Year: 2021

Building a Movement of Public Problem Solvers

written by Salimah Samji Solving public problems is a hard and thankless job. One that is undertaken with a shortage of time as well as resources, and often under pressure to deliver results. A common approach used to solve public problems is to develop a plan, sometimes with experts, and then to assume that implementation…Continue Reading Building a Movement of Public Problem Solvers

Formin’ Normin’ and Stormin’ – My IPP Journey Through Pandemics and Hurricanes in Louisiana

Bourbon Street, New Orleans, Louisiana

Guest blog written by Liana Elliott When I began this executive education course – in the middle of a pandemic, while still recovering from a cyberattack – I was expecting to get some dry, Harvard-y lectures and maybe some good business-speak tools, and join the network of HKS practitioners around the world.  I was NOT expecting…Continue Reading Formin’ Normin’ and Stormin’ – My IPP Journey Through Pandemics and Hurricanes in Louisiana

Reflecting on the Growth of Agriculture in Albania

A field of wheat

Guest blog written by Lorena Pullumbi The Leading Economic Growth course has been an absolutely inspiring intellectual journey for me. Having taken place during unprecedented times and mostly under lockdown, it was a unique opportunity to truly reflect on key principles of economic growth while using that toolset to better understand the unfolding of policy choices and drivers of economic growth for my own country (as a policy professional working for the administration, you don’t always get that chance often). The world class academic excellence was a major driving force that triggered my intellectual curiosity and led me to deepen the involvement with course material and do further research, whereas the way the on-­‐line learning platform was designed made the course a delightful experience that I was looking forward to, every time I switched back from my day job….Continue Reading Reflecting on the Growth of Agriculture in Albania

Can PDIA approaches help to enhance the development of Institutional Strategies in Multilateral Organizations

Guest blog written by Francisco Castro-y-Ortíz I work for a multilateral development organization—the Inter-American Development Bank—and am a citizen from a Latin-American Middle-Income Country (MIC). Because of this background, the main economic problem I am most concerned about relates to my own country—Mexico—and the Latin-American and Caribbean region (LAC) as a whole. It is about…Continue Reading Can PDIA approaches help to enhance the development of Institutional Strategies in Multilateral Organizations

Leading Economic Growth in Kazakhstan

Guest blog written by Baur Bektemirov There is an old cliché that crisis is an opportunity. In my case, the Great Lockdown has certainly become an opportunity to learn and even re-think my work as the Chief Economist for a government organization, which just recently was tasked with an expanded role to help the government…Continue Reading Leading Economic Growth in Kazakhstan

Learning to Crawl: Can a Health Financing Reform Unshackle Ukraine’s Growth Potential?

Guest blog written by Dzhygyr Yuriy Through past two decades, Ukraine has been steadily descending the Atlas economic complexity ranking list, going down from #30 in 2001 to #50 in 2016. At the lowest border of the second highest quintile, it is a relatively advanced economy and was assessed by Ricardo Hausmann’s international complexity simulations…Continue Reading Learning to Crawl: Can a Health Financing Reform Unshackle Ukraine’s Growth Potential?

Better school improvement through Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation

Guest blog written by Harry Fletcher-Wood What do these have in common? All three ran late and overbudget: Crossrail is 3 years late and £2 billion overbudget; the Edinburgh Tram was half-finished 3 years late and £231 million overbudget; the NHS IT programme was abandoned after 10 years and £6 billion. Most big projects exceed…Continue Reading Better school improvement through Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation

Learning about Economic Growth in Angola

Guest blog written by  Noelma Viegas D’Abreu  I: Key Ideas and Learning LEG helped me demystify something very important: Economy is not only a science of accounting, finance, taxes and interest. Over the years, I was curious about economic theories and some approaches, reading and studying phenomena of leadership, change, growth, politics and development in…Continue Reading Learning about Economic Growth in Angola

To Improve Women’s Lives, Start by Improving Girls’ Education

written by Marla Spivack By ensuring that all girls are receiving inclusive, effective instruction in well-functioning education systems, we can grow closer to achieving SDG 4’s promise of universal literacy and numeracy and lifelong learning. Today is International Women’s Day. Among the unprecedented challenges that COVID-19 presents, there are many, many, many issues in women’s lives that deserve urgent…Continue Reading To Improve Women’s Lives, Start by Improving Girls’ Education