International Development Speaker Series
RAND International Research and Analysis supports the International Development Speaker Series (IDSS) organized by doctoral students at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. The series offers the opportunity for people interested in the field of international development to attend seminars by leading experts in the field.
Recent Events
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Prateek Sibal, a technology policy researcher at UNESCO, spoke with Tech + Narrative Lab associate director Osonde Osoba about the role of the specialized UN agency in the governance of AI. The conversation, part of the International Development Speaker Series, sketched out the goals, tools, and limitations of its role, while exploring the role of the government and other public and private actors in AI's regulation and long-term use.
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Ashwin Parulkar, a senior researcher at the Centre for Policy Research (New Delhi), discussed vulnerabilities that Delhi’s homeless face and how shelters currently address their needs. He focused on how people enter and survive homelessness in Delhi and how various geographies of homelessness are governed.
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Mexicans will elect a new president, as well as 128 Senators and 500 members of the Chamber of Deputies, on July 1, 2018. Enrique Andrade González, president of the National Commission for the Vote of Mexicans Resident Abroad at the National Electoral Institute, discussed the outlook and considerations for this pivotal event in Mexico.
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RAND Europe's Head of Evaluation, Tom Ling, shared insights from his more than 20 years of experience delivering robust and practical insights for partners such as DFID, UNICEF, Save the Children, the UK National Health Service (NHS) and the European Commission. He spoke about the delivery of high quality embedded evaluations that can be utilized to provide ongoing improvement to services.
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James Pamment, head of the Department of Strategic Communication at Lund University in Sweden, presented findings from his forthcoming book, which examines the relationship between soft power, public diplomacy, development communication, and nation brands.
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In the first IDSS talk of 2018, Kristin Lord discussed the changing international development landscape and how international development NGOs like IREX, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, are adapting. She also discussed the strategic consequences of the global youth boom, a major IREX priority.
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As part of the International Development Speaker Series, former Indonesian trade minister Mari Pangestu discussed opportunities and challenges for Indonesia as it seeks to be more innovative and grow its creative economy. Pangestu is a member of the RAND Center for Asia Pacific Policy Advisory Board.
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Turki Faisal Al Rasheed discussed transitioning the U.S.-Saudi relationship to one focused on sustainable development, and Joel Cuello discussed the engineering of sustainable biological and agricultural systems. Both are professors at the University of Arizona's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
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Oxfam GB's Claire Hutchings discussed her organization's experience implementing a Global Performance Framework, an alternative approach to operating global outcome indicators, and how it helped Oxfam understand program impact and organizational performance.
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Columbia University's Edgardo Buscaglia found judicial system failures lead to armed organized crime groups providing more “alternative dispute resolution mechanisms,” which is in turn linked to a greater diversification of criminal markets and a greater vertical integration of legal markets supporting the criminal markets. He will share these findings during his October 30 IDSS talk.
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The World Bank has been experimenting on how to bring behavioral science ideas into development policy design in a systematic way. Renos Vakis discussed the lessons to-date, some of the emerging evidence, and the opportunities ahead to institutionalize and scale up this work.
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A panel of RAND experts kicked off the 2017-18 International Development Speaker Series by exploring how they and their colleagues have managed to translate their work into sustained impact in complex international environments.
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UCSD associate professor Karthik Muralidharan discussed his analysis of an after-school program in urban middle schools in India. The program individually customized educational content to match the level and rate of progress of each student and led to large increases in test scores, especially among academically-weaker students.
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Longitudinal research by Tulane economist Alan Barreca found that days above 80°F cause a large decline in birth rates 8 to 10 months later. In his talk he presented novel evidence that hot weather harms fertility via reproductive health as opposed to sexual activity.
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In his IDSS talk on March 13, Harvard's Kenneth Rogoff discussed his plan for phasing out most paper money and addressed the challenges such a transition would pose. He contrasted his plan with the recent real-world case of India, which retired its five-hundred-rupee and thousand-rupee notes as legal tender.
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A large-scale government program in Colombia used a lottery to distribute scholarships for private secondary school to socially disadvantaged students. Michael Kremer and Juan Saavedra presented results from their recent work analyzing the effect of this program on schooling and work outcomes.
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Global health emphasizes global interdependence both in determinants and outcomes of health. UNICEF's Dr. Stephan Peterson used the lenses of developmental, sustainability and health security to examine why global action is in the interest of national health.
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At this first IDSS talk of 2017, author Ioan Grillo discussed his book Gangster Warlords, the first definitive account of the crime wars unleashing a humanitarian disaster in Central and South America and the Caribbean, regions largely abandoned by the U.S. after the Cold War.
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At the grand finale of the Superfoods Cookery Contest in Kampala, Uganda, professional chefs and local street food vendors developed recipes using millet and sorghum that would appeal to both upper- and lower-income urban consumers.
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At the second Superfoods Cookery Contest in Kampala, Uganda, professional chefs, aspiring innovators, foodies and students showed continued creativity in developing recipes using millet and sorghum.
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Dr. Adam Levine, primary investigator of the International Medical Corps' Ebola Research Team, visits Pardee RAND on Friday to discuss his organization's efforts in West Africa, including a scoring system he and colleagues developed to triage Ebola patients.
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Dr. Adam Levine, primary investigator of the International Medical Corps' Ebola Research Team, visits Pardee RAND on Friday to discuss his organization's efforts in West Africa, including a scoring system he and colleagues developed to triage Ebola patients.
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Dr. Adam Levine, primary investigator of the International Medical Corps' Ebola Research Team, visits Pardee RAND on Friday to discuss his organization's efforts in West Africa, including a scoring system he and colleagues developed to triage Ebola patients.
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Dr. Adam Levine, primary investigator of the International Medical Corps' Ebola Research Team, visits Pardee RAND on Friday to discuss his organization's efforts in West Africa, including a scoring system he and colleagues developed to triage Ebola patients.
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Dr. Adam Levine, primary investigator of the International Medical Corps' Ebola Research Team, visited Pardee RAND to discuss his organization's efforts in West Africa, including a scoring system he and colleagues developed to triage Ebola patients.
History of the Series
IDSS provides a forum for visiting policymakers, scholars and development
practitioners to stimulate research ideas and dialogue on international
development-related topics.
Created in 2008 by three doctoral fellows at the Pardee RAND Graduate School
(PRGS), the series alternates between panels of RAND researchers and
external speakers.
Recent speakers include Dr. Francis Fukuyama, political scientist and best-selling author; Dr. Edward Miguel, economist and author; Dr. Esther Duflo, Director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, and Dr. Joseph Nye, former Dean of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Our audience consists of PRGS students as well as RAND researchers with an interest in international
development. The great majority of the audience has some form of
training in economics or statistics.
The speaker series are typically hosted at the RAND Corporation headquarters in Santa Monica during a weekday lunch hour,
although alternative time slots are used. The program lasts
approximately 1 to 1.5 hours. At the beginning of the presentation, an
IDSS member or a RAND researcher introduces our guest speaker. The
speaker then delivers a 45-55 minutes presentation followed by 15 to 20
minutes of audience Q&A.
How to get involved?
IDSS is open to anyone interested in development topics. More information about how to attend the seminars or recommend upcoming speakers can be found on the IDSS Mailing List page.
