Francis Lethem endows MIDP fellowship
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Matched by The Duke Endowment, Lethem's gift will help support select fellows in the MIDP program
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A new year calls for new beginnings, and Professor Emeritus Francis Lethem is offering a new way for select MIDP fellows to receive financial support.
After retiring from the World Bank nearly 30 years ago, Lethem embarked on a new journey, teaching and leading global policy makers in Duke’s Master of International Development Policy (MIDP) program. Today, Lethem is sustaining his impact on global policy, education, and research through the Francis Lethem Fellowship, an endowment that will help provide financial support for select international students in the MIDP program.
Upon hearing about The Duke Endowment Sanford Graduate Fellowship Challenge, Lethem heeded the call to increase support for graduate fellowships in policy education and research. His new gift is matched by The Duke Endowment, doubling his investment. “As I dedicated my whole professional life to the cause of international development, and I probably spent my most personally rewarding years at DCID – teaching and managing the MIDP program & DCID – I had looked for a way to remain engaged after retiring," said Lethem.
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DCID Communications Director's Op-Ed on Southern Africa travel ban & Omicron in LA Times
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When South African scientists identified a new coronavirus variant in their country, the Biden administration’s immediate response was to ban travel from eight African countries: South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Botswana, Namibia, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. At that time, only two of the countries had confirmed cases, and Europe had confirmed cases a week earlier.
DCID Communications Director April Raphiou called attention to the discriminatory ban in an Op-Ed published in the LA Times on December 7. On Tuesday, December 27, Biden lifted the travel ban, permitting travel to resume between the region and the US.
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Roy Kelly featured speaker at Bureau of Local Government Finance Anniversary
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Professor Roy Kelly was a featured speaker at the Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) Anniversary webinar, “Mobilizing Resources through Property Tax: Local and International Perspectives,” held in October. Attended by nearly 2,000 participants, the event was held to celebrate the 34th Anniversary of the BLGF, Department of Finance, and Government of the Philippines. Kelly’s talk focused on the international experience addressing the property tax policy and administration challenges and opportunities to mobilize critical revenues for local-level governments.
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More Research Highlights
- DCID Director Eddy Malesky & fellow researchers published in the Quarterly Journal of Political Science an article demonstrating that OECD Anti-Bribery Convention rules aimed at reducing bribery among firms actually increased bribes among firms in non-member countries.
- Roy Kelly moderated a panel discussion during a webinar on the Personal Income Tax Surcharge experience in the Republic of Croatia. The webinar, attended by more than 100 Indonesian Ministry of Finance officials, focused on the policy and administration and implementation experience of the Croatian PIT surcharge. The webinar was organized by the World Bank and the Indonesian Ministry of Finance with the objective to learn from the Croatian PIT surtax experience and to identify possible lessons for Indonesia and other middle-income countries.
- As part of the Machine Learning for Peace Project, Jeremy Springman, senior research associate in the Department of Political Science and DevLab, and fellow researchers unveiled a new technique to study events in civic spaces and the drivers that can cause them to change in real time. Drawing on data in digital news, the tool can also forecast shifts in civic space events. Jeremy and his colleagues hope that this will be useful to policymakers, practitioners, and researchers working to understand political regimes and support democracy. Learn more at https://mlp.trinity.duke.edu.
- Gary Gereffi, professor emeritus and founding director of the Global Value Chains Center at Duke, and fellow researchers have written a letter to the World Trade Organization asking for help in revamping global supply chains to help the world’s poorest countries compete more fairly.
- DCID Fulbright Visiting Scholar Bui Hai Thiem was recently featured on a podcast in which he discussed Vietnam's political system.
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"...Election day is not considered a day of competition. It’s a kind of demonstration of unity and support, demonstrating the legitimacy of the Communist Party. That is why the National Assembly is composed of more than 90% of Communist Party members..."
Bui Hai Thiem, DCID Fulbright Visiting Scholar
speaking on Vietnam's government on MixCloud
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Apply to the MIDP Program!
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The priority deadline to apply for the Master of International Development Policy (MIDP) program was January 5, but there is still time to apply for the fall 2022 cohort.
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Alumni Highlights
- Batool Askari (MIDP 2021) has been hired as a Program Officer on the Project Management Quality and Support (PMQS) team with FHI 360, an international nonprofit working to improve the health and well-being of people in the United States and around the world. She will be based at their headquarters in Durham, NC.
- Kalkidan Kebede (MIDP 2021) is now a Research Associate in the Health Service Research Division at FHI360. He is based at their headquarters in Durham, NC.
- Dominique Deshommes (MIDP 2019) has been hired as a Project Manager at Chemonics. He will manage a project that aims to reduce malaria mortality in West Africa.
- Bautista Logioco (MIDP 2004) is now a Senior Programme and Policy Officer with the World Food Programme.
- Ahmet Onur Ozturk (MIDP 2014) is now Head of the Textile and Apparel Products Department, DG of Exports, at the Turkish Trade Ministry. He is based in Ankara.
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