Stanford University

Master's Students Tackle Policy Projects Around the Globe

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Melissa Morgan
Mi Jin RYU
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For forty years, the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy program has offered students a unique approach to studying policy and the complex challenges of an ever more connected global community. No where does the combination of theory, practical application, and hands-on learning come together more clearly than the annual Policy Change Studio, the capstone experience of second-year MIP students. 

The two-quarter course allows MIP students to put their classroom learning into practice by partnering with organizations actively working on global policy problems. Working in coordination with local organizations, students analyze specific policy problems, craft solutions, and develop implementation plans alongside stakeholders in communities around the world.

This year, our students criss-crossed the globe from England to Egypt, the Maldives to Switzerland, Japan and Vietnam, Kenya, Ghana, Fiji, and beyond to meet with their organizations and hone their policy plans. Keep reading to learn more.
 

Ghana

Arden Farr, Corinna Ha, and Munashe Mataranyika have been in Ghana working with the Centre for Democratic Development - Ghana (CDD - Ghana) on a project aimed at developing parity and addressing barriers to women's representation in local government.

Arden Farr, Corinna Ha, and Munashe Mataranyika in Ghana with women from a local community.
Arden Farr, Corinna Ha, and Munashe Mataranyika with local leaders in Ghana
Arden Farr, Corinna Ha, and Munashe Mataranyika with local voters in Ghana
Arden Farr, Corinna Ha, and Munashe Mataranyika with a local host in Ghana.
Arden Farr, Corinna Ha, and Munashe Mataranyika with local leaders in Ghana.

Egypt and England

Luis Sanchez, Taimur Ahmad, Jasdeep Singh Hundal, and Shiro Wachira visited Cairo, Egypt and London, England to work with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to better understand the barriers small and medium-sized enterprises face in making contributions toward food security in Egypt. While in Cairo, the team attended various regional conferences and met with entrepreneurs, investors and experts working in the African innovation ecosystem.

Luis Sanchez, Jasdeep Singh Hundal, and Taimur Ahmad in Egypt
Luis Sanchez and Jasdeep Singh Hundal with local stakeholders in Egypt.
Luis Sanchez rides a camel in front of the Great Pyramids in Egypt.
Luis Sanchez and Jasdeep Singh Hundal meet with local stakeholders in Egypt.
Luis Sanchez with local guides at a resturaunt in Egypt.

Japan and Vietnam

Omar Pimentel, Jonathan Deemer, Miku Yamada, and Mi Jin Ryu, partnered with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), traveled to Tokyo, Japan and Hanoi, Vietnam to research the implications of China’s plan to deploy floating nuclear power plants in the South China Sea.

Jonathan Deemer, Miku Yamada, Mi Jin Ryu, and Omar Pimentel in Tokyo, Japan.
Jonathan Deemer, Mi Jin Ryu, Omar Pimentel, and Miku Yamada with a local stakeholder in Japan.
Jonathan Deemer, Miku Yamada, Mi Jin Ryu, and Omar Pimentel in Vietnam
Min Jin Ryu, Omar Pimentel, Miku Yamada, and Jonathan Deemer in Tokyo, Japan
Jonathan Deemer, Mi Jin Ryu, Miku Yamada, and Omar Pimentel with local stakeholders in Vietnman.

Europe

Angela Chen, Brian Slamkowski, and Francesca Bentley travelled to Europe to partner with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)'s Innovation Unit, working together to determine strategies to promote responsible biotechnology innovation while reducing its potential for misuse.

Brian Slamkowski, Angela Chen, and Francesca Bentley at NATO's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium
Brian Slamkowski, Angela Chen, and Francesca Bentley in Belgium
Brian Slamkowski, Francesca Bentley, Angela Chen, and an associate at NATO's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
Brian Slamkowski, Angela Chen, and Francesca Bentley
Angela Chen, Brian Slamkowsk, and Francesca Bentley

Kenya

Ben Zehr, Chubing Li, Joyce Lin and Kyle Smith traveled to Homa Bay and Isebania in Western Kenya to better understand Nuru Kenya’s efforts in supporting farmers’ cooperatives to build sustainable horticultural and dairy agribusinesses while practicing more conscientious water resource management.

Kyle Smith, Ben Zehr, and Joyce Lin with local agricultural stakeholders in Kenya.
Ben Zehr, Joyce Lin, and Kyle Smith sit with local stakeholders in Kenya.
Joyce Lin, Ben Zehr, and Kyle Smith work together at a table in Kenya.
Kyle Smith, Joyce Lin, and Ben Zehr with local stakeholders in Kenya.
Joyce Lin drives a tractor in Kenya.

Fiji

Ilari Papa, Daniel Donghun Kim, Caroline Meinhardt, and Tanvi Gupta visited Fiji to work with the Oceania Cyber Security Centre (OCSC) to identify the root causes of online misinformation in the country and brainstorm solutions to counter them.

Caroline Meinhardt, Daniel Kim, Tanvi Gupta, and Ilari Papa with local stakeholders in Fiji
Daniel Kim, Caroline Meinhardt, Tanvi Gupta, and Ilari Papa near the beach in Fiji
Tanvi Gupta, Ilari Papa, Daniel Kim, and Caroline Meinhardt with local members of the Fijian media.
Caroline Meinhardt, Ilari Papa, and Daniel Kim at the U.S. Embassy in Fiji
Caroline Meinhardt, Tanvi Gupta, and Ilari Papa in Fiji.

The Maldives and Switzerland

Ben Zuercher, Dulguun Batmunkh, and Suman Kumar traveled to the Maldives and Switzerland and met with local government agencies, NGOs, and private sector representatives to learn more about domestic and international challenges to financing climate change adaptation and mitigation. Anna Kumar traveled to New York and Washington, D.C. to participate in a UN conference and hear from representatives of multilateral organizations, different countries, and leading climate finance start-ups about the progress being made on the goals set out in the Paris Climate Agreement.

Ben Zuercher, Dulguun Batmunkh, and Suman Kumar at the United Nations Offices in Geneva, Switzerland
Suman Kumar, Dulguun Batmunkh, and Ben Zuercher in the Maldives
Suman Kumar, Dulguun Batmunkh, and Ben Zuercher with a local host in Switzerland.
Ben Zuercher, Suman Kumar, and Dulguun Batmunkh in Switzerland
Suman Kumar, Dulguun Batmunkh, and Ben Zuercher in Switzerland

The Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy

Want to learn more? MIP holds admission events throughout the year, including graduate fairs and webinars, where you can meet our staff and ask questions about the program.

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Francis Fukuyama instructs students from the 2023 cohort of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy in the Policy Impact Lab.
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The 2023 MIP Cohort Gears Up For Their Policy Impact Projects
Luis Sanchez at the Summit for the Future of Central America
Blogs

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The Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Class of 2024 at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
Blogs

Meet the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Class of 2024

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Meet the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Class of 2024
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From Egypt to England, the Maldives to Switzerland, Vietnam, Ghana, Kenya, and Fiji, the 2023 cohort of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy has criss-crossed the world practicing their policymaking skills.

Sustainable development of the palm oil sector in the Congo Basin

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Key messages:

  • The Congo Basin is rich in biodiversity and stores an estimated 25%-30% of the worlds tropical forest carbon stocks. As agricultural land becomes increasingly scarce in Southeast Asia, and regulatory pressures continue to intensify, the Congo Basin could become the next frontier for oil palm expansion. Most of the roughly 280 million hectares (Mha) of additional land suitable for oil palm in the Congo Basin are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo (60%), Cameroon (11%) and the Republic of Congo (10%).
  • Many heavily forested countries in the Congo Basin are setting national targets to increase production to meet national and regional demands. Land area allocated to oil palm increased by 40% in the Congo Basin and five additional top-producing countries in Africa between 1990 and 2017. Without intervention, future production increases in the region will likely come from expansion rather than intensification due to low crop and processing yields, possibly at the expense of forest.
  • Sustainability strategies initiated by companies and aimed at certifying palm oil mills are unlikely to be effective at curbing deforestation in the Congo Basin. Smallholder farmers are an engine of growth in the regions palm oil sector, and recent evidence suggests they are actively clearing forest to expand. Because of the proliferation of non-industrial processing facilities (artisanal mills), a substantial fraction of the palm oil produced by smallholders never passes through a company's jurisdiction. Smallholders are also disadvantaged by power imbalances and limited access to technical and financial resources. Including smallholders in sustainability strategies offers opportunities to achieve multisectoral goals.
  • Recommendations to improve the sustainability of the palm oil sector in the Congo Basin include (1) improving access to finance for smallholders and non-industrial mill managers; (2) implementing policies to safeguard natural resources and facilitate access to appropriate market opportunities that offer incentives to prevent future deforestation; (3) intensifying production by replanting aging plantations, rehabilitating abandoned plantations with disease-resistant and high-yielding varieties, and increasing fertilization, without further expansion into high conservation value or high carbon stock forest areas; and (4) improving processing capacity and extraction rates by upgrading mill technologies. Sustainable palm oil development in the Congo Basin will require careful consideration of the governance, institutional, environmental and socioeconomic factors that underpin the complex regional supply chains.
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Center for International Forestry Research Center for International Forestry Research
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Denis J. Sonwa, Patrice Levang, Fideline Mboringong, Ludovic Miaro III
Rosamond L. Naylor
Raymond N. Nkongho
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Weighing the Environment: Ghana's Bui Dam

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This case examines the environmental permitting process leading up to the construction of the Bui Dam, the second largest hydropower facility in Ghana. Intended to provide much needed relief to the nation’s persistent power challenges, the project secured proper funding from China Exim Bank in 2005, fulfilling several decades of attempts to build the dam. At issue, however, are the potential environmental and social impacts associated with dam construction. Environmental advocates and NGOs are concerned that the dam will negatively impact surrounding wildlife, especially the endangered hippos that make the project area their home. Additionally, these groups worry that regardless of any mitigating measures, the dam would be ruinous to the park’s existing natural ecosystems. Ghana’s Environmental Protection Agency has been charged with issuing the environmental permit that will enable the project to move forward. Given the environmental issues at hand, how should the agency proceed?

 

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Serena Li

Do Fair Elections Increase the Responsiveness of Politicians?

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I leverage novel experimental designs and 2, 160 months of Members of Parliaments’ (MPs’) Constituency Development Fund spending to test whether fair elections promote democratic responsiveness. I nd that MPs elected in constituencies that were randomly assigned to high levels of election monitoring dur- ing Ghana’s 2012 polls spend 19 percentage points more of their CDFs, on average, compared to those who were elected from districts that had fewer monitors. These legislators were equally absent from parliamentary meetings as their low-monitoring counterparts elected during their terms in o ce, which suggests that fair elections do not motivate politicians to substitute constituency service for parliamen- tary work. The results imply that higher-integrity elections incentivize incumbents to exert more e fort to satisfy citizens’ demand for constituency service. Regarding mechanisms, I provide tentative causal evidence that politicians substitute e fort for fraud when they expect that similar intense future election monitoring will limit their ability to rig their reelection and enable voters to sanction poor performance. The paper demonstrates the downstream e fect of election monitoring on elite behavior and provides causal evidence of the impact of election quality on democratic accountability. 

 

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FSE in the Field: Casey Maue Oil Palm Research in Ghana

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Casey Maue, a PhD student in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources alogn with Woods Institute Senior Fellow, Erica Plambeck, spent time this spring examining the oil palm supply chain in Ghana. Casey is a 3rd year PhD student and is advised by FSE Director Roz Naylor and FSE Senior Fellow Marshall Burke. Casey's research focuses on the economic dimensions of agricultural development in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the economic impacts of climate change on the agricultural sector. In his dissertation chapter focused on development in the oil palm industry in Ghana, Casey is examining how the provision of informal financial services (such as access to trade credit or informal savings) by different buyers (processors) in the oil palm supply chain determines farmers' output-market decisions, and how relational contracts between farmers and processors that provide access to these informal services can be leveraged to increase supply chain productivity, and the welfare of smallholder oil palm farmers.

Casey and Erica traveled to the municipality of Juaben, located in the Ashanti region of central Ghana, and conducted focus group discussions and in-person interviews with numerous stakeholders working in oil palm. They visited with oil palm farmers and buyers of their fruit – palm oil processors. There are two kinds of palm oil processors in the Ghanaian supply chain, small-scale artisanal mills and larger industrial mills, which compete with each other for the fruit produced by smallholder oil palm farmers. Through this research, Casey and Erica sought to better understand the economic forces that affect a farmer’s decision to sell their fruit to an industrial versus an artisanal mill. Doing so will provide insights that processors can use to design more effective incentives for their suppliers that will increase the quantity and reliability of fruit delivered to them. Fostering more consistent, and trusting relationships between farmers and processors is key to increasing the productivity and profitability of enterprises all along the supply chain, to increasing food security for poor oil palm farmers, and to promoting effective private governance of oil palm’s environmental impacts. 

 

 

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Poverty Alleviation through Sustainable Palm Oil Production – Research in Progress

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The Global Development and Poverty Initiative Seminar Series kicks off the 2016 school year with a presentation of one of its most exciting and timely capacity-building projects, "Poverty Alleviation through Sustainable Palm Oil Production."

Palm oil has become one of the world’s fastest growing and most valuable agricultural commodities. This rapid expansion has come at a large environmental cost, in the form of tropical deforestation, biodiversity loss and rising greenhouse gas emissions. Large multinational companies dominate the sector, but smallholder farmers still account for around 40 percent of global production and contribute significantly to environmental damages. As multinationals increasingly adopt "zero net deforestation" strategies and move away from tropical forest burning, can they pull smallholders along with them? Join the principal researchers as they discuss progress in their efforts to achieve a balance between environmental objectives and poverty alleviation through public and private sector interventions in Indonesia and West Africa. 
 
This project, led by a multidisciplinary team of researchers, aims to drive operational innovation in the palm oil sector and promote an integrated development-environment policy agenda. The researchers will discuss preliminary results from their first round of field visits and data collection, along with the impact this research will have on broader scholarship.
 

Knight Management Center, Class of 1969 Building, room C106.

Rosamond L. Naylor

The Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki
Environment and Energy Building
Stanford University
473 Via Ortega, Office 363
Stanford, CA 94305

(650) 723-5697 (650) 725-1992
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Senior Fellow, Stanford Woods Institute and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William Wrigley Professor of Earth System Science
Senior Fellow and Founding Director, Center on Food Security and the Environment
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PhD

Rosamond Naylor is the William Wrigley Professor in Earth System Science, a Senior Fellow at Stanford Woods Institute and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the founding Director at the Center on Food Security and the Environment, and Professor of Economics (by courtesy) at Stanford University. She received her B.A. in Economics and Environmental Studies from the University of Colorado, her M.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics, and her Ph.D. in applied economics from Stanford University. Her research focuses on policies and practices to improve global food security and protect the environment on land and at sea. She works with her students in many locations around the world. She has been involved in many field-level research projects around the world and has published widely on issues related to intensive crop production, aquaculture and livestock systems, biofuels, climate change, food price volatility, and food policy analysis. In addition to her many peer-reviewed papers, Naylor has published two books on her work: The Evolving Sphere of Food Security (Naylor, ed., 2014), and The Tropical Oil Crops Revolution: Food, Farmers, Fuels, and Forests (Byerlee, Falcon, and Naylor, 2017).

She is a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America, a Pew Marine Fellow, a Leopold Leadership Fellow, a Fellow of the Beijer Institute for Ecological Economics, a member of Sigma Xi, and the co-Chair of the Blue Food Assessment. Naylor serves as the President of the Board of Directors for Aspen Global Change Institute, is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee for Oceana and is a member of the Forest Advisory Panel for Cargill. At Stanford, Naylor teaches courses on the World Food Economy, Human-Environment Interactions, and Food and Security. 

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Walter P. Falcon

Stanford University
Encina Hall, E404
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(650) 723-6367 (650) 725-1992
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Helen Farnsworth Professor of International Agricultural Policy, Economics (Emeritus)
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Walter Falcon is former deputy director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment, former director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Farnsworth professor of International Agricultural Policy and Economics at Stanford University (Emeritus).

In 1972, Falcon moved from Harvard University to Stanford University's Food Research Institute where he served as professor of economics and director until 1991. From 1991-1998, he directed the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and from 1998-2007 he co-directed the Center for Environmental Science and Policy. He has also served as senior associate dean for the social sciences, a member of the academic senate, and twice a member of the University's Advisory Board.

Falcon has consulted with numerous international organizations, and has been a trustee of Winrock International and chairman of the board of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the International Center for Wheat and Maize Improvement (CIMMYT). Falcon became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1991. Falcon was cited as the outstanding 1958 graduate of Iowa State University in 1989 and in 1992 he was awarded the prestigious Bintang Jasa Utama medal of merit by the government of Indonesia for twenty-five years of assistance with that country's development effort. His recent co-authored papers have analyzed the effects of El Nino on Asian agriculture; Mexican agricultural policy; food price volatility; and biofuels.

Falcon received a BS in Agricultural Economics at Iowa State University in 1958, an MA in Economics at Harvard University in 1960, and a PhD in Economics from Harvard University in 1962.

FSI Senior Fellow
Stanford Woods Institute Senior Fellow
Erica Plambeck
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Choosing China: Ghana's $3 Billion Loan Decision

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This case examines the decision process concerning the 2011 $3 billion loan proposal from the China Development Bank (CDB) to the Government of Ghana. The Ghanaian Parliament chose to accept the Master Facility Agreement in December 2011. The loan has several conditions detractors identified that could negatively impact Ghana’s future oil revenues and debt structure. In mid-2011 (when the case takes place) the decision maker, MP Papa Owusu-Ankome, must choose whether to vote in support of this CDB loan or whether to go with other options, including delaying the choice or working with the World Bank.

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CDDRL honors student recognized for outstanding thesis

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The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law congratulates Belinda Tang for being awarded the David M. Kennedy Honors Thesis Prize for her original research on the implementation of female quota systems in electoral districts in Lesotho. Her honors thesis entitled, "Gender, Policy-making, and Politics: Evidence from a Randomized Policy Experiment in Lesotho," explored mandated quotas for female representation in electoral districts, combining intensive fieldwork and sophisticated econometric analysis. Tang’s research was conducted under the consultation of Jeremy Weinstein, FSI senior fellow, and Pascaline Dupas, associate professor of economics.

Belinda Tang won the David M. Kennedy Prize for her thesis work on female quota systems in local governments in Lesotho.
Photo Credit: Alice Kada

Designed to address the issue of under-representation of women in local electoral districts in Lesotho - female quota systems- Tang concluded, actually decreased female favorability compared to those females who were freely elected into local seats. Tang also found that females experienced bargaining disadvantages compared to males in achieving local infrastructure projects, such as roads.

Four undergraduate Stanford students are awarded the Kennedy Prize each year for their outstanding honors theses in the humanities, social sciences, engineering and the applied sciences. Tang was recognized for her advanced and extensive research approach as well as her strong initiative in gathering and collecting data, despite several setbacks in Lesotho. After graduating this June in the department of economics, she will be working as a research associate at the National Bureau for Economic Research.

Tang is part of a cohort of eight graduating CDDRL senior honors students who were recognized for their original and outstanding theses during a recent luncheon. Many past research projects have been published in distinguished journals and have informed policy on national and international levels, receiving wide recognition. Danna Seligman received the “Best Thesis Award” for her exemplary and original research on America’s political polarization entitled, “The Origins of Political Gridlock in the United States: Modeling Institutional Gridlock as Moral Hazard in the United States Congress.”

CDDRL recognized Danna Seligman with the "Best Thesis Award" under the CDDRL Senior Honors Program for her original work on the origins of policial gridlock in the United States Congress. She is seen here with Francis Fukuyama, advisor to the Senior Honors Program, and CDDRL Director Larry Diamond.
Photo Credit: Alice Kada

The CDDRL Undergraduate Senior Honors Program trains students from any academic department at Stanford to prepare them to write a policy-relevant research thesis with global impact on a subject touching on democracy, development, and the rule of law. Honors students participate in research methods workshops, attend honors college in Washington, D.C., connect to the CDDRL research community, and write their thesis in close consultation with a faculty advisor to graduate with a certificate of honors in democracy, development, and the rule of law. The program is advised under the leadership of Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow Francis Fukuyama.

Over the course of the year-long program, students worked in consultation with CDDRL affiliated faculty members and attended honors research workshops to develop their thesis project. Many traveled abroad to collect data, conduct interviews, and to spend time in the country they were researching. Collectively, their topics documented some of the most pressing issues impacting democracy today in sub-Saharan Africa, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Pakistan, Lesotho, Ghana, and Nepal, among others.  

A list of the 2014 graduating class of CDDRL Undergraduate Honors students, their theses advisors, and a link to their theses can be found here:

 

Meaghan Conway

 

Science, Technology & Society

Blended Return on Investment (ROI)?: Analyzing the Economic and Social Returns of Private Equity Investment in sub-Saharan African Electricity Utilities

Advisors: Francis Fukuyama and William Meehan III

Mahilini Kailaiyangirichelvam

 

International Relations

The Prolonged Threat to Food Production: The Impact of the Civil War on Food Production in Northern and Eastern Sri Lanka 

Advisor: Rosamond Naylor

Haiy Le

 

International Relations

Framing the Discourse: State Media and Social Media in Vietnam

Advisor: Larry Diamond

Devanshi Patel

 

International Relations

Education or Prosecution: Institutional Efforts to Combat Sexual Violence in the United States Military

Advisor: Francis Fukuyama

Janani Ramachandran

 

International Relations

Determinants of Anti-Americanism in Pakistan

Advisor: Francis Fukuyama

Danna Seligman

 

Political Science

The Origins of Political Gridlock in the United States: Modeling Institutional Gridlock as Moral Hazard in the United States Congress

Advisors: Gary Cox and Francis Fukuyama

Belinda Tang

 

Economics

Gender, Policy-making, and Politics: Evidence from a Randomized Policy Experiment in Lesotho 

Advisors: Pascaline Dupas and Jeremy Weinstein

Aditya Todi

 

International Relations

Democratizing Parties: Intra-Party Democracy in Political Parties in Ghana and Nepal

Advisor: Larry Diamond
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The Geography of Governance: Evidence from Slums, Satellites and Foreign Aid

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Abstract:

It is almost too obvious to state, but access to public services and the nature of governance varies hugely within countries, regions and cities. Nevertheless, most work on the “quality of government”, rule of law, corruption, etc. focuses on between-country comparisons. After providing some evidence that within-country variation belies any notion of a national “quality of government”, I lay out a framework for explaining why outcomes vary so much across localities within countries. I explore the usefulness of the framework by providing evidence from three ongoing projects. The first relies on surveys designed to examine the role of slum-level social and political networks in conditioning access to basic public services in Udaipur, India. The second project relies on four post-civil war settings to understand why authorities target some localities with electrification projects but not others.  The third project involves a field experiment embedded in an aid program that compares alternative means of improving accountability in Ghana’s district governments. I will conclude with some reflections on the costs and benefits of working with donors on governance programming.

Speaker Bio: 

Erik Wibbels is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University. His research focuses on development, decentralized governance and other areas of political economy. He has also spent considerable time working with USAID's Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights and Governance in an effort to improve the quality of aid programs aimed at decentralized governance and service provision.

 

 

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Erik Wibbels Associate Professor of Political Science Speaker Duke University
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