On March 30th, Bill Foster (MIA ’06) was named the Treasury Financial Attaché to the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India. There, Mr. Foster will represent the U.S. Department of the Treasury on issues such as economic policy, terrorism finance, and the implementation of the U.S.-India Economic and Financial Partnership. Since graduating from SIPA in 2006, Mr. Wallace has gained extensive experience and expertise in India dealing with Treasury interests. He served as the desk economist for Japan, Australia, and New Zealand before becoming the desk economist for India in 2010. Working in this capacity, Mr. Wallace traveled frequently to and throughout India on projects such as a Private Sector Dialogue event with the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
A team of four SIPA students have made it to the Final 10 in the competitive International Impact Investing Challenge, organized by Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, partnered with the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business. Evgenia Sokolova (MDP ‘12), Vladimir Olarte Cadavid (MPA ‘12), Sandra Halilovic (MPA ‘12), and Helene Roy (MIA ‘13) will pitch their proposal—for a financial vehicle that would attract new sources of funding to areas that have high social benefits—to a panel of judges in the San Francisco Federal Reserve building on April 13th, 2012.
According to SIPA Adjunct Professor Adam Quinton, the students proposed a unique independent study project, with the aim of entering this competition and creating the prospectus for the first round.
Quinton was the team’s advisor for the first half of the semester as they did independent research into potential financial vehicles. They submitted their prospectus in mid-March and were selected for the final round, competing against teams of graduate students from the University of Chicago, Stanford University, University of California, Berkley, Duke University and Northwestern University, among others.
“The submission had to be something that could be appealing to large investors and attract funding to for-profit enterprises that have a social benefit,” Quinton said. “If you’ve got to the finals in a competition like this, you’ve clearly done a pretty good job.”
Based on the presentations on April 13th in the morning, the field will be narrowed to the final four teams, who will then compete for first place later in the day. $15,000 in prizes will be awarded to the winning teams.
Good luck to everyone!
- Michelle Chahine
(Click here to read more about this competition on The Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch.com.)
Voting Rights v. Voter Suppression
Benjamin Jealous, President and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was the keynote speaker at the 15th Annual David N. Dinkins Leadership and Public Policy Forum, “Voting Rights v. Voter Suppression,” on Monday, March 26th, 2012 at SIPA.
The event began with an introduction by Interim Dean Robert C. Lieberman, who introduced Jealous and the evening’s discussion, saying that voting rights in the United States was “something we had all been hoping was a settled issue. We now find it is not settled. Voting rights are once again at the forefront of the fight for civil rights and equality in America.”
In his address, Jealous emphasized that the fight against voter suppression was not happening in a void.
“My generation is the most incarcerated in the planet and the most murdered in the planet,” he said. “The disproportionate incarceration of the black community and voter suppression are exactly the same thing.”
Throughout his speech, Jealous shared personal stories about his grandmother and his family who have been fighting for civil rights at the NAACP for generations.
“What we have always been fighting for is a version of our freedom,” he said.
He explained that the main challenge for him is focusing on what to fight for when there is so much that needs to be confronted. “To make things better for the next generation, you have to be extremely focused. What do we fight for? These days, the fight is against mass incarceration.”
Losing the right to vote is not only a civil rights issue; it also limits the ability to fight against other civil rights issues.
“What we have fundamentally as a people, as a community, is our voice, our right to vote,” said Jealous. “We’ve suppressed the vote, minimized the vote, shaved off a little here, a little there… This year, what we have gone through is the biggest assault on voting rights, pushing out 5 million people.”
In the panel discussion following Jealous’s speech, SIPA Professor Dorian Warren added,
“Historically, efforts at voter suppression have always been about suppressing issues of equality and social justice.”
Jealous’s address came amidst the controversy in Sanford, Florida over the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin and subsequent protests. Jealous had been in the city the week before and described the situation as the tensest he had ever seen. According to the accounts he heard, Jealous said that the major reaction was the deep pain of racial profiling.
“Protecting the vote and ending racial profiling are actually the same thing,” he said. “The disproportionate incarceration of the black community and voter suppression are exactly the same thing.”
The persistent theme of the forum was the unfortunate and surprising ubiquity of voter suppression laws, both currently and in the foreseeable future.
“We will have to fight voter suppression legislation every year,” said Jealous.
- Michelle Chahine
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Benjamin Jealous, President and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Jealous was the keynote speaker at the 15th Annual David N. Dinkins Leadership and Public Policy Forum: Voting Rights v. Voter Suppression, on Monday, March 26, 2012 at SIPA. In his address, Jealous emphasized that the fight against voter suppression was not happening in a void.
Jealous also discussed his recent trip to Sanford, FL because of the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin and subsequent protests. He had just spent a week in the city, and described it as the tensest place he had ever seen in his life. After talking to people and hearing 12 emotional testimonials, he found that two trends emerged:
Watch Jealous’s entire address here: http://youtu.be/37uKs0tvrkI After his speech, a panel was introduced by Professor Ester Fuchs, Director of the Urban and Social Policy Program at SIPA. The panelists each added their thoughts on voter suppression and racial profiling.
Professor Dorian Warren said that voter suppression was not only tied to mass incarceration, but to a range of activities being taken at the state level, that included racial profiling and racial targeting of immigrants. He added that, historically, suppressing voting rights has been about suppressing social justice and equality. Professor Fredrick Harris, Director of Columbia University’s Center on African-American Politics and Society, also gave the audience a historical view of voter suppression, redistricting and demographic shifts, emphasizing “the importance of developing multiracial coalitions.” This led to a discussion between Professor Rodolfo de la Garza and Jealous on the importance of coalitions between the black community and Latino community.
Columbia Law Professor Theodore M. Shaw later weighed in, saying:
Finally, Elinor Tatum, Publisher and Editor in Chief of the New York Amsterdam News, warned of the role the media is playing. She said that by scaring people the media is dividing them. Tatum later added a personal note, reflecting back on the evening’s main discussion points, particularly the importance of working together across minority communities:
This event was live-tweeted. For more highlights from the event, click here: http://storify.com/ColumbiaSIPA/benjamin-jealous-sanford-fl-is-really-sanford-usa - Michelle Chahine |
Panelists left to right: Professor Fredrick C. Harris, Elinor R. Tatum, Professor Dorian T. Warren, Benjamin Jealous, Professor Theodore M. Shaw and Professor Rodolfo de la Garza. On March 20, 2012, the U.N. announced that Professor Jean-Marie Guéhenno has been appointed as Deputy Joint Special Envoy of the United Nations and the League of Arab States on Syria. Guéhenno will work alongside Joint Special Envoy and former Secretary-general Kofi Annan in addressing the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria, which has continued to escalate since 2011’s “Arab Spring.”
Guéhenno has extensive experience both with the United Nations and with humanitarian missions, having served eight years as Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations. During his tenure, Guéhenno oversaw Peacekeeping missions in eighteen countries, including Kosovo, Sudan, Liberia, and Haiti, and he led the largest expansion of UN Peacekeeping in the organization’s history. He has brought this experience to SIPA, where he teaches classes such as “Peace Operations in Fragile States,” and “International Conflict Resolution.” In addition, he is the Associate Director of SIPA’s Arnold A. Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies.
Guéhenno’s role as Deputy Joint Special Envoy will take him to Syria, whose government has been widely condemned for violence against protestors and civilians. The current conflict in Syria began in January 2011, alongside several other uprisings in the region which collectively became known as the Arab Spring. Protestors in Syria demand the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad and the dissolution of his government. While other regional conflicts have settled, Syria has attracted international attention due to escalating violence against protestors, civilians, and journalists.
In February, the United Nations and the League of Arab States appointed Kofi Annan as Deputy Joint Special Envoy in response to the crisis. In Syria, Annan and Guéhenno will work towards stopping the violence and allowing humanitarian agencies access to provide relief throughout the country. Joining them as Deputy Joint Special Envoy will be Nasser al-Kidwa.
Before his time at SIPA and the UN, Guéhenno worked extensively in international European politics. He served as director of policy planning in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the chairman of the French Institute of Higher Defense Studies, and the ambassador to the Western European Union. Guéhenno also acts as a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, as Chairperson of the Advisory Board of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), and as a member of the board for the Center of Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva.
A team of four students traveled to Tanzania in early January to design a pilot program for First Access, a new start-up founded by team member Nicole Stubbs (MPA ‘12). Stephen Matthew Lee (MIA ‘12), Maira Riaz (MPA ‘12), Ethan Wagner (MIA ‘13) and Stubbs are working on a unique Workshop in Development Practice, where the client is a company founded by a SIPA student.
Stubbs is the co-founder and CEO of First Access, a for-profit social enterprise.
“What we are doing is trying to reduce costs for borrowing and lending capital in informal markets where people traditionally have no formal financial records that can reliably show what they own or what they earn,” explained Stubbs.
“So we’re actually using an alternative credit scoring model to help extend financial access in informal markets.”
The team’s goal in going to Tanzania was primarily to design the company’s pilot project. To do this, they began to build relationships with government officials, corporations and microfinance institutions
They met with the management of microfinance institutions to collect information about their operations and determine the pricing models that would work best for them. Stubbs explained that a goal of their interviews with various microfinance institutions and data collection was to dive in and build process maps that incorporate the various steps in the lending process for individuals and groups.
The team “made a lot of exciting connections with start ups that are doing a lot of cool things in the tech/mobile space in Tanzania, which is a very new development there,” said Stubbs. “So it’s great to be part of it.”
They also met with lawyers to discuss establishing the subsidiaries, and they found office space in the Commission for Science and Technology, which is partially funded by the Tanzanian government, the World Bank, and Vodacom, the largest cellular provider in Tanzania.
“We have a lot of different organizations on board to help test this model once we’re ready,” she added. The team has now designed the pilot, which will roll out in June.
“We have a huge to-do list: establish our subsidiary, create memorandums of understanding to be signed by our partners, and start collecting a lot more data and build it into our model.”
“The main focus of this project was practical tools for the company,” she said.
It wasn’t so much researching something and producing recommendations, as actually creating something out of nothing.”
From left to right: Ethan Wagner, Nicole Stubbs, Stephen Matthew Lee, with an interviewee, and Maira Riaz.
Photo Credit: Ethan Wagner
To see more of this team’s and other student teams’ photographs from their fieldwork for their Workshops in Development Practice, click here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150625876862870.405181.76561782869&type=3
- Michelle Chahine
Several SIPA students share their experiences from field work across the world for their Workshops in Development Practice. For more information on the projects featured in this video, click on the links below:
Promoting a Political Voice in Georgia
Access for All: Students Design Pilot Credit Program in Tanzania
“Untouchables:” Students Examine Health Care Access for Nepalese Dalits
-Michelle Chahine
Losses one year after a natural disaster are much greater than those estimated during the same year, particularly when it comes to decreases in income and increases in female infant mortality rates.
This is a major finding of the 2011 study, Destruction, Disinvestment, and Death: Economic and Human Losses Following Environmental Disaster,by Jesse Anttila-Hughes, a candidate for SIPA’s PhD in Sustainable Development, and Solomon M. Hsiang, an alumnus of the program and postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University.
“The paper has pretty direct policy implications - which is generally what I aim for. I think it’s very difficult to do environmental risk work without it being policy related. It directly informs disaster response policy,” said Anttila-Huges.
For example, the paper shows that, in the year after disasters, “more people die than we thought, particularly females,” he added.
By looking at data from the Philippines after typhoons, they found the increase in infant mortality is mostly attributed to the death of female infants. This is driven by economic factors, according to Anttila-Hughes.
In addition, he explained that households with multiple children, particularly older sons, have higher rates of female infants dying.
“The fact that a lot of environmental impacts affect females is very interesting to me. There is a lot that can be done to intervene to change that,” he said.
Anttila-Hughes has been in the PhD program since the fall of 2006, focusing on environmental risk, disasters and demography, climate impact on public health, and behavioral responses to environmental risk.
He studied physics during his undergraduate education at Harvard University, along with several languages - he is fluent in Spanish, French, Mandarin and Japanese. The relationship between his studies led him to SIPA’s doctoral program:
“Physics gave me quantitative skills that I needed… What makes the sustainable development PhD different is we’re expected to do a lot of work in the sciences.
Foreign languages and international affairs [experience] had me thinking about the link between the two,” said Anttila-Hughes, describing the connections he began to make between science, international affairs and international development. “I found this PhD program, which is everything I wanted.”
Anttila-Hughes and Hsiang have a blog together: “Fight Entropy: The Global Environment and Economic Development.”
- Michelle Chahine
At left, Vivik Yadav (MPA ‘12) and Mai Shintani (MIA ‘12), with a group of Dalits in Nepal.
A team of five students is working with the Samata Foundation in Nepal this semester to help assess the health care access for the marginalized Dalit population.
Two team members, Vivek Yadav (MPA ’12) and Mai Shintani (MIA ’12), conducted field research in early January. They visited a Dalit compound, as well as met with NGOs, UNICEF, WHO, and government officials in Nepal.
“One of the goals of the January trip was to narrow our focus of what the project is, because earlier it was just too broad,” said Yadav. “So now we’re looking at exactly what health policies are in Nepal and how they relate to marginalized communities.
Secondly, what access issues do Dalits face when it comes to health care? How do their economic conditions, their educational background… affect their ability to access health care? And thirdly, what discrimination they face at the point of health care delivery.”
Shintani and Yadav interview members of the Dalit population in Nepal.
The rest of the team, Nadia Hasham (MIA ‘12), Kiryn Lanning (MIA/MPH ‘12), and Tsufit Daniel (MPA/MPH /12), will be traveling to Nepal in mid-March.
“We’re going to be there a little over two weeks,” said Lanning. “We also hope to capture more of the voice of the Dalit community, because as of now, we’ve already done a lot of interviews with policymakers and organizations working around these issues, but we really want to hear it from the communities that are most affected by this.”
The team explained that their deliverables include policy recommendations as well as next steps for the Samata Foundation. But an important component of the project is documenting and understanding the complex issue.
“There are so many different social constraints and circumstances and historical discrimination that are compounded within this one particular population,” explained Lanning.
“So understanding this nexus of discrimination is huge, and as a human rights organization, which is the agency we’re working for, being able to capture that in many different sectors and be able to apply it to policy would be amazing.
Basically, when we first started this, we were told that there’s no literature or understanding around health care access for this population, particular to Nepal. There’s a lot of literature on it in India, and there’s been a lot of work around it, but in Nepal there hasn’t been much.”
Lanning added that Nepal is currently designing its constitution, so this is an important time to bring these issues to light.
- Michelle Chahine
Photo credit: Mai Shintani (MIA ‘12)
View more of this team’s and other student photographs from the field.
Bob Herbert Calls for Popular Movement on U.S. Jobs Crisis
By Jennifer Wilmore, Communiqué
Feb. 15th — “It’s a disgrace that this is happening in a country as rich as ours,” former New York Times op-ed columnist Bob Herbert said, describing what he called a “massive employment crisis” in the U.S.
Herbert, a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the economic equality think tank Demos, delivered his lecture on “A Call to Civic Engagement” as part of SIPA’s Weston lecture series.
“As a society, we’ve been unwilling to face up to the enormous scale of this employment crisis,” Herbert said, calling on citizens to build a movement to put the jobs crisis at the top of U.S. policy and media agendas.
Read more from Communiqué, SIPA’s student-written, student-run newspaper.
