ning a con­sult­ing prac­tice that helps micro, small and medium sized enter­prises in East and South­ern Africa iden­tify and pur­sue growth strate­gies; and lastly, vol­un­teer­ing for lead­er­ship roles with var­i­ous asso­ci­a­tions that sup­port women’s entre­pre­neur­ship in East Africa. She is the imme­di­ate past Chair­per­son of Uganda Women Entre­pre­neurs Asso­ci­a­tion Ltd. (UWEAL) and cur­rent Chair­per­son of the recently launched East African Women in Busi­ness Platform.She has an MBA from the Ander­son School, Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia Los Ange­les, and is cur­rently a Mason Fel­low in the Har­vard Kennedy School’s Mid-Career Mas­ters in Pub­lic Admin­is­tra­tion Program.

IRFAN ALAM is a cross-sectoral entre­pre­neur, hav­ing started both NGOs as well as a stock trade analy­sis and port­fo­lio man­age­ment firm. He founded his first enter­prise in India at the age of thir­teen, and after col­lege won the show Busi­ness Baazi­gar with his inno­v­a­tive busi­ness ideas. Soon after he started Sam­maaN, prov­ing the sec­tor could have a robust busi­ness model while also sys­tem­at­i­cally empow­er­ing rick­shaw pullers and their fam­i­lies through­out india. He also founded Sam­maaN Women’s Asso­ci­a­tion, which empow­ers women by pro­vid­ing pro­vid­ing edu­ca­tion, train­ing and employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for women. Irfan has been glob­ally rec­og­nized as an expert on social entre­pre­neur­ship, and is an Ashoka, Ford and TED fel­low, as well as a CNBC Young Turk and CNN Young Indian Leader award win­ner. Cur­rently Irfan is a Mason MPA can­di­date at Har­vard Kennedy School on Ful­bright schol­ar­ship and pro­mot­ing women and youth entre­pre­neur­ship in India.

PATRICIA RAMSAY is a Jamaican phil­an­thropist and found­ing pres­i­dent of Inter­na­tional Women’s Forum Jamaica. She has spear­headed and started dis­tinc­tive pro­grammes, includ­ing the Women’s Lead­er­ship Ini­tia­tive (WLI-Committee of United Way) of which she is chair emer­i­tus. Pat is known for her con­tri­bu­tion in the arts, hav­ing recently forged a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Uni­ver­sity of Tech­nol­ogy, and the Museum of Mod­ern Art, which resulted in the stag­ing of the Caribbean Mod­ernist Archi­tec­ture con­fer­ence, the first of its kind in the English-, Dutch-, French– and Spanish-speaking Caribbean. She has served as cul­tural direc­tor of the Uni­ver­sity of Tech­nol­ogy, chair of the Arts Foun­da­tion at the Edna Man­ley Col­lege of the Visual and Per­form­ing Arts, board mem­ber of the National Gallery, United Way and the CHASE Fund. She is cur­rently an Advanced Lead­er­ship Fel­low at the Har­vard Kennedy School’s Mid-Career Mas­ters in Pub­lic Admin­is­tra­tion Program.

Panel 10: Devel­op­ment goes local: Is this the way forward?

Devel­op­ment prac­tice is becom­ing increas­ingly local­ized as we move from a top-down to bottom-up approach. But what does this actu­ally mean? Local­iz­ing devel­op­ment has been defined and prac­ticed in var­i­ous ways with the most pop­u­lar approaches being com­mu­nity par­tic­i­pa­tion, care­fully con­sid­er­ing the local con­text, and increased social account­abil­ity and decen­tral­ized gov­er­nance. How­ever, there is an ongo­ing debate about their applic­a­bil­ity and rel­a­tive suc­cess. This panel will explore the emer­gence and ongo­ing rel­e­vance of these approaches and how they have been impacted by the role of the state, non-state actors, com­mu­ni­ties, insti­tu­tions and the pri­vate sector.

Direc­tor: Gib­rill Jaloh

Speak­ers:

RYANN MANNING (MODERATOR) is a PhD can­di­date in Orga­ni­za­tional Behav­ior at Har­vard Uni­ver­sity, and holds a Mas­ter in Pub­lic Pol­icy from the Har­vard Kennedy School. She has more than decade of expe­ri­ence in global health and inter­na­tional devel­op­ment, and has worked for the World Bank, the Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions, and var­i­ous NGOs. She is a found­ing Direc­tor of the Wel­bodi Part­ner­ship, which sup­ports pedi­atric health­care in Sierra Leone. Her pri­mary empir­i­cal research is on pub­lic sec­tor nurses in West Africa and their inter­ac­tions with patients and fam­i­lies. She has also stud­ied iden­tity and insti­tu­tional change; cul­ture and global col­lab­o­ra­tion; and the inter­na­tional devel­op­ment blogosphere.

MICHAEL WOOLCOCK is Lead Social Devel­op­ment Spe­cial­ist in the World Bank’s Devel­op­ment Research Group, where he was worked since 1998. For nine years dur­ing this period he has also taught part-time at Har­vard Kennedy School. Other pro­fes­sional appoint­ments have included being the Von Hugel Vis­it­ing Fel­low at St Edmunds Col­lege, Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity, and (dur­ing a period of exter­nal ser­vice leave from the Bank in 2007–2009) the found­ing Research Direc­tor of the Brooks World Poverty Insti­tute at the Uni­ver­sity of Man­ches­ter. An Aus­tralian national, Michael is a co-founder of the World Bank’s ‘Jus­tice for the Poor’ pro­gram, which exam­ines the inter­face between non-state and state-based legal sys­tems, and the Kennedy School’s ‘Build­ing State Capa­bil­ity’ pro­gram, which seeks to enhance the capa­bil­ity of pub­lic sec­tor orga­ni­za­tions to imple­ment their core func­tions. He had pub­lished exten­sively in fields rang­ing from insti­tu­tional his­tory, social rela­tions and legal plu­ral­ism to eco­nomic growth, pro­gram eval­u­a­tion and pop­u­lar cul­ture. His two most recent co-edited books are ‘Legal Plu­ral­ism and Devel­op­ment: Con­ver­sa­tions Between Schol­ars and Prac­ti­tion­ers’ (Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity Press 2012) and ‘Pop­u­lar Rep­re­sen­ta­tions of Devel­op­ment: Insights from Nov­els, Films, Tele­vi­sion and Social Media’ (Rout­ledge 2014).

SARAH ZOEN is a Senior Advi­sor with Oxfam America’s Pri­vate Sec­tor Depart­ment based in Boston, MA. Her pri­mary focus is to iden­tify and pro­mote pro­gram­matic link­ages in Oxfam’s tar­get regions where the pri­vate sec­tor and mar­kets can be lever­aged by poor com­mu­ni­ties for social change. In addi­tion, she leads the gen­der equal­ity index that scores com­pa­nies on poli­cies and prac­tices for Oxfam’s Behind the Brands Cam­paign and man­ages the Com­mu­nity Based Human Rights Assess­ment Ini­tia­tive. Pre­vi­ously, Sarah worked for sev­eral years with Oxfam’s domes­tic pro­gram as an advo­cate for farm­worker and immi­grant rights in the US South­east. In that role, she col­lab­o­rated with Oxfam part­ner, the Farm Labor Orga­niz­ing Com­mit­tee, to pilot a human rights impact assess­ment of farm­worker rights in North Car­olina tobacco fields. Sarah served with the Peace Corps in Côte d’Ivoire and con­ducted the­sis research in Ecuador work­ing for a Kichwa cocoa coop­er­a­tive of small­holder farm­ers in the Ama­zon. She holds Mas­ters Degrees in Edu­ca­tion and in Sus­tain­able Inter­na­tional Development.

FRANCIS GATARE is the For­mer Prin­ci­pal Pri­vate Sec­re­tary to the Pres­i­dent of Rwanda. He was the Chief Econ­o­mist and Deputy Head of the Strat­egy and Pol­icy Unit in the President’s Office. He has also served as the Prin­ci­pal Deputy CEO of Rwanda Devel­op­ment Board (RBD). He is cur­rently the Per­sonal Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Pres­i­dent Kagame to the New Part­ner­ship for Africa’s Devel­op­ment (NEPAD) Steer­ing Committee.

CAREY JOHNSON is a Senior Project Offi­cer at Man­age­ment Sci­ences for Health head­quar­tered in Med­ford, Mass­a­chu­setts, where he pro­vides over­sight and back­stop­ping sup­port for three USAID-funded projects strength­en­ing lead­er­ship and man­age­ment capac­ity in Kenya. Before join­ing MSH in 2011, he served as the Project Man­ager for Inter­na­tional Research at The Fen­way Insti­tute in Boston, coor­di­nat­ing and con­duct­ing HIV pre­ven­tion research among key pop­u­la­tions in India, South Africa and Viet­nam. He has more than 17 years’ expe­ri­ence in community-based pub­lic health pro­grams and research in both the U.S. and inter­na­tion­ally, where his time as a Peace Corps vol­un­teer in Cameroon from 2003 to 2005 solid­i­fied his pas­sion for global health. He has a Master’s degree in health and social behav­ior from the Har­vard School of Pub­lic Health, and a Bachelor’s degree in biol­ogy from the Uni­ver­sity of Alabama.

Panel 11: Open data and tech­nol­ogy: Re-envisioning civic participation

This panel explores the oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges in using open data and open tech­nolo­gies to dis­rupt old mod­els of gov­er­nance, increase account­abil­ity, and enable greater cit­i­zen engage­ment in the devel­op­ment process. With calls for a post-2015 data-revolution where gov­ern­ment data is “open by default”, we will explore how open data can drive change. But data alone is rarely enough. Groups like MySo­ci­ety and Ciu­dadano Inteligente have been build­ing civic apps to enable cit­i­zens to inter­act with gov­ern­ment, and Code 4 All projects have been embed­ding tech­nol­o­gists inside gov­ern­ment and the media to sup­port data-driven jour­nal­ism and inno­va­tion in pub­lic ser­vices. How can these and other approaches be har­nessed in inter­na­tional devel­op­ment? How will these plat­forms enable community-driven devel­op­ment? What are the cur­rent chal­lenges in using open data and technology?

Direc­tors: Irene Chung and Reshma Ramachandran

Speak­ers:

TIM DAVIES (MODERATOR) is a Fel­low at the Berk­man Cen­ter, a PhD Can­di­date in the Web Sci­ence Doc­toral Train­ing Cen­tre at the Uni­ver­sity of Southamp­ton, and a mem­ber of the open data team at the World Wide Web Foun­da­tion where he coor­di­nates the Open Data Research Net­work, and the Explor­ing the Emerg­ing Impacts of Open Data in Devel­op­ing Coun­tries project. He blogs at www.timdavies.org.uk and tweets as @timdavies.

MATTHEW SMITH works at Canada’s Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment Research Cen­tre (IDRC) where he over­sees research on how infor­ma­tion net­works can be used to pro­mote open, inclu­sive and rights based infor­ma­tion soci­eties in the south. Before join­ing IDRC in 2008, Smith com­pleted post­grad­u­ate research on the inter­ac­tion between tech­nol­ogy and soci­ety, in par­tic­u­lar the impact of e-government sys­tems on cit­i­zens’ trust in the gov­ern­ment Chile. Smith is also a co-editor of the 2013 MIT Press pub­li­ca­tion, Open Devel­op­ment: Net­worked Inno­va­tions in Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment. Smith holds a PhD in infor­ma­tion sys­tems and an MSc in devel­op­ment stud­ies from the Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics and Polit­i­cal Sci­ence (Eng­land), as well as an MSc in arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence from the Uni­ver­sity of Edin­burgh (Scotland).

PAUL LENZ is the Head of Finance and Inter­na­tional Projects for mySo­ci­ety. He joined the organ­i­sa­tion in Jan­u­ary 2011 hav­ing worked in the com­mer­cial sec­tor for 15 years, the last of 5 of which were with BT Group PLC where he held a range of man­age­ment and mar­ket­ing posi­tions. Paul’s role in mySo­ci­ety cov­ers both over­all oper­a­tional man­age­ment, and a spe­cific focus on work­ing with part­ner groups. This has included man­ag­ing the re-launch of Mzalendo.com in Kenya and work­ing with Hut­space to launch Odekro.org in Ghana, and most recently work­ing with the Par­lia­men­tary Mon­i­tor­ing Group in South Africa on the launch of pa.org.za. Paul has an MA in Bio­log­i­cal Sci­ences from the Uni­ver­sity of Oxford and an Advanced Post-Graduate Diploma in Envi­ron­men­tal Deci­sion Mak­ing from the Open Uni­ver­sity, UK.

LYNN FINE is the Inter­na­tional Pro­grams Man­ager at Code for Amer­ica, a non-profit orga­ni­za­tion that aims to lever­age tech­nol­ogy to improve local gov­ern­ment ser­vice deliv­ery and fos­ter civic engage­ment. After grad­u­at­ing Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from UCLA with a major in Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment, she went on to work in six coun­tries in Latin Amer­ica, includ­ing five years in Argentina, and then in India, resolv­ing pol­icy chal­lenges and man­ag­ing youth lead­er­ship projects. She received a Mas­ter in Pub­lic Pol­icy from the Har­vard Kennedy School, where she was selected as a Har­vard Lead­er­ship Insti­tute Fel­low. Prior to join­ing Code for Amer­ica, Lynn worked as an advi­sor to the city of Porto Ale­gre in Brazil on the imple­men­ta­tion of their open data pro­gram, cul­mi­nat­ing in the pas­sage of a city-wide open data pol­icy ear­lier this year.

Panel 12: Inter­nal migrants: The for­got­ten billion

Nearly one bil­lion peo­ple have migrated from rural to urban areas in devel­op­ing coun­tries, par­tic­u­larly China and India. These migrants have lim­ited polit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion, lack social safety nets, and live in dis­mal con­di­tions in crowded slums. Cur­rently, gov­ern­ments pro­vide lim­ited recog­ni­tion or ser­vices to these migrants, com­pa­nies see them as sim­ply a source of cheap labor, and exist­ing urban res­i­dents see them as a threat to their employ­ment and resources. Regard­less, migra­tion con­tin­ues and megac­i­ties are reach­ing their lim­its. This panel will explore whether gov­ern­ments should pro­vide more ser­vices in urban areas or develop mid-size cities and how they can bet­ter sup­port migrant communities.

Direc­tor: Jason Zhang

Speak­ers:

IZA YUE DING (MODERATOR) is a Ph.D. can­di­date in the Depart­ment of Gov­ern­ment at Har­vard Uni­ver­sity. Her research focuses on local envi­ron­men­tal gov­er­nance and pub­lic opin­ion in China. She is also a teach­ing fel­low at the Depart­ment of Gov­ern­ment, where she has taught for courses on Chi­nese polit­i­cal econ­omy, doing busi­ness in China and inter­na­tional rela­tions. She received her B.A. in 2009 from the Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan in Ann Arbor, where she double-majored in polit­i­cal sci­ence and Russ­ian and East­ern Euro­pean Stud­ies. She was a vis­it­ing stu­dent to War­saw Uni­ver­sity in 2006 and 2007, where she majored in pol­i­tics and economics.

HAMILTON HO is in the Mid-Career MPA pro­gram at HKS and orig­i­nally from Boston. Pre­vi­ously, he spent 6 years in Bei­jing, China work­ing with migrant chil­dren and their fam­i­lies, first as a vol­un­teer and later as Regional Pro­grams Man­ager with a non-profit orga­ni­za­tion, INCLUDED (for­merly Com­pas­sion for Migrant Chil­dren). He over­saw new com­mu­nity cen­ter launches, as well as the design, devel­op­ment, and eval­u­a­tion of pro­grams within Beijing’s urban migrant com­mu­ni­ties, run­ning after school pro­grams, pre-school edu­ca­tion and voca­tional train­ing pro­grams, serv­ing over 1,500 migrant chil­dren and par­ents each semes­ter. INCLUDED has also expanded into Shang­hai, Kath­mandu and Dhaka.

SOMIK V. LALL is a Lead Econ­o­mist for Urban Devel­op­ment at the World Bank. He has been a core team mem­ber of the World Devel­op­ment Report 2009: Reshap­ing Eco­nomic Geog­ra­phy, Senior Eco­nomic Coun­selor to the Indian Prime Minister’s National Trans­port Devel­op­ment Pol­icy Com­mit­tee, and Lead Author of the World Bank’s flag­ship report on urban­iza­tion “Plan­ning, Con­nect­ing, and Financ­ing Cities Now”. He cur­rently leads a World Bank pro­gram on the Urban­iza­tion Review, which pro­vides diag­nos­tic tools and a pol­icy frame­work for pol­icy mak­ers to man­age rapid urban­iza­tion and city devel­op­ment. Urban­iza­tion Reviews have been com­pleted or are ongo­ing in over 20 coun­tries, cov­er­ing over 55 per­cent of the global urban pop­u­la­tion. His research and pol­icy inter­ests span urban and spa­tial eco­nom­ics, rural urban migra­tion, infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment, and pub­lic finance, with more than 40 pub­li­ca­tions fea­tured in peer-reviewed jour­nals, edited vol­umes, and work­ing papers. Dr. Lall holds a bachelor’s degree in engi­neer­ing, master’s in city plan­ning, and doc­tor­ate in eco­nom­ics and pub­lic policy.

ROBERT E.B. LUCAS is Pro­fes­sor of Eco­nom­ics at Boston Uni­ver­sity. Pro­fes­sor Lucas com­pleted the B.Sc (Econ) and M.Sc (Econ) at Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics and receieved his Ph.D. from M.I.T. His research has included work on inter­nal and inter­na­tional migra­tion, employ­ment and human resources, income dis­tri­b­u­tion and inter­gen­er­a­tional inequal­ity, inter­na­tional trade and indus­try, the envi­ron­ment, and share­crop­ping. Pro­fes­sor Lucas has served as Chief Tech­ni­cal Adviser to the Malaysia Human Resource Depart­ment Pro­gram, Direc­tor of Under­grad­u­ate Stud­ies and the MA pro­gram in Eco­nom­ics at Boston Uni­ver­sity, Research Affil­i­ate at the MIT Cen­ter for Inter­na­tional Stud­ies and con­sul­tant to a num­ber of inter­na­tional agencies.

DR CHEN JIAXI 陈家喜 is Pro­fes­sor at the Insti­tute of Con­tem­po­rary Chi­nese Pol­i­tics, Shen­zhen Uni­ver­sity, China, and now is Rajav­ili Fel­lows at Ash Cen­ter, Har­vard Kennedy School. He holds a PhD in Polit­i­cal Sci­ence from Fudan Uni­ver­sity, China. Dr Chen’s main research inter­ests include the CCP’s adap­ta­tion, pri­vate entre­pre­neurs’ polit­i­cal par­tic­i­pa­tion, and local gov­er­nance in China. He is the author of The Polit­i­cal Impact of Pri­vate Entre­pre­neurs in Reform China (China: Chongqing Press, 2007), Town­ship Elec­tion Reform in China(Beijing: Peo­ple Press,2009)and The Polit­i­cal Change of Shen­zhen Spe­cial Eco­nomic Zone: 1980–2010 (Bei­jing: Com­mer­cial Press, 2010).

Panel 13: Arts: A pow­er­ful but under­ex­plored tool for development

Not only are the arts inher­ently reward­ing, they also spark social, polit­i­cal, and even eco­nomic change. How­ever, few fund­ing sources or pro­grams focus on using the arts to drive devel­op­ment. Though research is not the only legit­i­mate means for allo­cat­ing resources, the lack of rig­or­ous data may con­tribute to the lack of fund­ing for this pow­er­ful tool. This panel will fea­ture new find­ings from a ran­dom­ized con­trol trial on the impact of music train­ing on at-risk youth. The panel will pro­vide on-the-ground exam­ples of how arts can be used effec­tively in a devel­op­ment con­text and explore how novel research meth­ods are used to assess the highly fluid, multi-dimensional, and context-specific nature of arts programs.

Direc­tor: Camila Alva

Speak­ers:

MICHAEL WOOLCOCK (MODERATOR) is a Lec­turer in Pub­lic Pol­icy, is Lead Social Devel­op­ment Spe­cial­ist with the World Bank’s Devel­op­ment Research Group in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., where he has worked since 1998. His cur­rent research focuses on inter­ac­tions between cus­tom­ary and state legal sys­tems, con­ducted as part of the World Bank’s global ‘Jus­tice for the Poor’ pro­gram (which he co-founded), strate­gies for build­ing state capa­bil­ity for imple­men­ta­tion and strate­gies for assess­ing com­plex social inter­ven­tions. His most recent book is Pop­u­lar Rep­re­sen­ta­tions of Devel­op­ment: Insights from Nov­els, Films, Tele­vi­sion and Social Media (edited with David Lewis and Den­nis Rodgers; Rout­ledge, 2014). An Aus­tralian national, he has an M.A. and Ph.D. in soci­ol­ogy from Brown University.

MARGARET MARTIN is a doc­tor of pub­lic health and founder of Har­mony Project, a music-based men­tor­ing pro­gram that has pro­vided instru­ments and tuition-free group and pri­vate music lessons to thou­sands of the most vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren in Los Ange­les as a means of pos­i­tive youth devel­op­ment and social inclu­sion. Har­mony Project has gar­nered two Pres­i­den­tial awards since 2009; affil­i­ated pro­grams have launched across five states. Pre­lim­i­nary find­ings of her research col­lab­o­ra­tion with North­west­ern University’s Audi­tory Neu­ro­science Lab sug­gest that early music train­ing may remodel children’s devel­op­ing brains and sig­nif­i­cantly improve cog­ni­tive func­tion in dis­ad­van­taged chil­dren, espe­cially for lan­guage pro­cess­ing and reading.

DORIS SOMMER, Direc­tor of the Cul­tural Agents Ini­tia­tive at Har­vard Uni­ver­sity, is Ira and Jew­ell Williams Pro­fes­sor of Romance Lan­guages and Lit­er­a­tures and of African and African Amer­i­can Stud­ies. Her aca­d­e­mic and out­reach work pro­motes devel­op­ment through arts and human­i­ties, specif­i­cally through “Pre-Texts” in Boston Pub­lic Schools, through­out Latin Amer­ica and beyond. Pre-Texts is an arts-based train­ing pro­gram for teach­ers of lit­er­acy, crit­i­cal think­ing, and cit­i­zen­ship. Among her books are Foun­da­tional Fic­tions: The National Romances of Latin Amer­ica (1991) about nov­els that helped to con­sol­i­date new republics; Pro­ceed with Cau­tion when Engaged by Minor­ity Lit­er­a­ture (1999) on a rhetoric of par­tic­u­lar­ism; Bilin­gual Aes­thet­ics: A New Sen­ti­men­tal Edu­ca­tion (2004); and The Work of Art in the World: Civic Agency and Pub­lic Human­i­ties (2014). Som­mer has enjoyed and is ded­i­cated to devel­op­ing good pub­lic school edu­ca­tion. She has a B.A. from New Jersey’s Dou­glass Col­lege for Women, and Ph.D. from Rut­gers, The State University.

Panel 14: From access to qual­ity in healthcare

In efforts to meet the MDGs, many devel­op­ing coun­tries have sharply increased pub­lic health expen­di­ture and access to health­care. But improve­ments in health out­comes are stag­nat­ing – per­haps due to the qual­ity of ser­vices pro­vided. Pub­lic health­care is fraught with high rates of absen­teeism, mis­di­ag­no­sis, and mis­man­age­ment of treat­ment and an increas­ing frac­tion of the poor are pay­ing for pri­vate health­care, despite the lack of access to insur­ance. This panel will exam­ine inno­v­a­tive ideas around mea­sur­ing and improv­ing the qual­ity of health services.

Direc­tor: Mon­isha Ashok

Speak­ers:

MONISHA ASHOK (MODERATOR) has been deeply engaged with health­care in devel­op­ing coun­tries for a num­ber of years. She grad­u­ated with a dual degree in Pub­lic Health and Eco­nom­ics from the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley, where she worked on pub­lic health projects in Peru and India. After grad­u­a­tion, she spent three years run­ning a national study called “Med­ical Advice Qual­ity and Avail­abil­ity in Rural India (MAQARI)” in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the World Bank, Inno­va­tions for Poverty Action, and the Cen­ter for Pol­icy Research, New Delhi. For this study, she worked closely with Michael Kre­mer (Pro­fes­sor, Har­vard Uni­ver­sity), Karthik Muralid­ha­ran (Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor, UC San Diego), and Jishnu Das (Econ­o­mist, World Bank) and con­ducted research on access and and qual­ity of health ser­vices in India. More recently, she did her sum­mer intern­ship with Dr. Agnes Binag­waho, the Min­is­ter of Health in Rwanda and helped restruc­ture human resources for health. She is cur­rently pur­su­ing a Mas­ter in Pub­lic Admin­is­tra­tion in Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment at the Har­vard Kennedy School.

KENNETH LEONARD is an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of eco­nom­ics in the depart­ment of Agri­cul­tural and Resource Eco­nom­ics at the Uni­ver­sity of Mary­land, spe­cial­iz­ing in the deliv­ery of health and edu­ca­tion to rural pop­u­la­tions in Africa. He has lived and worked in sev­eral African coun­tries, includ­ing Camer­oun, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Tan­za­nia and Malawi. His work has high­lighted the impor­tant roles played by both tra­di­tional heal­ers and non­govern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions in the deliv­ery of health care. Recent work focuses on the sup­ply of health care ser­vices in rural Tan­za­nia and exam­ines the behav­ior of house­holds in response to the qual­ity of care that is avail­able to them. In addi­tion, he has been study­ing the know-do gap with clin­i­cians in Tan­za­nia and the role of intrin­sic moti­va­tion in clos­ing this gap.

DR. ASHER HASAN is the Founder and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of Naya Jee­van (‘new life’ in Urdu/Hindi; http://www.njfk.org), a hybrid social enter­prise ded­i­cated to pro­vid­ing low-income fam­i­lies in the emerg­ing world with afford­able access to high qual­ity, health­care. Naya Jeevan’s oper­a­tions are cur­rently focused on Pak­istan with plans to repli­cate this model in India, Philip­pines, Mex­ico and other emerg­ing mar­kets. Asher was selected to join the World Eco­nomic Forum Global Agenda Coun­cil for Social Inno­va­tion for 2012–2014. He is a 2011 World Eco­nomic Forum/Schwab Foun­da­tion Asian Social Entre­pre­neur of the Year, a 2013 Syn­er­gos Senior Fel­low, a 2009 TED fel­low, a 2011 Ashoka US fel­low, a Draper Richards Social Entre­pre­neur Fel­low for 2009–2011, and an invited mem­ber of the Clin­ton Global Ini­tia­tive for 2009 and 2010.

RANU DHILLON works on the design and imple­men­ta­tion of scal­able community-based pri­mary health sys­tems in low and middle-income coun­tries. Based in the Divi­sion of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hos­pi­tal, he is a Senior Health Advi­sor with the Earth Insti­tute at Colum­bia Uni­ver­sity, an asso­ciate Fac­ulty Mem­ber of Ari­adne Labs, and teacher at Har­vard Med­ical School and Columbia’s School of Inter­na­tional and Pub­lic Affairs. Dr. Dhillon works on build­ing pri­mary and community-based approaches for enhanc­ing pop­u­la­tion health and improv­ing the per­for­mance of national health sys­tems at scale. In Rwanda, Dr. Dhillon led the estab­lish­ment of a com­pre­hen­sive pri­mary care sys­tem for 25,000 peo­ple. He has advised national gov­ern­ments in Liberia, Nige­ria, and India on build­ing effec­tive heath­care deliv­ery at scale through the strength­en­ing of gov­ern­ment health sys­tems and pol­icy reform. With the Office of the Pres­i­dency in Nige­ria, he helped cre­ate and exe­cute a pro­gram that guides dis­tricts on health strat­egy and allo­cates addi­tional fund­ing for imple­men­ta­tion. Dr. Dhillon also anchored a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment to cre­ate a national com­mu­nity health worker pro­gram that is now being scaled up nation­ally. In India, he works with state gov­ern­ments to improve the deliv­ery of pri­mary care and mater­nal and child health inter­ven­tions through the pub­lic health­care sys­tem. Dr. Dhillon sits on the Inter­na­tional Advi­sory Panel to the National Rural Health Mis­sion in India, the Min­is­te­r­ial Work­ing Group for Min­is­ters of Health from Nige­ria, India, China, Ethiopia and Kenya, Part­ners in Health’s Com­mu­nity Health Worker Task­force, and the Board of Direc­tors for Spark Micro­Grants. He has con­tributed to the Har­vard Global Health Deliv­ery Project and serves on expert pan­els with the WHO and UNICEF. He was named a Fel­low of the Royal Soci­ety of Arts (UK) in 2014. Dr. Dhillon earned his BS and MD from the com­bined six-year accel­er­ated pro­gram at Penn State Uni­ver­sity and Jef­fer­son Med­ical Col­lege and is a grad­u­ate of the Hiatt Res­i­dency for Global Health Equity and Inter­nal Med­i­cine at Brighan and Women’s Hos­pi­tal and Har­vard Med­ical School.