Guest blog by Yaveneshaa Madurai, LEG’23
The Harvard Kennedy School Leading Economic Growth (LEG) programme challenged me in quite a different way, than I’m ‘used to’.
As a Strategist, I’m used to delivering things that are ‘neatly processed’ – you choose your ‘weapon of choice’ (a previously developed strategy model by one of the ‘gurus’, or develop your own), stick to that model and you win every single time. Being able to have an end result I can predict, and continuously studying ‘strategy’ in programmes and courses over the years, to constantly ‘level up’, have given me a sort of academic comfort zone.
LEG turned out to be a completely different story – a strategist looking through the long lens of an Economist. It was ‘the perfect storm in an evolutionary tea cup’.
While I got to the same outcomes in the end – they showed up differently, telling the same story with a different storytelling style, giving me a few different perspectives of the world. Africa looks different to me now – actually the whole world looks completely different. It was not easy to have a single view with 2 very different lenses. Like in all forms of translation, in the beginning, I kept thinking in strategy terms, and then translating it into an economics perspective. It took a few weeks for me to stop doing that, and only applying economics principles.
Professors Ricardo Hausmann & Matt Andrews (a South African, btw) broadened perspectives & ‘called a spade a shovel’ in driving home the core concepts.
The message was clear:
If the developing world is ever going to have economic transformation in our lifetime, best we get ‘shoveling’.
In the end, I didn’t know it was possible for me to be even more determined to drive African economic transformation than I already had been, but here we are!
I AM.
LEG did that!
A huge shout-out to the best team ever the CACUW (pronounced Cashcow) Quintet: Ruzica from Croatia, Gustavo from Colombia, Brandon from the US, & Tariq from the UAE, which is a fascinating economic story, and presented an opportunity for us to use it as a basis of a comparison, and forward looking growth potential.
My very patient and understanding team got to know about loadshedding in South Africa very quickly, & it was even referenced as a “binding constraint” in our final presentation – it seems loadshedding is becoming notorious all over the world
The Fishbone diagram, in its simplicity but effectiveness, made the biggest impression on me, not because it was my first experience with it, but because I have known it well throughout my strategy work and career, but this time was so different, not just economics and economic growth, but for strategy – looked at with a new appreciation, providing me with the opportunity to optimise all the work that I have already done for Africa’s economic transformation, in a more refined way, as I move forward with various strategies.
My key growth challenge was focused on answering the question: “What if the African Continental Free Trade Area/AfCFTA does not get implemented?” – Through every module, over these last few weeks, I have had moments of true panic combined with moments of pure determination that implementation was not an option, but a necessity.
The AfCFTA is Africa’s last chance at economic self-sustainability as engendered in the continent’s blueprint called Agenda 2063, through a focused approach of optimising intra-African trade. Beyond that, there is an active narrative of ‘trade not aid’, and it is this notion that holistically drives the ‘fear of’ lack of implementation.
I took a short ‘sabbatical’ from my PhD studies to complete this course, and now that I have had my ‘fun’, it is time to get back to it – I’m so looking forward to that first moment when it hits me how much this course has helped with my application of LEG to the rest of my PhD studies.
Can’t wait!
This is a blog series written by the alumni of the Leading Economic Growth Executive Education Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. 72 Participants successfully completed this 10-week online course in May 2023. These are their learning journey stories.