Harvard Center for International Development

This podcast was originally recorded on Friday, February 11, 2022, for the CID Speaker Series featuring Jacqueline (Jackie) Klopp, Co-director of the Center for Sustainable Urban Development and a Research Scholar at Columbia University. Jackie continued the conversation with CID Student Ambassador, Manasa Acharya, after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event. Many rapidly growing African cities are experiencing large-scale transportation investment in a time of climate change and deep inequalities. Current choices around this critical urban infrastructure will have enormous impacts into the future- on public health, land-use, carbon emissions, and overall urban livability with the danger of high carbon, low livability lock-in. Despite the importance of these decisions, they tend to be made in profoundly exclusive ways. Using Nairobi as a case study, this talk explores the politics of decision making in the urban transport sector and argues that one important approach to enhancing accountability and advocacy for more just, low carbon transport in African cities involves nurturing locally driven "Digital Data Commons". Such open, shared and publicly discussed data on transportation, equity and emissions, can enhance transparency on impacts of decisions and help provoke badly needed, more inclusive planning and investment conversations.

This podcast was originally recorded on Friday, February 04, 2022, for the CID Speaker Series featuring Meagan Dooley, the Global Program Officer at Tetra Tech, and George Ingram, a Senior Fellow - Global Economy and Development, Center for Sustainable Development at Brookings. Dooley and Ingram continued the conversation with CID Student Ambassador, Daniella Ineza, after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event. Digital infrastructure and government services are no longer just nice to have, but essential elements of a 21st century nation. Yet digital capabilities are ideologically neutral and can thus serve authoritarian as well as democratic tendencies. Therefore, development donors must be wary of whom they partner with and how they deliver assistance for digital government. The speakers will present a new working paper identifying the key elements of digital government, presenting data on how developing countries are adopting digital government, and providing recommendations for donor support to help spur a digital transformation in developing countries.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Beyond COVID podcast. This podcast is a series of conversations with CID faculty experts on various key dimensions of COVID response and recovery. Our goal with these conversations, and with CID’s Beyond COVID research initiative, is to make use of lessons learned and capitalize on emergent innovations sparked by the pandemic in order to address losses and reimagine global development in the post-COVID era. This week, we are joined by Karen Dynan, Professor of the Practice in the Department of Economics at Harvard University and Former Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy and Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. CID Student Ambassador Nicah Santos sat down with Karen on December 16, 2021, to discuss resilient macroeconomic policies and inclusive economic growth.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Beyond COVID podcast. This podcast is a series of conversations with CID faculty experts on various key dimensions of COVID response and recovery. Our goal with these conversations, and with CID’s Beyond COVID research initiative, is to make use of lessons learned and capitalize on emergent innovations sparked by the pandemic in order to address losses and reimagine global development in the post-COVID era. This week, we are joined by Raffaella Sadun, Professor of Business Administration in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School. CID Student Ambassador Sohee Hyung sat down with Raffaella on December 1, 2021, to discuss resilient health systems and hospital management.

This podcast was originally recorded on Friday, December 3rd, 2021 for the CID Speaker Series featuring Sharmi Surianarain, Chief Impact Officer of the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator. Surianarain continued the conversation with our CID Student Ambassador, Jamar Williams, after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event. South Africa has the highest youth unemployment rate in the world. Annually, approximately 1 million young people exit schooling and enter the labor market. Within a year, nearly two-thirds are unemployed and discouraged, meaning only one-third find any kind of work or continue to further education. Harambee develops solutions to promote inclusive growth and reduce unemployment by identifying and creating jobs and work experiences for young people, breaking barriers for young people to access work, and linking young work-seekers to formal and informal work opportunities. In this session, Harambee and its key research partners share lessons from 10 years of impact and partnership with government, business, and civil society to achieve practical and scalable impact. In addressing South Africa’s challenge, Harambee believes an African blueprint can be prototyped to help solve a global challenge.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Beyond COVID podcast. This podcast is a series of conversations with CID faculty experts on various key dimensions of COVID response and recovery. Our goal with these conversations, and with CID’s Beyond COVID research initiative, is to make use of lessons learned and capitalize on emergent innovations sparked by the pandemic in order to address losses and reimagine global development in the post-COVID era. This week, we are joined by Margaret (Maggie) McConnell, Associate Professor of global health economics in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. CID Student Ambassador Harsh Sahni (Mason Fellow, HKS) sat down with Maggie on November 15th, 2021, to discuss how to build resilient health systems.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Beyond COVID podcast. This podcast is a series of conversations with CID faculty experts on various key dimensions of COVID response and recovery. Our goal with these conversations, and with CID’s Beyond COVID research initiative, is to make use of lessons learned and capitalize on emergent innovations sparked by the pandemic in order to address losses and reimagine global development in the post-COVID era. This week, we are joined by Zoe Marks, Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. CID Student Ambassador Aqil Merchant (Harvard College) sat down with Zoe on November 10th, 2021, to discuss how to build resilient education systems.

This podcast was originally recorded on Friday, October 29th, 2021 for the CID Speaker Series featuring Latanya Mapp Frett, President of Global Fund for Women. Frett continued the conversation with our CID Student Ambassador, Kerianne DiBattista, after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event, Co-sponsored by the Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) at the Harvard Kennedy School. From the Green Wave to #EndSARS, movements drive social transformation but lack resources and support. Feminist funds are changing that. They up-end the development model by providing flexible funding straight to local grassroots leaders and groups to use as they wish. Instead of dictating priorities, feminist funds follow grantees’ leadership, supporting them in addressing needs, opportunities, and challenges as they arise, on their own terms. Traditional philanthropy can resemble an old boys’ club. Only 0.42%—less than half of 1%—of all foundation grants are dedicated to women's rights. Feminist funders take a different approach. Think less top-down decision making, exploitation, and poverty porn; and more solidarity, trust, and building collective power.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Beyond COVID podcast. This podcast is a series of conversations with CID faculty experts on various key dimensions of COVID response and recovery. Our goal with these conversations, and with CID’s Beyond COVID research initiative, is to make use of lessons learned and capitalize on emergent innovations sparked by the pandemic in order to address losses and reimagine global development in the post-COVID era. This week, we are joined by Asim Khwaja, CID Director and the Sumitomo-Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development Professor of International Finance and Development at the Harvard Kennedy School. CID Student Ambassador Devangana Rana(Harvard College) sat down with Asim on October 19, 2021, to discuss how to build resilient education systems.

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Beyond COVID podcast. This podcast is a series of conversations with CID faculty experts on various key dimensions of COVID response and recovery. Our goal with these conversations, and with CID’s Beyond COVID research initiative, is to make use of lessons learned and capitalize on emergent innovations sparked by the pandemic in order to address losses and reimagine global development in the post-covid era. This week, we are joined by Emmerich Davies, Assistant Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. CID Student Ambassador Aqil Merchant (Harvard College) sat down with Emmerich on October 13, 2021, to discuss how to build resilient education systems.