Click below to learn more about the progress DCID has made in our mission of education, research, and engagement for sustainable, equitable development policy.
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DCID Welcomes New MIDP Cohort!
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On August 26, DCID welcomed a new cohort of 30 MIDP graduate student fellows. Twenty-one fellows are in the traditional (two-year) program, and nine fellows are in the accelerated (one-year/18-month) program.
The cohort represents accomplished leaders from the government, non-profit, and private sector from over 20 countries. On average, the fellows in this year's class have nine years of work experience.
They are preparing to study a wide variety of global policy dilemmas:
*Inclusive and equal education policy
*Humanitarian assistance
*Public finance and tax for sustainable development
*Environmental governance
*Social policy and women’s issues
*Sustainable agricultural
*Corruption and terrorism
* The private sector and development
They are joining 28 fellows returning to continue their studies.
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MIDP Fellows Land UN Internships
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Assiya Abzalkyzy
Permanent Mission of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the United Nations
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Leonardo Rueda
United Nations Sustainable Development Unit (UNSD)
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Namgay Rinchen
Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of Bhutan to the United Nations
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Madi Tazhikenov
United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD)
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Bendi Devi
The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA)
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Six Master of International Development Policy Fellows in the accelerated degree program– Robert Avetisyan, Mohammad Aman Farahi, Guntsengel Nyamkhuu, Paola Molina Rojas, María Cañeque Simón, and Youngsin Suh – presented their master’s projects on July 22nd.
A culminating, hands-on experience, the Master’s Project allows students to apply the professional skills and knowledge they’ve acquired in the classroom to projects that tackle real-world policy challenges, often in service to industry, government, or nonprofit external partners. The Master’s Project is a guided, client-focused research and analysis project required of all candidates for the master’s degree. It is intended to demonstrate mastery in defining a policy problem, analyzing it in an interdisciplinary manner, and recommending a specific course of action to the client to address that problem.
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Indermit Gill’s Appointment
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Former director of the Duke Center for International Development, Indermit Gill, was appointed Chief Economist of the World Bank Group and Senior Vice President for Development Economics on July 21, 2022. Gill served as director of DCID from 2016 to 2018. He also served as professor of the practice of public policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy and senior research scholar at the Duke Center for International and Global Studies.
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DCID wins SSRC award to study rural development and capacity to stay
Lecturing Fellow Kerilyn Schewel received an award from the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) for a research project titled “Rural Development and the Capability to Stay.” The project was selected through the New Interdisciplinary Projects in the Social Sciences competition, held by the SSRC’s Scholarly Borderlands initiative. As part of the two-year project, Schewel and her research team will host two workshops and a virtual speaker series that focuses on advancing sustainable rural development in a way that enhances the capability to stay and flourish in rural places. Pictured here is the first workshop, which was held in a hybrid form (in person and plus remote participants) at Duke in July.
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More Research Highlights
- DCID Director Eddy Malesky, Jason Todd, and Anh Tran published an article, Can Elections Motivate Responsiveness in a Single-Party Regime? Experimental Evidence from Vietnam, in the American Political Science Review. In the article, Malesky and his team focused on the experiment in Vietnam on legislators' responsiveness to policy preferences of citizens in single-party regimes. Their randomized experiment with the Vietnamese National Assembly revealed that legislators are responsive to electoral pressures, but not because of fears of being unseated. Instead, they find that delegates pursue high vote counts to improve their cadre advancement possibilities.
- Lecturing Fellow Maureen Moriarty-Lempke is working with Eddy Malesky and Griffin Riddler, PhD candidate in Political Science, to help USAID better understand the role of political will in reducing corruption. USAID has identified anti-corruption as a priority topic in its 2022-2026 Learning Agenda and is looking for innovative approaches and original research to guide the agency in engagement, programming, and training. Through a review of the anti-corruption literature, identification of innovative approaches, and original research, the DCID team will provide USAID with its findings and recommendations. MIDP fellows are also employed to assist the team on the case studies, drawing on their technical and regional expertise. The project was awarded $166K by NORC/USAID and is scheduled to be completed in early 2023.
- Eddy Malesky, Tuan-Ngoc Phan, and Anh Quoc Le published an article, Do Subnational Performance Assessments Lead to Improved Governance? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Vietnam in Fulbright Review of Economics and Policy. The researchers demonstrate that subnational performance assessments can lead to lead long-term improvements in governance, even in single-party regimes, when they are aligned with reform objectives of central leaders. More abstract and international measures do not inspire sustained improvements.
- Danny Hamrick (PhD) published an article, Distillations of authenticity: a comparative global value chain analysis of pisco, in Regional Studies with Michaela DeSoucey and Nino Bariola. Using a global value chain (GVC) analysis, the authors compared the trajectories of Peruvian and Chilian pisco, a grape based distillate, arguing that efforts by each to claim authenticity compromised their place-centered branding strategy and competitiveness in the global market. Danny serves as the Director of MIDP Admissions, Student Accounts, and Visiting Scholars and will co-teach a MIDP course on GVC analysis in Spring 2023 with Gary Gereffi, professor emeritus.
- Eddy Malesky is working with Songkhun NIllasithanukroh, PhD candidate in Political Science, on a project called Digital Consultation of Firms and Regulatory Compliance: Piloting an Experiment in Regulation Design in Thailand. This project aims to take advantage of Thailand’s new online Notice and Comment (N&C) portal to test whether the positive influence of in-person consultation can be translated to a digital setting in the regulatory drafting process and if the quality of engagement in the consultation process and the degree of government responsiveness to firms’ feedback has any impact on compliance. The project is a pilot study awarded by the International Growth Centre.
- Hai-Anh H. Dang, Eddy Malesky, and Cuong Viet Nguyen published an article, Inequality and support for government responses to COVID-19 in PLOS ONE. The research team analyzes survey data from six countries spanning different income levels and geographical locations to compare government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. They find that poorer individuals are less supportive of government responses, and that the support decreases in more economically unequal countries. They also find that both economic and non-economic factors could affect the poor’s decisions to support stringent government policies.
- Director of Graduate Studies Sarah Bermeo was interviewed by the U.S. Institute of Peace about climate change, migration and Central America. She was also quoted by Women’s Media Center on this topic. Sarah serves as MIDP’s director of graduate studies.
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Student Spotlight
Current MIDP student Gonzalo Meneses (MIDP ’23 and a Fulbright and Eva Staton Fellow) was invited to provide expert testimony to the Inter‑American Court of Human Rights on the effect of structural discrimination on the mental health of LGBTQIA+ citizens. His testimony is part of a landmark case (CASO OLIVERA FUENTES VS. PERÚ) examining LGBTQIA+ discrimination in public spaces. The decision of the Court will have repercussions not only in Peru's policies regarding LGBTQIA+ rights, but the whole Latin American region. The court session was held on August 24th in Brazil. The decision will be released in about 7 months.
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New faces at DCIDWelcome to our newest faculty, senior fellows, visiting scholars, and staff members! Click on their names below to learn more about them!
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Assistant Professor of Political Science
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Visiting Professor of the Practice
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Alumni Updates
- Carlhey Bolz (MIDP ’17) has joined Human Rights Campaign as their Deputy Director, Global Business Programs on the Workforce Equality Team. In this role, she will be leading their Equidad/e initiatives in Latin America to help advance LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion among businesses and corporations in the region.
- Luis Felipe Quintero Suárez (MIDP ’02) was recently named Colombia’s Vice Minister of Foreign Trade.
- Satoko Tanaka (MIDP ‘01) is now the Chief Representative of the JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) USA office. She is responsible for US policy and maintaining relationships with Multilateral Development Banks and US AID agencies.
- Janina Cuevas Zuniga (MIDP ‘14) is now National Education Officer for UNICEF Mexico.
- Dr. Jodi Detjen (MIDP ‘97) is now the Dean of innovative education and programs at the Sawyer Business School, Suffolk University.
- Durre Shahwar Khan (MIDP ‘08) is now Chief Executive Officer of the Pakistan NGO CHIP (Civil Society Human and Institutional Development Program). CHIP focuses on inclusive community development programs helping marginalized communities meet their basic needs and expand their opportunities to reach their full potential.
- Tamba Kettor (TARF '16) is now a Senior Policy Analyst for Forecasting, Revenue, and Tax Policy Division at the Department of Fiscal Affairs, Ministry of Finance & Development Planning in Monrovia, Liberia.
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DCID Developments QuarterlyDCID’s newsletter is moving to a quarterly publication schedule to be issued in September, December, March, and June. Please click to see past newsletters.
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Apply to the MIDP Program!
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