Stanford University

International Development

FSI researchers consider international development from a variety of angles. They analyze ideas such as how public action and good governance are cornerstones of economic prosperity in Mexico and how investments in high school education will improve China’s economy.

They are looking at novel technological interventions to improve rural livelihoods, like the development implications of solar power-generated crop growing in Northern Benin.

FSI academics also assess which political processes yield better access to public services, particularly in developing countries. With a focus on health care, researchers have studied the political incentives to embrace UNICEF’s child survival efforts and how a well-run anti-alcohol policy in Russia affected mortality rates.

FSI’s work on international development also includes training the next generation of leaders through pre- and post-doctoral fellowships as well as the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program.

How is Obama doing on Human Rights?

-

Please join the Program on Human Rights at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, in welcoming Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch for a special event on the topic of President Obama's human rights record. Mr. Roth will speak about the US response to human rights abuses around the world, including recent uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa.

The event will be chaired by Professor David Abernethy, Professor Emeritus in the Stanford department of Political Science.  

How is Obama doing on human rights?
Executive Director Kenneth Roth will assess the Obama Administration's human rights record. How has the president done in addressing the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa? How has he performed on legacy issues, such as Guantanamo and torture? How has he handled competing national interests in places like China? Has his greater emphasis on multilateral diplomacy, especially at the United Nations, helped or hurt the promotion of human rights? 

Kenneth Roth is the executive director of Human Rights Watch, one of the world's leading international human rights organizations, which operates in more than 80 countries. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch in 1987, Roth served as a federal prosecutor in New York and for the Iran-Contra investigation in Washington. A graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University, Roth has conducted numerous human rights investigations and missions around the world. He has written extensively on a wide range of human rights abuses, devoting special attention to issues of international justice, counterterrorism, the foreign policies of the major powers, and the work of the United Nations.

Recent Publications  

Download pdf

Bechtel Conference Center

Kenneth Roth Executive Director Speaker Human Rights Watch
Conferences

Aspen Environment Forum

FSE director Roz Naylor discussant in three panels at the 2011 Aspen Environment Forum, a conference sponsored by the Aspen Institute and National Geographic. Follow the conference on Twitter, @AspenInstitute and @NatGeoGreen, or via #aef2011. National Geographic will be posting daily blogs on ngm.com/aspen.

Tuesday, May 31:

Peak Planet

Population boomed in the 20th century mostly because public health and sanitation measures saved lives—but keeping those people alive and enriching many of them required an unprecedented boom in our ability to extract resources from the Earth. The debate about “peak oil” has loomed over us for decades, but other mineral resources may be nearing peaks as well. Platinum and other metals, phosphate for fertilizer, and just plain dirt—that is, fertile topsoil—have all been mentioned as approaching scarcity. Which of these resources is likely to become a real constraint on human development, and how soon?

Discussants: Marcia McNutt, Daniel Kammen, Roz Naylor, Andrew Revkin
Moderator: Elliot Gerson 

Can Science Feed the World?

Growing enough food in decades ahead at an acceptable cost to the planet will depend on research into everything from high-tech seeds to low-tech farming practices. Scientists increasingly see a critical role for “sustainable intensification,” an approach to producing more food from the same land with fewer inputs of energy and water, and at the same time reducing the negative environmental impacts that already occur. Where is this happening now and what can be learned from our attempts, and how can this be achieved at larger scale?

Discussants: Jerry Glover, Roz Naylor, Paul E. Schickler 
Moderator: Tim Appenzeller

Wednesday, June 1:

The Revolution We Need in Food Security and Population

The second global food crisis in three years is upon us – with bad weather, poor harvests and political turmoil sending food prices soaring to all-time highs. At the same time, the planet’s population is set to surpass seven billion this year, with most of the growth occurring in countries least equipped to meet the rising demands on agriculture and the environment. Experts predict that global food production must increase by 70 percent by mid-century to keep pace with current rates of growth. Join experts and policymakers for a discussion on these trends and the policies and programs needed to create lasting development and food security, including meeting the reproductive health needs of the growing world population.

Introduction: Dennis Dimick
Discussants: Dan Glickman, Roger-Mark De Souza, Roz Naylor, John Foley 
Moderator: Elliot Gerson

Aspen Institute, Aspen CO

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
0
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
Roz_low_res_9_11_cropped.jpg 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. 

CV
Hide publication sections
Off
Rosamond L. Naylor Speaker
Conferences

Food's Footprint: Agriculture and Climate Change

Authors
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs
"Food's Footprint: Agriculture and Climate Change" presentation by Jennifer Burney, a President's Postdoctoral Fellow at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, and an affiliate of the Stanford University Program on Food Security and the Environment. Burney studies how two of the largest problems facing society — hunger and climate change — are intertwined.

All News button
1

Woods Institute Food Security Salon

-

Food security links health, development, national security and the environment in unique and important ways. This Food Security Salon focused on presenting research solutions to global issues of food security, hunger, and environmental degradation from agricultural practices. Stanford faculty discussed their work on how global food supplies and human health are affected by climate change, agricultural intensification and world markets.

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
0
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
Roz_low_res_9_11_cropped.jpg 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. 

CV
Hide publication sections
Off
Rosamond L. Naylor Speaker

David Lobell

Energy and Environment Building
473 Via Ortega
Stanford CA 94305

(650) 721-6207
0
Professor, Earth System Science
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR)
Affiliate, Precourt Institute of Energy
shg_ff1a1284.jpg PhD

David Lobell is the Benjamin M. Page Professor at Stanford University in the Department of Earth System Science and the Gloria and Richard Kushel Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment. He is also the William Wrigley Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy and Research (SIEPR).

Lobell's research focuses on agriculture and food security, specifically on generating and using unique datasets to study rural areas throughout the world. His early research focused on climate change risks and adaptations in cropping systems, and he served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report as lead author for the food chapter and core writing team member for the Summary for Policymakers. More recent work has developed new techniques to measure progress on sustainable development goals and study the impacts of climate-smart practices in agriculture. His work has been recognized with various awards, including the Macelwane Medal from the American Geophysical Union (2010), a Macarthur Fellowship (2013), the National Academy of Sciences Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences (2022) and election to the National Academy of Sciences (2023).

Prior to his Stanford appointment, Lobell was a Lawrence Post-doctoral Fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He holds a PhD in Geological and Environmental Sciences from Stanford University and a Sc.B. in Applied Mathematics from Brown University.

Lobell Lab

A project to advance the science that guides investment in food security and crop productivity, and to effectively communicate this science to a broad audience.
More Information

G-FEED: Global Food, Environment and Economic Dynamics

An interdisciplinary group working cooperatively to understand the relationship between society and the environment by examining regional and global scale phenomena using statistical analyses of real world data.
More Information
CV
Hide publication sections
On
Date Label
David Lobell Speaker
Walter P. Falcon Speaker
Conferences

SPRIE executive training session offers Chinese enterprise leaders insights into innovation

Authors
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

From how failure drives innovation to the role of government in supporting entrepreneurship, two expert professors at Stanford led a training session for executives from Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOE) as part of the 2011 Cisco China 21st Century Enterprise Leader Program (ELP) hosted by Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE) on March 22, 2011.

Professor William F. Miller, Co-Director of SPRIE, kicked off the session with a stimulating presentation on Silicon Valley's habitat for innovation. He pointed out that turning technology into business was the essence of Silicon Valley, and a favorable business, social and political environment in the region had facilitated the process. Despite the emergence of other venture capital locations, Silicon Valley scooped up almost 40% of venture deals and dollars across the U.S. in the last quarter of 2010, according to the MoneyTree Report.

The "restless pioneer spirit" of Stanford had always played a crucial role in the effective interaction between research institutes and industry, Miller argued.

Following Miller's discussion of features of Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial habitat, William Barnett, Thomas M. Siebel Professor of Business Leadership, Strategy, and Organizations at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, shared his thoughts on how to discover successful business models.

"Having great technologies is not enough," said Barnett. "Entrepreneurs are like scientists. Successful business models are learned from failures." Barnett encouraged the leaders present to create a working environment within which failure would be tolerated. He further urged them to accelerate the learning process by asking what might go wrong.

The purpose of the SPRIE session, which is part of a 12-day US-based program organized by Cisco Systems and China's State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), is to help the SOE executives understand how to foster innovation and to drive operational excellence. The delegation is composed of SASAC officials, Peking University professors and leaders from 17 SOEs in China, including Southern Power Grid, Three Gorges Corporation, China Telecom, China Unicom, China Mobile, China FAW Group, Harbin Electric Corp., Anshan Iron and Steel Group, Baosteel Group, China Ocean Shipping Company, China Eastern Airlines, China Oil and Foodstuffs Corporation, State Development and Investment Corporation, China Merchants, China Railway Group and China Railway Construction.

 

Hero Image
0322 Barnett Session4 ELP2011
Professor William Barnett at 2011 Cisco China 21C Enterprise Leader Program training session hosted by SPRIE on March 22, 2011.
All News button
1

Orbital Debris-Debris Collision Avoidance

-

Jan Stupl's research concerns the current developments in laser technology regarding a possible application of lasers as an anti-satellite weapon (ASAT), as well as the proliferation of ballistic missiles. The research on laser ASATs focuses on damage mechanisms, the potential sources and countries of origin of laser ASATs and ways to curb their international proliferation. Regarding missiles, Stupl is interested in the methods which are used to acquire ballistic missiles and possible ways to control this process.

Before coming to CISAC, Jan was a Research Fellow at the Institute of Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH) at the University of Hamburg, Germany. His PhD dissertation was a physics-based analysis of future of High Energy Lasers and their application for missile defense and focused on the Airborne Laser missile defense system. This work was jointly supervised by the IFSH, the Institute of Laser and System Technologies at Hamburg University of Technology and the physics department of Hamburg University, where he earned his PhD in 2008. Stupl's interest in security policy and international politics was fuelled by an internship at the United Nations in New York in 2003.

In this seminar, Stupl will discuss a ground-based laser system that uses radiation pressure to prevent collisions between debris objects in space. He will discuss the importance of avoiding such collisions, which can result in a runaway chain-reaction, increasing the number of fragments and hence the risk to active satellites dramatically.

Download pdf

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Jan M. Stupl

0
Affiliate
janstupl_rsd17_076_0352a.jpg PhD

Jan Stupl is an affiliate and a former postdoctoral fellow at CISAC.  He is currently a Research Scientist with SGT, a government contractor, and works in the Mission Design Division at NASA Ames Research Center (Mountain View, CA). In the Mission Design Division, Jan conducts research on novel methods for laser communication and space debris mitigation and supports concept development for space missions.

Before his current position, Jan was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University until 2011, investigating technical and policy implications of high power lasers for missile defense and as anti-satellite weapons (ASAT), as well as the proliferation of ballistic missiles. The research on laser ASATs focuses on damage mechanisms, the potential sources and countries of origin of laser ASATs and ways to curb their international proliferation. Before coming to CISAC, Jan was a Research Fellow at the Institute of Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH) at the University of Hamburg, Germany. His PhD dissertation was a physics-based analysis of future of High Energy Lasers and their application for missile defense and focused on the Airborne Laser missile defense system. This work was jointly supervised by the IFSH, the Institute of Laser and System Technologies at Hamburg University of Technology and the physics department of Hamburg University, where he earned his PhD in 2008. His interest in security policy and international politics was fuelled by an internship at the United Nations in New York in 2003.

CV
Jan M. Stupl Postdoctoral Fellow Keynote Speaker CISAC
Rebecca Slayton (DISCUSSANT) Affiliated Faculty at CISAC; Lecturer for the Science, Technology, and Society Program at Stanford Commentator
Seminars

The Nuclear Crisis in Japan

-

Daniel I. Okimoto

0
Professor of Political Science, Emeritus
D_Okimoto_ALT_headshot.jpg PhD

A specialist on the political economy of Japan, Daniel Okimoto is a senior fellow emeritus of FSI, director emeritus of Shorenstein APARC, and a professor of political science emeritus at Stanford University. His fields of research include comparative political economy, Japanese politics, U.S.-Japan relations, high technology, economic interdependence in Asia, and international security.

During his 25-year tenure at Stanford, Okimoto served as a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Northeast Asia-United States Forum on International Policy, the predecessor organization to Shorenstein APARC, within CISAC. He also taught at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, the Stockholm School of Economics, and the Stanford Center in Berlin.

Okimoto co-founded Shorenstein APARC. He was the vice chairman of the Japan Committee of the National Research Council at the National Academy of Sciences, and of the Advisory Council of the Department of Politics at Princeton University. He received his BA in history from Princeton University, MA in East Asian studies from Harvard University, and PhD in political science from the University of Michigan.

He is the author of numerous books and articles, including Between MITI and the Market: Japanese Industrial Policy for High Technology; co-editor, with Takashi Inoguchi, of The Political Economy of Japan: International Context; and co-author, with Thomas P. Rohlen, of A United States Policy for the Changing Realities of East Asia: Toward a New Consensus.

Director Emeritus, Shorenstein APARC
FSI Senior Fellow, Emeritus
Daniel I. Okimoto Director Emeritus of Shorenstein APARC, Senior Fellow Emeritus at FSI and Professor Emeritus, Political Science Speaker
Katherine D. Marvel Perry Fellow Speaker CISAC
Alan Hanson CISAC Visiting Scholar and Executive Vice President, Technologies and Used Fuel Management of AREVA NC Inc. Speaker
Seminars

Resisting Europe: Protest and opposition in the EU

-

Protest, street demonstrations and social unrest have been increasingly prevalent across the European Union. European citizens appear ever more discontent with their national governments and with ‘Europe'. Reforms and policies aimed at countering the challenges of the economic crises and increased global competition are met by strong public opposition. Recent student movements protesting against educational reforms, strikes and massive anti-austerity demonstrations in many European capitals, protest votes for extreme right or left political parties are just some of these manifestations. What translates dissatisfaction to protest and drives these collective actions? How is protest expressed in European politics and in the public sphere today? Who is protesting and against what? Is this growing opposition the result of socio-economic insecurity felt by European citizens due to Europe's increasingly strained economic security and prosperity? Or, has Europe hit the limits of how much integration and diversity it can digest? As the current model of European economic liberalism is attacked by protest groups and populists from both left and right, how does this affect European democracy and the future of the European project?  

Ruby Gropas is Lecturer in International Relations at the Law Faculty of the Democritus University of Thrace, and Research Fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) in Athens, Greece. She studied political science and international relations at ULB (Belgium), management at the State University of Maryland, and holds a PhD from Cambridge University.

Her main research interests lie in European integration and foreign policy, human rights, migration and multiculturalism. She has taught at the University of Athens and was Managing Editor of the Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies (2006-2009). She was Southeast Europe Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC (2007, 2009) and a Member of the Organizing Committee of the 3rd Global Forum on Migration and Development (2009). Ruby is Vice-President of the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation Scholars' Association and is currently working on an EU-funded research project on history, identities and modernity.

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Ruby Gropas Lecturer in International Relations at the Law Faculty of the Democritus University of Thrace (Komotini) and Visiting Scholar Speaker FSI
Seminars
Subscribe to International Development