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Professor of Political Economy, Stanford GSB
Faculty Director, Stanford King Center on Global Development
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Katherine Casey is Professor of Political Economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Faculty Director of the King Center on Global Development. Her research explores the interactions between economic and political forces in developing countries, with particular interest in the role of information in enhancing political accountability and the influence of foreign aid on economic development. Her work has appeared in the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, and Quarterly Journal of Economics, among others. 

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This week we launched the long-awaited 17th year of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law's Draper Hills Summer Fellowship Program. Founded in 2005 with generous support from Bill and Phyllis Draper and Ingrid von Mangoldt Hills, Draper Hills is an executive training program for world leaders striving to promote democracy. For the next two weeks, Fellows will participate in workshops led by an interdisciplinary team of faculty to study new theories and approaches to democratic development.

Fellows in the class of 2021 were selected from among thousands of applicants for their ground-breaking work to defend democracy. These 34 leaders drawn from 30 countries around the world are pioneering new approaches and models to advance social and political change in some of the most challenging global contexts. Representing business, government, and the nonprofit sector, our fellows are working on the frontlines of democratic change to combat the global rise of authoritarianism and populism. In countries moving towards democracy, our fellows are working to institutionalize new systems and practices to support democratic transitions.

An Unconventional Year


Traditionally, Fellows would travel from their home countries to the U.S. and spend three weeks on campus at Stanford learning together. However, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the program is currently taking place virtually for the first time (for the same reasons, the program did not run in 2020). The shift to online programming posed a number of logistical obstacles – from what time to run virtual sessions when participants span over a dozen time zones, to how to foster the sense of belonging and personal connections that occur more naturally with in-person settings.

To begin addressing the latter, Fellows were sent welcome packages to build excitement and foster community both within the program and Stanford. Upon receiving hers, Aisha Yesufu of Nigeria shared "I am so excited at the different people I'll be meeting from all over the world, and also learning from different people, lecturers, professors... It's going to be quite interesting and, for me, that is what I am most looking forward to," along with the video below:

"One of the most important things I have ever been involved with."


Opening against the backdrop of the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in Afghanistan, the importance of the Draper Hills program and the need to promote democratic change is now more evident than ever.

The inaugural session for the 2021 cohort began with Francis Fukuyama introducing the fellows to several of the esteemed faculty they will be learning from over the next two weeks, including Larry Diamond, Erik Jensen, and Michael McFaul. McFaul shared that not only did he found the program, but "it is one of the most important things I have ever been involved with." Jensen later added that "participating in this program is one of the great pleasures I have every year."

More to Come


Throughout the next two weeks, our Draper Hills Fellows will examine the political development, democratic transitions, and the relationship of law to economic development, public administration, administrative law, transitional justice, food security, and global health policy, among others. The group is eager to learn, and we look forward to seeing the many great things the training they receive here will enable them to do in their home countries and beyond.

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For the next two weeks, Fellows will participate in workshops led by an interdisciplinary team of faculty to study new theories and approaches to democratic development.

Room 212, Crown Quadrangle
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Stanford, CA 94305-8610

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Lecturer in Residence, Stanford Law School
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Jamie O’Connell is a Lecturer in Residence at Stanford Law School. He teaches and writes on political and legal development and has particular expertise in law and development, transitional justice, democratization, post-conflict reconstruction, and business and human rights. Until 2018, he was a Senior Fellow of the Honorable G. William and Ariadna Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, as well as a Lecturer in Residence, teaching both law and undergraduate students.

O’Connell has worked on human rights and development in over a dozen countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe, under the auspices of the United Nations, local and international non-governmental organizations, and academic institutions. He co-founded International Professional Partnerships for Sierra Leone, a non-governmental organization that worked with the government of Sierra Leone to enhance the performance of its agencies and civil servants. Earlier in his career, O’Connell studied international business as a researcher at Harvard Business School, publishing numerous case studies. He has directed the Human Rights Clinic at the University of Sierra Leone and taught as a visitor at Harvard Law School and Columbia Law School. O’Connell clerked for the Honorable James R. Browning on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and is admitted to practice in California (inactive status) and New York. In 2016-17, he was a visiting professor and Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of Valencia (Spain) Faculty of Law.

O’Connell’s scholarship includes “Representation, Paternalism, and Exclusion: The Divergent Impacts of the AKP’s Populism on Human Rights In Turkey” in Human Rights in a Time of Populism: Challenges and Responses (2020); “When Prosecution Is Not Enough: How the International Criminal Court Can Prevent Atrocity and Advance Accountability by Emulating Regional Human Rights Institutions” (with James L. Cavallaro, Yale Journal of International Law, 2020); “Common Interests, Closer Allies: How Democracy in Arab States Can Benefit the West” (Stanford Journal of International Law, 2012); “Empowering the Disadvantaged after Dictatorship and Conflict: Legal Empowerment, Transitions and Transitional Justice,” in Legal Empowerment: Practitioners’ Perspectives (2010); “East Timor 1999,” in The Responsibility to Protect: Moving the Campaign Forward (2007); “Gambling with the Psyche: Does Prosecuting Human Rights Violators Console Their Victims?” (Harvard International Law Journal, 2005); “Here Interest Meets Humanity: How to End the War and Support Reconstruction in Liberia, and the Case for Modest American Leadership” (Harvard Human Rights Journal, 2004); and Sierra Leone’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Special Court: A Citizen’s Handbook (with Paul James-Allen and Sheku B.S. Lahai, 2003).

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Panelists

Michele Barry, MD: Medicine and Tropical Diseases; Center for Innovation in Global Health

Doug Owens, MD: Medicine; Center for Health Policy/Primary Care Outcomes Research

David Relman, MD: Medicine, Microbiology & Immunology; Center for International Security and Cooperation

Stephen J. Stedman: Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law

Paul Wise, MD: Pediatrics; Center for Health Policy/Primary Care Outcomes Research

 

Co-sponsors:

Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Stanford University School of Medicine

Center for African Studies

Center for Health Policy/Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research

Center for Innovation in Global Health

Center for International Security and Cooperation

Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law

McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society

Bechtel Conference Center

Encina Hall

Michele Barry Panelist
Doug Owens Panelist
David Relman Panelist

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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science
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Stephen Stedman is a Freeman Spogli senior fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law and FSI, an affiliated faculty member at CISAC, and professor of political science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. 

In 2011-12 Professor Stedman served as the Director for the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, a body of eminent persons tasked with developing recommendations on promoting and protecting the integrity of elections and international electoral assistance. The Commission is a joint project of the Kofi Annan Foundation and International IDEA, an intergovernmental organization that works on international democracy and electoral assistance. In 2003-04 Professor Stedman was Research Director of the United Nations High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and was a principal drafter of the Panel’s report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility. In 2005 he served as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary- General of the United Nations, with responsibility for working with governments to adopt the Panel’s recommendations for strengthening collective security and for implementing changes within the United Nations Secretariat, including the creation of a Peacebuilding Support Office, a Counter Terrorism Task Force, and a Policy Committee to act as a cabinet to the Secretary-General.  His most recent book, with Bruce Jones and Carlos Pascual, is Power and Responsibility: Creating International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2009).

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Richard E. Behrman Professor of Child Health and Society
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
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MD, MPH

Dr. Paul Wise is dedicated to bridging the fields of child health equity, public policy, and international security studies. He is the Richard E. Behrman Professor of Child Health and Society and Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology and Developmental Medicine, and Health Policy at Stanford University. He is also co-Director, Stanford Center for Prematurity Research and a Senior Fellow in the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. Wise is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been working as the Juvenile Care Monitor for the U.S. Federal Court overseeing the treatment of migrant children in U.S. border detention facilities.

Wise received his A.B. degree summa cum laude in Latin American Studies and his M.D. degree from Cornell University, a Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health and did his pediatric training at the Children’s Hospital in Boston. His former positions include Director of Emergency and Primary Care Services at Boston Children’s Hospital, Director of the Harvard Institute for Reproductive and Child Health, Vice-Chief of the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and was the founding Director or the Center for Policy, Outcomes and Prevention, Stanford University School of Medicine. He has served in a variety of professional and consultative roles, including Special Assistant to the U.S. Surgeon General, Chair of the Steering Committee of the NIH Global Network for Women’s and Children’s Health Research, Chair of the Strategic Planning Task Force of the Secretary’s Committee on Genetics, Health and Society, a member of the Advisory Council of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH, and the Health and Human Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Infant and Maternal Mortality.

Wise’s most recent U.S.-focused work has addressed disparities in birth outcomes, regionalized specialty care for children, and Medicaid. His international work has focused on women’s and child health in violent and politically complex environments, including Ukraine, Gaza, Central America, Venezuela, and children in detention on the U.S.-Mexico border.  

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Fourteen Stanford researchers addressing global poverty through a range of academic disciplines are receiving a total of $4.6 million in awards from the university-wide Global Development and Poverty (GDP) initiative.

Their projects, which are the first to be funded by the GDP, deal with challenges of health, violence, economics, governance and education in the developing world.

“GDP seeks to transform scholarly activity and dialogue at Stanford around the topic of global poverty, so that the university may have a greater impact on poverty alleviation in developing economies,” said GDP faculty co-chair Jesper B. Sørensen. “By focusing on placing a small number of big bets, GDP encourages researchers to think big, and to move beyond the conventional way of doing things. We are thrilled by the inaugural set of awardees, as they demonstrate the creative, inter-disciplinary approaches that will make Stanford a leader in this area.”

The GDP initiative is part of the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (SEED) and is administered in partnership with Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). The GDP is co-chaired by Sørensen, the faculty director for SEED and the Robert A. and Elizabeth R. Jeffe Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business; and Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, senior fellow and director of FSI and the Stanley Morrison Professor at Stanford Law School.

SEED, which seeks to alleviate poverty by stimulating the creation of economic opportunities through innovation, entrepreneurship and the growth of businesses, was established in 2011 through a generous gift from Robert King, MBA '60, and his wife, Dorothy.

Through complementary areas of focus, GDP funding and other SEED research initiatives will stimulate research, novel interdisciplinary collaborations and solutions to problems of global poverty and development. GDP research aims to pursue answers to crucial questions that are essential to an understanding of how to reduce global poverty and promote economic development. That includes governance and the rule of law, education, health, and food security – all of which are essential for entrepreneurship to thrive. By contrast, other SEED research focuses on innovation, entrepreneurship, and the growth of businesses in developing economies.

Since 2012, SEED’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Developing Economies Award program also has doled out 22 awards and seven PhD fellowships to help support and scale businesses in developing economies. Among the $1 million in funded projects were studies of how to improve the livelihoods of small-holder cacao farmers throughout the tropics; how to identify startups with high job- and wealth-creating potential in Chile; how political accountability affects the ability to attract investment in Sierra Leone; and how managerial practices affect trade entrepreneurship in China.

First GDP Awards

The first 14 GDP award recipients are professors of economics, political science, law, medicine, pediatrics, education and biology, and senior fellows from FSI, the Woods Institute, and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR).

“Each of these projects cuts across disciplines, reflects innovative thinking, and has the potential to generate crucial knowledge about how to improve the lives of the poor around the world,” Cuéllar said. “These projects, along with a variety of workshops engaging the university and external stakeholders, will help us strengthen Stanford’s long-term capacity to address issues of global poverty through research, education and outreach.”

Among the award recipients is Pascaline Dupas, an associate professor of economics and senior fellow at SIEPR. Dupas, along with faculty from the Center for Health Policy and Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, will launch the Stanford Economic Development Research Initiative using GDP funds.  This initiative will focus on collecting high-quality institutional and individual-level data on economic activity in a number of developing countries over the long term, and making these data available to scholars around the world.

Beatriz Magaloni, an associate professor of political science and senior fellow at FSI, is receiving an award to lead a team focused on criminal violence and its effects on the poor in developing economies, and the practical solutions for increasing security in those regions.

Douglas K. Owens, a professor of medicine and FSI senior fellow, was awarded an award to help him lead a team that will develop models to estimate how alternative resource allocations for health interventions among the poor will influence health and economic outcomes.

Stephen Haber, a professor of political science and history and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, received an award to bring together Stanford researchers interested in examining the long-term institutional constraints on economic development. Their goal will be to provide policymakers with a framework for determining the conditions under which particular innovations are likely to have positive payoffs, and the conditions under which resources will likely be wasted.

Other projects will address the educational impacts of solar lighting systems in poor communities; identifying interventions to improve the profits and safety among poor, smallholder pig farmers in Bangladesh and China; the role of law and institutions in economic development and poverty reduction; and how to rethink worldwide refugee problems. Awards are also being provided to researchers focused on microfinance, online education and teacher training.

The project proposals were reviewed by an interdisciplinary faculty advisory council chaired by Cuéllar and Sørensen. 

“We were very encouraged by the impressive number of project proposals from a wide range of areas and are looking forward to introducing several new capacity and community-building activities in the fall,” Sørensen said.. “This wide range of research initiatives will form a vibrant nucleus for Stanford’s growing community of scholars of global development and poverty.”

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Zainab Hawa Bangura of Sierra Leone is Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict at the level of Under-Secretary-General at the United Nations.

Prior to this appointment, Ms. Bangura was the Minister of Health and Sanitation for the Government of Sierra Leone, and brings to the position over 20 years of policy, diplomatic and practical experience in the field of governance, conflict resolution and reconciliation in Africa. She was previously the second female Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, including Chief Adviser and Spokesperson of the President on bilateral and international issues. Ms. Bangura has been instrumental in developing national programmes on affordable health, advocating for the elimination of genital mutilation, managing the country’s Peace Building Commission and contributing to the multilateral and bilateral relations with the international community. She is experienced in meeting with interlocutors in diverse situations, including rebel groups, and familiar in dealing with State and non-State actors relevant to issues of sexual violence while fighting corruption and impunity.

Ms. Bangura has on-the-ground experience with peacekeeping operations from within the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), where she was responsible for the management of the largest civilian component of the Mission, including promoting capacity-building of government institutions and community reconciliation. She is an experienced results-driven civil society, human and women’s rights campaigner and democracy activist, notably as Executive Director of the National Accountability Groups, Chair and Co-founder of the Movement for Progress Party of Sierra Leone, as well as Coordinator and Co-founder of the Campaign for Good Governance.

Ms. Bangura is a former fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute of London, possessing Diplomas in Insurance Management from the City University Business School of London and Nottingham University. She received her Bachelor of Arts from the Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone.

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Zainab Bangura United Nations Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Speaker
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Baomahun, Sierra Leone – Mud huts dot the dusty landscape in this remote part of Sierra Leone. The only visible sign of technology is a community well pumped by young women, some with babies strapped on their backs.

The roads leading to Baomahun are gutted and torn, crossing over vast mineral deposits that helped fuel a decade-long civil war. Sierra Leone is rich in resources, but cursed with corruption and greed that stalls its progress.

A team of Stanford researchers pull up to the village in four-wheel drive vehicles, stiff and sweaty after the long trip from the capital city of Freetown. They are welcomed by a group of laughing children who closely inspect the foreign visitors, a rare site in a village that is largely untouched by the modern world.

Led by Jeremy M. Weinstein, an associate professor of political science and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the graduate students are working with Timap for Justice, an organization based in Sierra Leone that uses community-based paralegals to serve the interests of the rural poor. During the week-long trip, Timap's paralegals are taking the Stanford team to villages like Baomahun to get a first-hand account of how natural resource concessions impact poor communities.

The students are part of Rebooting Government – a new course Weinstein teaches at Stanford's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design to come up with new approaches to solving complex governance challenges around the world.

“There is a huge opportunity to leverage the ingenuity and diverse skill-set of Stanford students to support the work of local innovators who are tackling really difficult governance problems in their own environments,” said Weinstein who also leads the Center for African Studies at Stanford. “And the tools of human-centered design help our students and partners think about these problems in a fundamentally different way.”

The resource curse

Timap's lead paralegal, Abdulai Tommy, introduces the Stanford team to a group of village leaders, landowners and miners assembled in an outdoor community center. The team is late and their audience is visibly impatient. But they are eager to tell their stories – to be heard.

The town chief points a calloused hand towards a modern building perched on a hill above the village.

"The mining compound shines in brightness 24/7 while we live here in darkness," he said. "How is it that the land belongs to us and they enjoy themselves while we do not enjoy anything?"

Ramya Parthasarathy, a Ph.D. student in political science, scribbles notes while an unemployed miner describes the poor working conditions and low wages he was paid - as little as 2 USD per day - for back-breaking labor. Looking at the ground, he confesses that he can hardly support his family after being sacked from his job months ago.

The student team is here to collect the information they need to design new tools and approaches for Timap's work empowering rural communities who confront the powerful interests of foreign mining and agricultural companies. The race by foreign

A young girl drinking water from a well in Baomahun village. Photo Credit: The Author

companies for natural resource wealth in the developing world continues to foster corruption and undermine rural livelihoods, and the Stanford course is envisioning new approaches to address these challenges. 

An advertisement posted in the community center warns against the dangers of illegal mining. It is sponsored by Amara Mining, the U.K.-owned company that has been mining gold in Baomahun for 10 years.

The town chief mentions a cholera outbreak that killed 15 people a few months ago. He blames Amara Mining for contaminating the ground water.

As the afternoon sun beats down on the parched land, a young girl quenches her thirst with water drawn from the town well.

Disrupting the system

Amara Mining is just one of a handful of small-scale mining companies in Sierra Leone that Stanford research shows buy mineral rights for cheap and give little in return. Concession agreements are often signed by government officials in Freetown, and village landowners are forced to accept the terms and conditions.

Little - if any - of the resource wealth or social services promised in these agreements trickle down to villages like Baomahun where 80 percent of the population cannot read the contracts written in English.   

Computer science student Kevin Ho and his team envision using mobile phones to connect landowners who are separated by distance and poor infrastructure. They can share information on mining contracts and negotiations through SMS messages and voice activated alerts can be triggered for those who cannot read.

Organizing landowners associations to increase communication and mobilization can give them the bargaining power they need to pressure mining companies like Amara for more.

A innovator in justice reform

In a country of six million, there are just a dozen resident attorneys to serve Sierra Leone's rural population.

In 2003, Simeon Koroma left a comfortable job in private practice to start Timap for Justice, which translates to "Stand-Up for Justice" in the local Krio language. He was inspired to find an alternative to the formal legal system, which is so overburdened that some detainees wait several years for a judge to hear their case.

Simeon Koroma (right) talks with his chief paralegal in Yele village. Photo Credit: Michael Lindenberger

With the majority of citizens seeking justice through informal or customary channels, Koroma created a network of paralegals to provide mediation and advisory services.

Koroma spent the spring in residency with the Program on Social Entrepreneurship at FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. The program is designed for grassroots leaders who want to re-engage in academia to enrich their work and deepen their impact. It also provides students the opportunity to connect with practitioners inside the classroom to work on concrete projects with partners like Timap.

Koroma was a natural partner to Weinstein when he was developing the new course as Timap works in rural areas like Baomahun that are hurt by resource concessions.

"This experience has generated new solutions that Timap has not thought about before, and helped to refine some of our strategies and approaches to supporting communities most affected by mining concessions," said Koroma, who returned to Sierra Leone in June to begin implementing some of the ideas.   

Listen first - design later

The following day, Jonny Dorsey - an MBA student at Stanford's Graduate School of Business - meets with the bauxite mining company Vimetco where a worker strike has halted operations for nearly a week. Dorsey learns the company is operating at a significant loss for the year. The general manager expresses a deep distrust towards the miners who he accuses of theft and trying to make "a quick buck."

Ibrahim Dowa cleans bauxite waste for Vimetco. He talks about the low pay, unsafe conditions and casual employment policies at the mine. He has joined the worker strike and threatens to block the roads if he doesn't receive more money and a stable work contract.

Listening to the needs and experiences of both stakeholders leads the Stanford team to propose creating company liaisons - drawn from the community - to mediate conflicts and ease tensions between the companies and workers.

"Immersing ourselves in the lives, hopes and desires of the individuals we met in several villages gave us unexpected insights that we would never have guessed sitting at Stanford," said Aaswath Raman, a Ph.D. student in applied physics. "Our empathy building work revealed a reservoir of latent power and resolve among village residents that formed the foundation of our idea of community liaisons."

Sparking new ideas

Michael Lindenberger, a journalist and Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford's School of Communication, strolls through Yoni village where Agri Capital is operating a farm cultivating Vietnamese rice. Children with distended bellies kick around a deflated soccer ball clouding the air with red dust.

The town chief presents the Agri Capital contract to a Timap paralegal explaining how the company receives just one bushel of rice in return for each acre the company farms. The chief, whose tattered clothes drape over his frail body, describes how the village was not consulted on the terms of the contract. The little rice they have received is dirty.

"Not fit to eat,” he says.

Koroma shakes his head as he scans the 14-page contract. The signatures of the landowners are absent from the contract that negotiated 3,000 acres of their land for filthy rice.  

The chief turns to Koroma and with a deflated expression cries. "We are suffering, he says. "Just looking to survive."

Professor Jeremy Weinstein (left) shakes hands with the Paramount Chief in Bumpe chiefdom. Photo Credit: Michael Lindenberger

Koroma is hopeful that organizing landowners into local associations may give them the power to demand more.

While there is no silver bullet to solve the range of issues facing rural communities in Sierra Leone, it is Weinstein's hope that the course will spark new ideas to long-standing problems.

"If we can get students excited about the possibility of making governments work better for people – and do some good through our class-based projects – we’ll be able to focus Stanford’s innovation energy on some of the world’s most important problems," he says.

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Many resource dependent states have to varying degrees, failed to provide for the welfare of their own populations, could threaten global energy markets, and could pose security risks for the United States and other countries.  Many are in Africa, but also Central Asia (Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan), Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Burma, East Timor), and South America (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador) Some have only recently become – or are about to become – significant resource exporters.  Many have histories of conflict and poor governance.  The recent boom and decline in commodity prices – the largest price shock since the 1970s – will almost certainly cause them special difficulties.  The growing role of India and China, as commodity importers and investors, makes the policy landscape even more challenging.

We believe there is much the new administration can learn from both academic research, and recent global initiatives, about how to address the challenge of poorly governed states that are dependent on oil, gas, and mineral exports.  Over the last eight years there has been a wealth of new research on the special problems that resource dependence can cause in low-income countries – including violent conflict, authoritarian rule, economic volatility, and disappointing growth.  The better we understand the causes of these problems, the more we can learn about how to mitigate them.

There has also been a new set of policy initiatives to address these issues: the Kimberley Process, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, the World Bank’s new “EITI plus plus,” Norway’s Oil for Development initiative, and the incipient Resource Charter.  NGOs have played an important role in most of these initiatives; key players include Global Witness, the Publish What You Pay campaign, the Revenue Watch Institute, Oxfam America, and an extensive network of civil society organizations in the resource-rich countries themselves.

Some of these initiatives have been remarkably successful.  The campaign against ‘blood diamonds,’ through the Kimberley Process, has reduced the trade in illicit diamonds to a fraction of its former level, and may have helped curtail conflicts in Angola, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.  Many other initiatives are so new they have not been have not been carefully evaluated.

This workshop is designed to bring together people in the academic and policy worlds to identify lessons from this research, and from these policy initiatives, that can inform US policy towards resource-dependent poorly states in the new administration.

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Join CDDRL’s Program on Social Entrepreneurship and the Stanford Association for International Development (SAID) for an afternoon discussion with three social entrepreneurs pursuing community-based approaches to development in Africa. Working in Sierra Leone, Malawi, and E. Africa these leaders will share their innovative models for change and engage in a larger conversation on social entrepreneurship.

 

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Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Gemma Bulos Social Entrepreneur-in-Residence Speaker CDDRL
Simeon Koroma Social Entrepreneur-in-Residence Speaker CDDRL
Maxwell Matewere Social Entrepreneur-in-Residence Speaker CDDRL
Sarina A. Beges Program Manager Moderator CDDRL
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