The very notion of what constitutes international development – and how successful development is achieved – are fundamental questions being confronted at present by governments, NGOs, scholars, activists, and citizens in general. How relatively free markets can be used to promote development and how aid or development programs can be made effective and sustainable are key related questions. From the nonprofit and philanthropic perspective, NGOs draw on a finite pool of resources available from private foundations, corporations, governments and individual giving. Do nonprofit sector efforts at securing these resources increase their capacity to impact change in the fields such as health, education and public management, or do their efforts diminish overall local development capacity? How these kinds of questions get answered in practice speak directly to the challenge of improving the lives of people in the developing world. Thinking about these issues sets the stage for this course.
This course is designed for students who are interested in understanding and addressing policy related to international development, public management and public health practices. It is an opportunity to learn about policy and management practices of international development through the lens of East Africa. The course is an immersion in issues through intense classroom time at an African university with educators and practitioners -- as well as applied learning through executing service learning projects. The intent of the course is for students to learn how to improve public policy practice and management by learning about, and from, our colleagues in Africa.
Course Objectives:
This course is designed for future or current practitioners in public service -public or nonprofit administrators, public health specialists, policy analysts - who are interested in addressing policy related to international development, public management and public health practices. It builds on a previous course in which we provided you with a solid working background on international development (though that course is NOT a prerequisite). Now we want you to experience it for yourself! In this immersion experience, our objective is to bring these issues to life through service learning (as the core of the course) as well as through a series of dialogues, conversations and interactions with the grassroots leaders of several distinct communities, with university professors, and with public sector personnel in Uganda.