Overview
International Development Policy Program Provides Specialization and Collaboration as it Prepares Students for Careers
The Master of International Development Policy (MIDP), part of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, is a mid-career graduate program designed for development professionals with at least three or more years of experience. It focuses specifically on policy issues which affect developing and transitional countries.
The MIDP features seven areas of specialization: development management and governance, applied economics, social policy, environmental management and policy, peace and conflict resolution, international taxation policy, and law and development. These specializations serve to guide students as they self-design their own curriculum with the assistance of a faculty academic adviser.
Taking an interdisciplinary approach to sustainable international development, the MIDP follows the philosophy that development must be approached from many angles to be successfully implemented. The program combines theory and practice and incorporates many subjects into its curriculum while providing a foundation in economics for development, policy analysis for development, and empirical analysis for development. Students may choose to complement their MIDP courses with elective courses offered by other departments and professional schools at Duke University, or even at other universities in the area.
The internship portion of the program allows students to apply the development skills and theories learned in the classroom to real-life international development policy issues. Past participants have interned with the World Bank, the United Nations central and branch offices, international NGOs, and governments agencies both domestically and internationally.
MIDP studies culminate in a final master's project, where students examine a policy issue of their choice, often identifying a client for the project. Sanford School alumni have gone on to serve in prominent roles in foreign governments, international organizations, NGOs, and consulting firms.
Economic Development Program Gives Public Service Professionals the Outlook and Tools to Help Emerging Nations
Students in the economic development program at Duke University concentrate on a range of matters from international trade, public finance, and economic competitiveness to the analysis and control of public expenditures. The broad expertise needed in a policy-making and multidisciplinary career also extends to banking, management of a nation's financial sector, the effects of privatization, management of external debt, and the working of international capital markets. This specialization also covers a broad range of other international development issues, enabling students the greatest possible flexibility to create a class schedule that corresponds to their interests.
Duke students may choose to focus on particular issues in the economic development program. The range of topics reflects the incredible diversity in the profession, including project management; promotion and support of entrepreneurship; the management of non-profits and NGOs; civil society's governance issues; the benefits and drawbacks of political decentralization; and media policy and the tools of public, media, and governmental relations.
The faculty and course designers know that the bottom line for many professionals working in public service is, in fact, the public. Therefore, great attention is also given to the coordination of aid (public and private), policies affecting science and technology, regional and international planning, rural development issues, the challenges of urban decay, and many other issues of national development.
Many fiscal management challenges face emerging markets and developing countries and powerfully affect how they are able to pursue both growth and macroeconomic stability. The economic development program also includes courses that will examine a number of specific fiscal management problems that are currently a great challenge for many countries, including financing and building of infrastructure, financial sector bailouts, fiscal stabilization, and climate change.
Sustainable Development Program Combines Economic, Agricultural, and Environmental Policies for a Brighter Future
The sustainable development program concentrates on international environmental policies, institutional development, security issues, and how to generate social and financial capital at the community and regional levels. The wide-ranging expertise of the faculty is complemented by significant contributions from the Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment in the areas of natural resources, ecology, and the growing global interest in eco-tourism.
The objective of the program is to assess, revise, and rethink organizational and institutional designs and how they promote more sustainable development in a variety of national, political, and cultural settings.
Students in the sustainable development program will also deal with the macro and micro levels of institutional hierarchies, learning to analyze and refine structures and processes that will lead to the goals articulated for that particular nation or region as regards sustainability. This means learning to navigate the political waters of interagency coordination and deal with the forces arrayed both for and against policies and program implementations.
Case studies from various countries and their various economic sectors will impart an understanding of the issues in developing and transitional nations, always with the emphasis on environmental management matters that affect livability, growth, and the other concentrations of the sustainable development program.
In addition, Duke University students will be exposed to a variety of seminars, panels, and off-campus activities where they are expected to apply their learning to a particular institutional design problem of their choosing. Students are encouraged during every semester to attend and profit from a range of weekly skills workshops that are designed to assist with their internships, their eventual job search process, and their overall professional development in general.
