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.

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I promise that this program could change your mind and future.

-Daisuke Maeda



Daisuke Maeda
, 2008-2009 Corporate Affiliates fellow, embraced the opportunity of being at Stanford University in order to actively engage with students, scholars, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Connecting in person in an environment of innovation and entrepreneurship informed Maeda's thinking about his work with the Sumitomo Corporation, both retrospectively and for the future.

Established in 1919 but with business roots extending back into the 17th century, Sumitomo Corporation is a Tokyo-based general trading company with approximately 200 offices and 800 subsidiaries worldwide, including such major global cities as Beijing, London, Madrid, Istanbul, Casablanca, Sao Paulo, and New York City. Sumitomo is divided into seven business units based on its wide diversification: metal products; transportation and construction systems; infrastructure; media, network, and lifestyle; mineral resources, energy, chemical, and electronics; general product and real estate; and financial and logistics. Some of its subsidiary companies include Discovery Japan, Inc.; Barneys Japan; and Pacific Summit Energy, LLC. The corporation's mission statement expresses a strong focus on social responsibility.

Before coming to Stanford, Maeda had the responsibility for overseeing the marketing strategy of one of Sumitomo's e-commerce companies and while at Stanford he then conducted research about the "long tail" statistical theory which emphasizes the strength of a vendor, such as Amazon, selling a wide array of specialty goods. Maeda looked at arguments for and against this theory and spoke with Stanford students and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs on this subject.  In addition to his research, Maeda met with local startup companies and offered advice on marketing their products in Japan.

Maeda is now a director in the mobile and internet department of Sumitomo's media, network, and lifestyle business unit, which is home to Japan's largest cable television provider, the biggest home shopping television channel, and a major households goods e-commerce website. His current work involves developing a Japan-focused online marketing strategy for Sumitomo's healthcare business offerings.

Maeda urges current fellows to seize the opportunity of being at Stanford, saying, "Don't hesitate. Time is limited." He explains that he actively sought out opportunities to enrich his own knowledge and potential, including meeting and talking with people. "I promise that this program could change your mind and future," he concludes.

 

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473 Via Ortega, room 349
Stanford, CA 94305-4205

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Postdoctoral scholar
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Justin McGrath is a postdoctoral scholar in the Center on Food Security and the Environment. His research examines the impacts of environmental change on crop physiology, yield and quality. Recent projects have studied how water status alters crop response to elevated carbon dioxide concentrations, and how nutrient quality changes when crops are grown in elevated carbon dioxide. Ongoing studies will examine how these changes in crop quantity and quality will affect calorie and nutrient intake of populations in food-insecure regions of the world.

Justin received his degree from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2009 where he examined the molecular and physiological basis for changes in crop canopy structure when grown in elevated carbon dioxide, and he received a B.S. from Bradley University in 2004.

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Professor David Kinley holds the Chair in Human Rights Law at University of Sydney, and is the Law Faculty's Associate-Dean (International). He is also an Academic Panel member of Doughty Street Chambers in London, the UK's leading human rights practice. He has previously held positions at Cambridge University, The Australian National University, the University of New South Wales, Washington College of Law, American University, and was the founding Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University (2000-2005). He was a Senior Fulbright Scholar in 2004, based in Washington DC, and Herbert Smith Visiting Fellow at the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge in 2008. He is author and editor of eight books and more than 80 articles, book chapters, reports and papers.

He has worked for 15 years as a consultant and adviser on international and domestic human rights law in Vietnam, Indonesia, South Africa, Thailand, Iraq, Nepal, Laos, China, and Myanmar/Burma, and for such organizations as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Bank, the Ford Foundation, AusAID, and the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions, and a number of transnational corporations, and NGOs.  He has also previously worked for three years with the Australian Law Reform Commission and two years with the Australian Human Rights Commission.

His latest publications include the critically acclaimed Civilising Globalisation: Human Rights and the Global Economy (CUP, 2009), Corporations and Human Rights (Ashgate 2009), and The World Trade Organisation and Human Rights: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Edward Elgar, 2009) Another edited collection entitled Principled Engagement: Promoting Human Rights in Pariah States will be published by UNU Publications in 2011.  He is currently working on another book investigating the interrelations between human rights and global finance.

David was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and brought up there during the 1960s and 70s.  He studied in England in the 1980s at Sheffield Hallam University and the Universities of Sheffield and Cambridge, and after obtaining his doctorate from the latter in 1990 he moved to Australia.  He now lives in Sydney with his wife and three children.

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Chip Pitts Lecturer in Law, Stanford Law School Commentator
David Kinley Chair in Human Rights Law at University of Sydney Speaker
Conferences
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"Teaching Human Rights" is a series of events beginning at Stanford during the 2010-11 academic year. The series is organized by the Program on Human Rights of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law and supported by the Center for Teaching and Learning.

The series will:

  • Complement the growing attention to human rights across academic disciplines and professional schools with a practical, multidisciplinary discussion focused on the classroom.
  • Help Stanford-affiliated graduate students and teaching assistants/fellows prepare to teach human rights topics during their graduate career and beyond. For example, the series will address the issue of balancing the tremendous breadth of conceptual and historical material a human rights course could potentially cover with opportunities for active learning and students' reflections on their own values.
  • Provide Stanford faculty with pedagogical support for incorporating human rights themes into courses in various disciplines, and encourage a classroom-centered dialogue between the disciplines and schools.

 

 

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Adam Rosenblatt PhD Candidate, Modern Thought and Literature Speaker
Jean Thomas Postdoctoral Scholar in Ethics and Society Speaker
Helen Stacy Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Speaker
Workshops
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Professor Wein received his PhD in Operations Research from Stanford in 1988 and has taught core MBA courses in operations management throughout his entire career, both at MIT's Sloan School of Management from 1988 to 2002 and, since 2002, at Stanford's Graduate School of Business, where he is currently Paul  E. Holden Professor of Management Science. He has also been a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at FSI since 2003.

Since 2001, Wein has analyzed a variety of homeland security problems. His homeland security work includes four papers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: one on an emergency response to a smallpox attack,  a second on an emergency response to an anthrax attack, a third presenting a biometric analysis of the US-VISIT Program, and a fourth analyzing a bioterror attack on the milk supply. He has also published the Washington Post op-ed "Unready for Anthrax" (2003) and the New York Times op-ed "Got Toxic Milk?" (2005) and has written papers on port security, indoor remediation after an anthrax attack, and the detention and removal of illegal aliens.  He was also Editor-in-Chief of Operations Research from 2000 to 2005. Wein has won several awards, including the 1993 Erlang Prize for the outstanding applied probabilist under 35 years of age and the 2002 Koopman Prize for the best paper in military operations research.

Rebecca Slayton Affiliated Faculty at CISAC, and Lecturer in Science, Technology, and Society Commentator

Graduate School of Business
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-5015

(650) 724-1676 (650) 725-0468
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Jeffrey S. Skoll Professor of Management Science
CISAC Affiliated Faculty Member
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Lawrence Wein is the Jeffrey S. Skoll Professor of Management Science at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, and an affiliated faculty member at CISAC. After getting a PhD in Operations Research from Stanford University in 1988, he spent 14 years at the Sloan School of Management at MIT, where he was the DEC Leaders for Manufacturing Professor of Management Science. His research interests include mathematical models in operations management, medicine and biology.

Since 2001, he has analyzed a variety of homeland security problems. His homeland security work includes four papers in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, on an emergency response to a smallpox attack, an emergency response to an anthrax attack, a biometric analysis of the US-VISIT Program, and an analysis of a bioterror attack on the milk supply. He has also published the Washington Post op-ed "Unready for Anthrax" (2003) and the New York Times op-ed "Got Toxic Milk?", and has written papers on port security, indoor remediation after an anthrax attack, and the detention and removal of illegal aliens.

For his homeland security research, Wein has received several awards from the International Federation of Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS), including the Koopman Prize for the best paper in military operations research, the INFORMS Expository Writing Award, the INFORMS President’s Award for contributions to society, the Philip McCord Morse Lectureship, the Frederick W. Lanchester Prize for best research publication, and the George E. Kimball Medal. He was Editor-in-Chief of Operations Research from 2000 to 2005, and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2009.   

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Lawrence M. Wein Professor of Management Science, Stanford Graduate School of Business; Senior Fellow (by courtesy), Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Speaker
Seminars
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REAP directors Scott Rozelle and Linxiu Zhang presided as head trainers in a Shanghai-based Impact Evaluation workshop on October 16 and 17. During an intensive two day workshop Rozelle and Zhang taught and interacted with more than 100 ministers, high-ranking officials and policy analysts from China, South and Southeast Asia and Central Asia.

Sponsored in part by 3ie, an international organization dedicated to improving Impact Evaluation Practices, and the Asian Development Bank, the workshop has been run by SHIPDET and China's Ministry of Finance for the past several years. The Chinese government is committed to promoting development evaluation capacity building in China and across Asia through workshops such as this one. China's Vice-Minister of Finance has stated: "Performance evaluation will definitely become an important concept in China's economic development." REAP's participation in this year's Impact Evaluation workshop is an important step forward in this process.

Broken into two parts, in the first part of the workshop Rozelle lectured on the increasing importance of Impact Evaluation in good governance internationally and Zhang presented a talk on Impact Evaluation in China. The second part of the workshop was organized around a practioner's workshop. Participants developed Impact Evaluation proposals and discussed strategies for integrating Evaluation into their development programs.

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The world first became concerned about North Korea's nuclear development program in 1989 through satellite photos of a facility under construction near the town of Yongbyon. Since then, there have been on-again, off-again negotiations with North Korea by the United States, the Republic of Korea (ROK), and other countries in the region to halt and dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

A consistent strategy focused on dialogue and diplomacy is essential to get out of the current quagmire, urged Song Min-soon, a member of the Korean National Assembly and a former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, at a Korean Studies Program public seminar on October 18. Although the United States and the ROK must lead efforts, China's active involvement is also crucial. Resolving the nuclear issue is necessary to help ensure the long-term peace and prosperity of not only the Korean Peninsula but also the entire East Asia region.

Song explored reasons why previous negotiation attempts failed, especially the lack of a shared vision among the concerned countries for the future of the peninsula and region. He suggested that this rendered China less willing to play a stronger role in the negotiations. The imbalance of power among the negotiating countries is another significant factor. North Korea's only effective bargaining card is its nuclear weapons program, argued Song, while countries like the United States have the capability to offer or withhold important aid, such as energy and development assistance.

Song advocated a firm, direct approach, stating that the United States has not adopted a real strategy for effecting nuclear disarmament. Instead, it has opted for the "slogan" of "strategic patience." He cautioned against taking a hard line, such as the current ROK administration is pursuing. Song expressed the hope that the United States would focus more on developing a well-planned diplomatic strategy for resolving the nuclear issue and that the ROK would adopt a more conciliatory approach toward North Korea.

To move forward in the Six-Party Talks-negotiations among the United States, the ROK, North Korea, China, the Russian Federation, and Japan-and effectively resolve the North Korea nuclear issue, Song made several recommendations. He pointed to the long-term benefit of building trust incrementally by fulfilling small, strategic commitments to North Korea. To balance the asymmetry of negotiating cards, Song suggested that the other countries proceed with fulfilling their commitments and allow North Korea more time to fulfill its own obligations. Bringing China fully on board by building a logical basis for its involvement is also a crucial element of the negotiations, he offered. Finally, Song asserted that the United States, the ROK, and China must develop a shared, solid vision for peaceful coexistence on the peninsula, taking into account different scenarios and the roles each country should play.

Song expressed confidence that the approach he outlined would not only eventually resolve the nuclear issue but would also open the way for stability and prosperity for everyone in East Asia, including North Korea.

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