Harvard Center for International Development

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.

This podcast was originally recorded on Friday, October 15, 2021 for the CID Speaker Series featuring Andrew Stern, Founder and CEO of The Global Development Incubator(GDI). Stern continued the conversation with our CID Student Ambassador, Mandla Isaacs, after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event. Creating impact at the scale of the problems we are trying to solve in the world is hard -- be it climate change, global migration or agricultural finance. GDI aims to take good ideas and turn them into great solutions -- and ones that can attempt to make a dent in the big problems of our time. In addition to designing and launching new product or service solutions, GDI also creates multi-stakeholder initiatives that bring together governments, companies and nonprofit organizations to solve big problems, such as: How do we build a sustainable agricultural finance market in East Africa? Or, can we create more durable and ethical solutions for refugees and migrants? Or, how do we protect large swaths of forests around the world, with a minimum size being equivalent to the State of Vermont? GDI designs, builds and launches efforts like these and can share some of the lessons learned and pitfalls of attempting to do so.

Originally recorded on Friday, October 1, 2021 for the CID Speaker Series, featuring Dianne Calvi, President and CEO of Village Enterprise. Calvi continued the conversation with our CID Student Ambassador, Maryam Guerrab, after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event where they shared insights on addressing extreme poverty and the Village Enterprise model. Great progress has been made in alleviating extreme poverty. According to the World Bank, the number of people living in extreme poverty dropped significantly from 1.9 billion people in 1990 to 689 million in 2017. But due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that progress has stalled for the first time in 25 years. What does the evidence point to as possible solutions to this problem? The evidence suggests that entrepreneurship and innovation play important roles in driving poverty alleviation. Identifying and scaling up the most cost-effective, evidence-based solutions has never been more urgent as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and conflict could push hundreds of millions of people into extreme poverty. Microloans, cash transfers, and poverty graduation are three different approaches to providing the extreme poor with a path out of extreme poverty.

Originally recorded on Friday, September 17, 2021 for the CID Speaker Series, featuring ​Philippe Aghion, Professor at the College de France, at INSEAD, and at the London School of Economics. Aghion continued the conversation with our CID Student Ambassador Ana Alvarez after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event where they shared insights from his research and book, The Power of Creative Destruction. Creative destruction is the process whereby new innovations displace old technologies. This talk will use the lens of creative destruction and of the so-called Schumpeterian growth paradigm to: (i) address some main enigma in the history of economic growth; (ii) question common wisdoms on growth policy design; (iii) rethink the future of capitalism, and how to direct the power of creative destruction to achieve sustained, greener, and more inclusive prosperity. Philippe Aghion is a Professor at the College de France, at INSEAD, and at the London School of Economics, and a fellow of the Econometric Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research focuses on the economics of growth. With Peter Howitt, he pioneered the so-called Schumpeterian Growth paradigm which was subsequently used to analyze the design of growth policies and the role of the state in the growth process. Much of this work is summarized in their joint book Endogenous Growth Theory (MIT Press, 1998) and The Economics of Growth (MIT Press, 2009), in his book with Rachel Griffith on Competition and Growth (MIT Press, 2006), and in his survey “What Do We Learn from Schumpeterian Growth Theory” (joint with U. Akcigit and P. Howitt.) In 2001, Philippe Aghion received the Yrjo Jahnsson Award of the best European economist under age 45, in 2009 he received the John Von Neumann Award, and in March 2020 he shared the BBVA “Frontier of Knowledge Award” with Peter Howitt for “developing an economic growth theory based on the innovation that emerges from the process of creative destruction.”

Originally recorded on June 9, 2021, after CID's Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) Faculty Director Rema Hanna's appearance at the HKS Faculty Webcast Series where she moderated a panel on making data-driven policy decisions in uncertain times. Hanna sat down with Sarah Lattrell, CID's Communications and Events Manager, to continue the discussion. Watch the original panel: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/node/305111 Rema Hanna, faculty chair of Leading Smart Policy Design: A Multisectoral Approach to Economic Decisions and CID's Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) Faculty Director, moderated a panel of Harvard faculty in "Using Data to Create Effective Policy in Uncertain Times". The panel featured Matthew Andrews, Asim I. Khwaja, and Karen Dynan addressing questions about how to use data effectively in making policy decisions and how data can inform policies aimed towards COVID recovery.

The views expressed by the speakers are their own and do not reflect the views of the World Bank Group. Originally recorded on April 23, 2021 for the CID Speaker Series, featuring ​Paul Corral, Nandini Krishan, Daniel Gerszon Mahler, and Tara Vishwanath, The World Bank. The guests continued the conversation with CID Student Ambassador Ana Alvarez, after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event where they shared insights from a new report, “Fragility and Conflict: On the Front Lines of the Fight against Poverty.” Globally, the prevalence of fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS) continues to rise. The number of forcibly displaced people worldwide has more than doubled since 2012, exceeding 74 million in 2018. A new report estimates that by 2030 up to two-thirds of the global extreme poor may be living in FCS, making it evident that without intensified action, the global poverty goals will not be met. The new report, “Fragility and Conflict: On the Front Lines of the Fight against Poverty,” notes that the 43 countries in the world with the highest poverty rates are in FCS and/or Sub-Saharan Africa. Economies facing chronic fragility and conflict have had poverty rates stuck at over 40 percent in the past decade, while countries that have escaped FCS have cut their poverty rates by more than half. Today, a person living in an economy facing chronic fragility and conflict is 10 times more likely to be poor than a person living in a country that hasn’t been in conflict or fragility in the past 20 years. The authors of this new report will joined us for the CID Speaker Series to discuss their findings. Live-tweet thread: https://twitter.com/HarvardCID/status/1385625931725873152?s=20 YouTube recording: https://youtu.be/TzvfcnOLY9s

Originally recorded on April 30, 2021 for the CID Speaker Series, featuring ​Kate Raworth, Economist & Co-Founder of the Doughnut Economics Action Lab. Raworth continued the conversation with our CID Student Ambassador after an appearance at the virtual CID Speaker Series event where they shared insights from her research and book, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist. Doughnut Economics starts with the goal of meeting the needs of all people within the means of the living planet. Achieving this calls for economies that are regenerative and distributive by design. What would it look like to put this into practice at the level of the city? Kate Raworth will present the core ideas of Doughnut Economics and share stories of how the idea is being put into action in cities and places worldwide. Kate Raworth is an economist focused on making economics fit for the 21st century. Her book Doughnut Economics: seven ways to think like a 21st century economist is an international bestseller that has been translated into 20 languages, and was long-listed for the 2017 Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year award. She is co-founder of Doughnut Economics Ac+on Lab, working with cities, businesses, communities, governments and educators to turn Doughnut Economics from a radical idea into transformation. She teaches at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute and is Professor of Practice at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.