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A New Kind of Degree for Development Professionals
May 4, 2010
Get ready for a new kind of training in development. We are about to see massive expansion of a new graduate degree—Master’s in Development Practice (MDP)—all over the world. Today the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced a grant of $5.6 million in support for the creation of such programs at ten universities, doubling the worldwide number of these programs. They expect to graduate 400 professionals a year by 2013.
These MDP degrees, pioneered at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, are different from most development-related master’s degrees you might be familiar with. Some key differences are:
- They constitute a global network. Graduates will be emerging throughout South Asia, Latin America, Africa, and China, in addition to Europe and North America. The curriculum will be open-access.
- They are multidisciplinary with a focus on practical application. The curriculum is a four-part blend of basic social science, health science, natural sciences, and—crucially—management. It’s kind of an MPA/MPH/MS/MBA. Many other programs either blend disciplines without a focus on application, or emphasize application within one discipline.
- They require extensive operational experience as part of the curriculum. Students must work within development projects for several months at multiple points in the two year program.
CGD has a long-standing interest in improving university-level education for development policy, so we certainly wish this enterprise well.
Of course success is by no means guaranteed. How many of the graduates will end up actually doing operational work in development? Will they succeed in making those projects substantially more effective, suggesting that a lack of the right kind of professional has indeed been a major constraint on project work, or do the principal constraints to project effectiveness lie elsewhere? Will the multidisciplinary focus succeed in creating basic competencies in several areas at once, rather than creating scattered and superficial knowledge?
6 Responses to “A New Kind of Degree for Development Professionals”
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May 5th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
It is interesting that there is no “education” component in the sample curriculum. It seems as though the links between education and development are well known, so wouldn’t it make sense to include some coursework on education and development in a MDP?
May 6th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Aditi,
I appreciate your comment. As a current MDP student at Columbia, I’m happy to inform you that we will be taking an education course next semester. The curriculum is regularly being reviewed and will vary from university to university. Also, several 1st year MDP students at Columbia have backgrounds in education and are taking electives on the topic.
May 6th, 2010 at 11:23 pm
Thanks Michael Clemens for Sharing the story that make huge impact on development programmes.
For stronger partnerships between the developed and developing worlds on Masters in Development Practice and for great impact to poor contries like Kenya than need the most, I highly recommend that due to affordabily, Institutions like Columbia University should offer this with partnership with local institutions in Africa, Ie Universtity of Nairobi.
Donors on this program will help africa out of poverty by pushing for this collaboration
May 7th, 2010 at 9:26 am
@Chemuigut: The link I posted indicates that there are already three partner programs in Africa — in Nigeria, Senegal, and Botswana:
http://grantmap.macfound.org/hosting/mdp
These programs do receive donor money. I don’t know if they have plans to expand to Kenya.
August 31st, 2010 at 11:35 am
Pity there is a gap in the education space. If you are interested I have a course that tries to fill that space. It is designed for people who want to make a contribution to education in developing economies. It was developed with intellectual help from the World Justice Project and tested in classes at Upenn Grad school of education. It can be used by anyone and contains suggested discussion starters, some teaching pointers and assessment strategies. Just email me at alanruby1@gmail.com and I will send a copy.
January 27th, 2011 at 8:33 am
Dear Michael, trainings in development practice is very much in progress at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. The Master in development practice (as noted from previous response)is still not well known in the African continent. I think there should be an avenue to sensitize the other African nations about African countries like Nigeria, where the program is being run. It is a great privilege to have this global program in Africa (i.e Nigeria) and other developing countries. It will be a loss to miss out on it.