Engaging the process of change and collaborative participation for inclusive growth

Guest blog by Matt Warner

Matt Andrews and Ricardo Hausmann have created one of the most profound educational experiences for those working in development practice focused on inclusive growth. This course has been transformative for my work at an international foundation focused on supporting those aims in multiple developing countries.

When well formulated policies meet implementation roadblocks in Bangladesh and Vietnam

Guest blog by Sehyeon Baek

1. What were your expectations of IPP Online when you signed up?　

I have been working in the private sector as well as the public sector back and forth for quite some time. In 2015, I was recruited by one of the Korean government agencies for the innovation and startups support. At the end of December 2017, I resigned from the agency although I was fully employed until I would retire at 60. In 2018, I joined one startup as COO and successfully led the investment raising, $21M, for the startup from Japan and Hong Kong. In 2019, I was recruited by the current organization with 21 member countries again. And I have seen so many great policies and masterplans to be formulated, and yet, when it came to implementing them, it did not seem to move forward at all.

Driving diversification in the Cova da Beira Region, Portugal

Guest blog by João Leitão

• Growth challenge: Cova da Beira Region: Driving Diversification to Complexity

• Country/region/municipality: Portugal/Cova da Beira/Fundão

Learning how to drive the Cova da Beira Region, Portugal: From a stepping-stone to complexity. Reflections on LEG 2021, October 4 – December 10, 2021, from the Cova da Beira Region, Portugal

Responding to economic collapse in Venezuela

Guest blog by Ana Maria Chirinos Leanez

After almost two years since the COVID19 pandemic started, policymakers and governments continue struggling with questions on how to deal with concerns on economic growth challenges and how to promote countries’ recovery more sustainably and inclusively. Those topics are very well discussed by the Leading Economic Growth program developed by the Harvard Kennedy School in collaboration with the Center for International Development (CID). It is a ten-week executive program that provides tools for the diagnosis and decision-making related to growth and development for practitioners worldwide.

As a Venezuelan macroeconomist who has been analyzing her country’s complex and severe macroeconomic crisis from a macro-financial perspective, the inclusion of economic growth elements would complete the whole picture of the analysis. For ten weeks, I was deeply immersed in the concepts of economic complexity, Knowhow, product space, growth diagnosis, strategies to promote economic diversification, and how to work with very complex problems using the problem-driven iterative adaptation (PDIA) approach. So, all the discussions were very profound and useful in designing development policies, and selecting some takeaways is not easy. However, I could summarize the most relevant lessons of the program as follows:

Apply for our Leading Economic Growth Executive Program!

We are offering Leading Economic Growth online again from February 28 – May 6^th 2022. Application deadline is February 7th, 2022.

Stimulating growth is the top economic priority for many countries and localities around the world. Yet many are trapped, lacking the productive capability to solve problems and expand to new industries to drive development. New growth strategies need paths, processes and organizations to address this problem.

Sophisticated Tools. Practical Approaches.

In this ten-week program, you will learn how to develop a set of policies and tools to define your growth problem, detect constraints to growth, and design solutions to unlock growth. Through peer learning groups and live class sessions, you will apply the frameworks and tools to your own economic growth challenge.

Aligning post pandemic priorities

Guest blog by Raphaelle Aubert

• What were your expectations of IPP Online when you signed up?

When I signed up for this course, I was eager to learn more about public policy, which is a field I would like to gain more exposure to within the World Bank Group and as I keep building a career in development.

Thanks to this learning journey, I feel much more confident to take additional steps in this direction. I also realize that I have learned a great deal about project management, leadership and other concepts that I can apply regardless of my field of expertise.

Increasing human and physical resources across Saudi Arabia

Guest blog by Hathal AlOtaibi

Expectations

 To be honest, my expectations were met and might have even been exceeded as this course helped me think in a strategic way about the challenge I face as a public servant. While the analysis part is not deeply embedded in the scope of this course, the implementation side was well covered and I really could not ask for more.

11 lessons and insights from Leading Economic Growth

Guest blog by Marcia Korsten

A great thing about this programme is that it highlighted that context matters for an economic growth strategy and that unique and differentiated approaches that fit the specific context are needed. On the other hand, another great thing is that the lessons and principles of Leading Economic Growth can be applied across various economic growth and development challenges and within a national and subnational context. Looking at the economic challenge of inclusive growth and jobs I have experienced both as part of LEG 2021 and as a member of Group 11 where I was fortunate to collaborate with a great group of peers over the course of the programme, I am sharing 11 of my lessons and insights. These lessons and insights inform my thinking and practice within the economic, policy, strategy and innovation space.

The survival of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in India using PDIA

Guest blog by Tapasya Obhrai Nair

The journey through the IPP course has been like the pilgrims’ progress. Every stop has given some insight and revelation and shown the path to the next stop or destination. I signed up for this course to learn from other practitioners of public policy about their experiences and the alternative ways of approaching problems. I felt that the course would equip me with new tools and methodologies to better understand issues and to find ways of addressing them. It has been more than a satisfying experience for me in this respect.

Managing Public Finances for the Future

Written by Matt Andrews

I have been part of a creative team teaching an executive course on public finance for over a decade. This team has spent lots of time discussing the changes we have all experienced in the world in recent decades, and what the main objectives of public finance might be now—in what is an ever-changing world.

Out of this discussion, I propose what I call the Pillars of Public Finance Performance in Our Changing World—the objectives we should be paying attention to when determining how well our public finance systems are working:

1. How does the system impact equity?
2. How does it foster fiscal sustainability?
3. What about the way our public finances impact environmental sustainability?
4. Do we have a high level of effectiveness in the system?
5. Do we foster inclusion in the processes and products of our public finance system?
6. How is our public finance system impacting innovation and growth?
7. You add yours…
8. Does our system promote accountability, of politicians to citizens, and bureaucrats to politicians and citizens, and current citizens to each other and future generations?