Building the foundation for economic growth in Burkina Faso

Guest blog by Gillesamadou Ouedraogo

“We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children”.

A saying that paints well what I’ve gleaned from this insightful journey. This class has helped me come to the realization that growth stems from a meticulous, intentional, minute, and coordinated ensemble of efforts deployed to a very specifically determined end, it will never occur accidentally. If planned growth efforts often fail it’s because it is a process, iterative in nature, that is disruption averse and responds well to consistent application of policy translated into action. It requires a concerted coordination of efforts from government, civil society, private sector, investors, banks, industries, and a slew of different stakeholders, to grow the pie. But one must know the recipe. And depending on where you are, the ingredients, and ultimately, the flavor might be different. That is why it important to ensure a future for tomorrow. Alas, the future in my society is a very volatile and neglected concept. The future has never been a priority for us, as the now has always been enough of an enigma that we live for today and hope for tomorrow. But slowly, we are getting into a mindset where we understand that planning for tomorrow has its advantages. That is why it is crucial for us to invest in our children being left with more than what we found when we came into this world. Otherwise, we risk leaving nothing to our descendants in the next generations.

Youth Unemployment in Kenya: My Journey as a Leading Economic Growth Student

Guest blog by Albert Waudo

What can I say?  This has been one of most interesting trainings I have attended in a while.  Right from the first class where we were asked to think about crossing a country in 2015 with a well-drawn map versus crossing the same country in 1804 when there was no map in existence.  This class sort of felt like the 1804 case.  I came into the class with a preconceived notion on economic growth and a set of ideas of how my growth challenge should be tackled by my organization and government, but I as the class progressed, kept leaning something new at the end of each class and adjusting my thinking as we went along.  This was PDIA in practice (Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation) a step-by-step approach which helps you break down your problems into its root causes, identify entry points, search for possible solutions, take action, reflect upon what you have learned, adapt and then act again.

The course was broken down into 4 components, reading and watching the weekly materials provided by the faculty, working on a weekly assignment, participating in a small group discussion and a live question and answer session with the faculty every Tuesday.  There were optional sessions with TA every Friday.

Impact of COVID-19 on Benin Republic’s Economy

Guest blog by Aadam Soulebon

My expectations:

When I was offered to sign up for the online version of this program, at first glance, I had concerns. This was my very first HKS course. Indeed, I was afraid that the resulting interaction would not add a substantial value to me besides the class materials. I was looking for something to solidify my competence in the field of public policies as a practitioner but also the HARVARD experience, the interaction with teachers but also the richness of exchanges with classmates.

Guess what: I’ve had a lot more than I can put into words …

Working as Special Assistant to the Senior Minister of Planning and Development of Benin Republic, the highest-ranking Minister, public policies are in our core business. We oversee the implementation of all public policies launched by the government. In most cases, we conceive, we mobilize resources and we monitor while the sectoral ministries are in charge of implementation. As we are reaching the end of this course, I am going back to my normal  life with technical tools, experience sharing,  and a network to rely on through the years. I am more confident in my job and am able to come up with options and solutions instead of questions while dealing with public policies.

Tackling gun violence in Birmingham, Alabama

Guest blog by Crystal Smitherman

Being a new and young politician, I knew I had a lot of learning to do in the political sector. I had a lot of energy and great initiatives, but I still need to learn how to revamp my message and craft good policy making habits. In the midst of a crime crisis, as our murder rates continued to rise significantly every week, I knew something had to change. I knew our policy approach towards dealing with crime needed to be reformed and improved. I came across the Implementing Public Policy course on the Harvard Kennedy School website. I knew my mindset Right then, would never be the same the moment I enrolled in the course.

I always knew I had the potential and capability to make a difference in my district and city by achieving attainable development goals and initiatives. Yet, I was still hitting a brick wall when it came to getting over the hump of pushing forward on certain initiatives. This is why I am forever grateful that I joined the 2020 IPP cohort.

What if it’s not broken yet?

Guest blog by Carmel Quin

Western Australia is a prosperous State in a diverse and wealthy country. Our growth challenge is not one that we experience today – but one that looms large on the horizon. 

Much of the State’s wealth comes from the export of non-renewable commodities – natural resources that will not last forever. If we want to maintain our standard of living in the future, it is vital that new drivers of growth are developed.

The question I, and many others, have sought to understand is – what might these new growth opportunities be and how can we best support them? Further, how can we prompt meaningful and sustained action to address a problem before its impacts are felt?

Low local supply in global value chains in Chihuahua, MX

Guest blog by Torres Luis Oliver

Being part of this course was not only an academic experience, it was also a professional experience of great impact for the development of my skills as a professional in territorial development.

In this sense, having spent ten weeks learning new methodologies and mechanisms to measure economic development and growth as well as the identification of problems in the territory, allowed me to develop capacities and skills to apply them in my work responsibility.

It was not only the knowledge that I was able to acquire through the conferences, papers and recommendations made by the teachers, but also the knowledge and experiences that other peers do in their cities and countries, this experience of collaboration with other students of the course. It has been fundamental to generate contacts around the world.

Formalizing Egypt’s Informal Sector

Guest blog by Perihan Tawfik

Being an Egyptian Woman, a holder of a master degree of the Public Policy and Public Administration from the American University in Cairo (AUC, 2007), member of the AUC Public Policy Hub (2018) and working for the International Labor Organization (UN Specialized agency) encouraged me to think about enrolling in a public policy course at Harvard’s premises. 

Applying to “Implementing Public Policy”, blended course, at Harvard Kennedy School was a very interesting challenge from March to December 2020 until the moment the course turned to be an online course then the challenge started to grow bigger in me. I had an initial expectation to learn from the Harvard premises experience and from the interaction with professors and mates especially that I considered the online part as an introduction and conclusion while the body of the course is mainly the in presence-week.

Dissecting challenges, mapping entry points & building teams: My IPP learnings

Guest blog by Laney Stone

This has been an interesting year, to say the least, and when it became clear that I would need to stay at home for some time due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I considered how I might use my time in a constructive way. I was excited to see that the HKS 2020 course on Implementing Public Policy (IPP) had been moved online for accessibility during the pandemic. I quickly applied, hoping to gain insights into how best to design and implement public policies and what pitfalls should be avoided, but was not sure what exactly to expect from six months of Harvard via Zoom and Canvas. I was pleasantly surprised by how much we covered and worked through every week, and by the depth of interpersonal, leadership, and management strategies that we explored. Our Zoom sessions were not so different from in-person sessions, and six months of engagement let us put our learning into practice and exchange ideas on a consistent basis. 

Apply for our Leading Economic Growth Program Now!

We are offering Leading Economic Growth online again from October 4 – December 10^th 2021. Application deadline is September 13th, 2021.

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.

Leading Economic Growth brings together leading experts in economic development with practitioners from around the globe to focus on practical approaches to shared growth and development. Led by Professor Ricardo Hausmann and Professor Matt Andrews, the curriculum provides a framework for understanding economic growth, as well as sophisticated tools for diagnosis, decision making, and implementation.

In March 2020, we pivoted our 5-day residential program to a 10-week online program. It was one of the first executive education programs to pivot online at the Harvard Kennedy School. 216 participants from 64 countries successfully completed the 10-week program, and 96% of the participants rated the program excellent or very good.

We offered the program again in March 2021, and 65 participants from 27 countries successfully completed the program. 96% of the participants rated the program excellent/very good, and 98% of them said that they would consider taking an online course with us again.

Here’s what they had to say about the program:

“This is an extremely engaging, interesting and practical course. I have already incorporated many of the ideas/concepts into my project proposals.” 

“It was one of the most stimulating learning experiences I have had. Not only was I able to expand my viewpoint about development and economic growth, but I was also able to think more deeply about the growth challenge I am tackling in my country.”

“The combination of growth diagnostics and PDIA was very valuable–new tools for thinking about economic growth challenges, and new tools for advancing implementation.” 

“I would highly recommend the course to every international development practitioner.”

A Hands-on Deconstruction of Youth Unemployment in Kenya

Guest blog by Moses Sitati

When I received a work email asking for my interest in taking the Leading Economic Growth course, I quickly had a look and was not entirely sure that it was the one for me. I did some quick mental calculation to check whether it made sense for me to devote scarce extra hours from my heavily stretched bandwidth for a 10 week period – I am so glad that it did.

Applying to the program required sharing an economic growth challenge that you intended to work during the program. This was very practical for me as I had just been co-leading a multi-disciplinary team at USAID/Kenya and East Africa in developing a five-year strategy to address youth unemployment. We had set ourselves a purpose to increase economically productive opportunities for young women and young men in Kenya and to empower them to actively engage in these opportunities. I reasoned that the course could be useful in providing new ways to analyze this challenge, and potentially offer solutions for me to think about. I would soon to find out that application of the theory and ideas taught in the course was designed as the primary learning arena for the program.