Category: Europe & Central Asia

Exploring economic diversification in Azerbaijan

Guest blog by Gasimli Vusal “Leading Economic Growth” program gave us the know-how we can start implementing to promote economic growth in our city, region, or country at this difficult time. Staff ensured us that the more we invest, the more we will derive from the program.  My country, Azerbaijan, tripled its economy during the last 15…Continue Reading Exploring economic diversification in Azerbaijan

Improving Food Safety Standards in Ukraine

Guest blog by Kateryna Onul The COVID-19 crisis has coincided with reform within my organization and an urgent need to find new approaches to working with the public sector in different parts of the world. I was looking for tools that could help me continue working on improving policy and regulatory frameworks in the food safety…Continue Reading Improving Food Safety Standards in Ukraine

Keys to Unlocking Policy Locks: Legal Education in Ukraine

Words "Legal Education" with magnifying glass

Guest blog by Artem Shaipov Having earned in 2018 a certificate for successful completion of the online series “The Practice of PDIA: Building capability by delivering results” offered by Building State Capability at the Harvard Center for International Development, I learned about the Implementing Public Policy Program (IPP) from the PDIA Community’s first newsletter. I jumped…Continue Reading Keys to Unlocking Policy Locks: Legal Education in Ukraine

‘IPP helped my transition from the private sector to the public sector’

Guest blog written by Giannis Skiadaresis Being part of this very exceptional course was a great opportunity for me to alter the way I was coping with challenges and to find solutions to problems that I was facing in my day-to-day work. Implementing Public Policy was a very unique chapter in my personal development, which coincided…Continue Reading ‘IPP helped my transition from the private sector to the public sector’

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?