Category: Europe & Central Asia

Countering Radicalization in France

Police officers approaching a crowd with French flag in background

Guest blog written by Mer Carattini, Sasha Mathew, Imara Salas, Kishan Shah, Katie Wesdyk The PDIA process taught us how to turn a ‘wicked problem’—a highly complex tangle of many problems with high uncertainty—into manageable components that we can begin to address. We learned a strategy for how to deconstruct an abstract problem with the…Continue Reading Countering Radicalization in France

Exploring Legal Education Reform in Ukraine

Guest blog written by Ilhom Aliyev, Yousif Folathi Alkhoori, Manoj Kumar, Mike Ramirez, Frederick Tarantino MLD 103MA: Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) in Action: Development Through Facilitated Emergence is among the best classes at Harvard Kennedy School. This hidden infinity stone, 2-credit class challenges you to solve real-world, complex problems using the PDIA approach. The tried-and-true…Continue Reading Exploring Legal Education Reform in Ukraine

Coupling Action Learning and International Development

Gavel against black background to depict legal concept

Guest blog written by Artem Shaipov After completing the Implementing Public Policy Program and joining the IPP Community of Practice, I was thrilled to receive an invitation to work with a group of master students taking a class at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) titled, “Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) in Action: Development through facilitated…Continue Reading Coupling Action Learning and International Development

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

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

Seeking the Next Gear for a Country with 30 Years of Continuous Growth

Guest blog written by Jacek Kotrasinski  Being from Poland, a country that recorded the unprecedented last 30 years of continuous economic growth, I came to the LEG Program to find out how to “Lead the Economic Growth” further.  I have lived in exceptional times in Poland over the last 40 years. I witnessed the collapse…Continue Reading Seeking the Next Gear for a Country with 30 Years of Continuous Growth

PDIA Application in the UK Private Sector

Guest blog written by Mitchell Rusu What an incredible journey this has been! Coming into this course, I really didn’t know what to expect.  I was excited about attending classes at Harvard Kennedy School, but did not realise the tremendous learning opportunity that was awaiting me. I’ve been working in the private sector my entire…Continue Reading PDIA Application in the UK Private Sector

Legal Education Reform in Ukraine

Group of people sitting at a roundtable discussing legal education in Ukraine

Guest blog written by Artem Shaipov, Ivan Shemelynets, Sheverdin Maksym, Maryna Yakubovych. This is a team works for the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, the Legal Education Committee of the Ukrainian Bar Association, and the USAID New Justice Program in Ukraine. They successfully completed the 15-week Practice of PDIA online course that ended in December 2018. This is…Continue Reading Legal Education Reform in Ukraine