Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent over the past 50 years, with too little to show: poverty, conflict and devastating diseases continue to ravage large parts of the world, even as generations of hard-working, well-meaning individuals dedicate their careers to stopping them.

It would be an understatement to say that the underlying problems are extremely difficult to solve. Still, the social sector’s work on these issues has been suffering a lack of strategic allocation of resources. This lack of results has forced a rapid evolution of the sector over the past decade. There is, now, an unprecedented emphasis on strategy, demonstration of impact and use of innovative business models.

With the above context in mind, this course aims to:

• Analyze the historical, sociological and statistical underpinnings of the major issues in global development: conflict, food security, human rights, poverty, health and education.

• Understand how various organizations can contribute to each issue: government agencies, multilateral institutions (e.g., the UN), private foundations, NGOs, large private sector companies, small/mid-sized businesses, and startup social entrepreneurs.

• Design and analyze approaches to addressing these issues: effective programs using a limited amount of funding over a 4-5 year period, optimizing for [some combination of] scalability, sustainability, replicability, and catalytic effect, while understanding and minimizing unintended consequences.

• Assessing the [projected or actual] impact of these programs.

The external teachers will bring to bear their experience as management consultants at Dalberg Global Development Advisors and before that McKinsey & Company. The case examples discussed in the course will be drawn from their direct professional experience at Dalberg. Furthermore the course will feature external speakers who are practitioners from foundations, NGOs, innovative companies, and other institutions working in the field

Main text:

• Strategic approaches to global development,by S. Buluswar,

Other texts include

• The end of poverty, by Jeffrey Sachs
• The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s efforts to aid the rest have done so much ill and so little good, by William Easterly
• The History of Development: from Western Origins to Global Faith, by Gilbert Rist
• Dead Aid: Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa, by Dambisa Moyo
• What Works in Development? Thinking Big and Thinking Small, by Jessica Cohen & William Easterly (ed.)

Supplemental readings will be from books & journals from the social sector.