"If you want some notion of the problem, just try uttering the words “public administration” before a roomful of students and watch them look at their phones or start to fall asleep. Nonetheless, the classic field of public administration is one of the most important today, and its decline (at least in the United States) is one of the reasons why we get poor service from government," writes CDDRL Director Francis Fukuyama. Read the article here.

The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University is pleased to announce that former U.S. Ambassador and World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director Ertharin Cousin will return for a second year at Stanford. Cousin will serve as the Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecturer at FSI and Distinguished Fellow at the Center on Food Security and the Environment and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.

Cousin brings over 30 years of experience addressing hunger and food security strategies on both a national and international scale. As U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, she focused on advocating for longer-term solutions to food insecurity and hunger, and at WFP she addressed the challenges of food insecurity in conflict situations.

We caught up with Cousin to ask about her plans for this upcoming school year.

If you had to pick out one thing that most concerns you in the realm of food security, what would it be?

Water access, particularly in terms of smallholder farmer centered irrigation and water management. The development community spent much of the past 10 years working to improve farmers’ access to the right seeds and tools – recognizing the need to increase the quality and quantity of their yields. A significant amount of work has also been performed related to improving private sector investment and to the development of markets including access for smallholder farmers.

Today there are approximately 500 million smallholder farmers in the world. The most vulnerable live and work in places where climate change creates ever more erratic rainy seasons. Particularly, in sub-Saharan Africa where 97 percent of all agriculture remains rain-fed. Too often the short rains don’t come, and the long rains produce insufficient precipitation. Inadequate policy management of diminishing water resources represents a significant problem which we must overcome to make agriculture productive and sustainable for the most vulnerable.

And what work have you been doing to address this issue?

I am working on a number of policy research and development projects. For example, I am co-chairing the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (CCGA) 2019 Global Food Security Symposium’s report exploring the linkages between water management and food security particularly as it relates to nutrition security. The report release will occur March 21, 2019 at the CCGA Food Security Symposium.

Over the past year, you also have been working on a project to encourage the private sector to create sustainable food systems. How is that going?

My work identifying and addressing policy-related challenges impacting private sector partnership and investment in global food system solutions continues. Globally, there is growing recognition that we cannot fix the broken global food system if we do not work to create collaborative efforts between public and private sector, academia, government, non-profits and larger society.

Governments, particularly those in developing countries, often lack both the financial resources and technical capacity required to perform the work and the investment necessary to fix our global food system. Governments and civil society must include private sector as an equal and desired partner. Government policies at the global, state and local level should support and encourage private sector participation.

Using my role here at Stanford as a platform to broker research and information both to private sector as well as to government, has proven quite successful over the past year. In very simple terms, helping global governments understand generating profit does not make the private sector a bad partner.

What successes have you had so far?

I was just in Amsterdam to meet with Royal DSM, a nutrition products manufacturer, with whom I developed a relationship during my tenure at the World Food Programme. In Kigali in Rwanda, DSM and several other partners - including the national government - have developed and are now operating the Africa Improved Foods company, the first European-type baby food manufacturing facility. European-type baby food differs from American products in terms of their lack of sweeteners and conservative use of food preservatives, lack of detectable pesticides (due to farming practices), and their stage-approach: they produce different products for the various stages of baby growth (from birth to 4 years) that cater to the specific nutritional needs of the child. Several farming cooperatives, representing approximately 10,000 Rwandan small farmers, form the sole supply chain for this baby food factory.

WFP serves as a catalyst market for the plant, purchasing the supplemental nutrition product distributed through the region’s targeted nutrition improvement program. The sustainability of the factory is directly related to the partners ability to grow (in addition to WFP) an institutional and a commercial consumer market for this easy-access, nutrient-rich food that is specifically made for children. I am assisting DSM and the government of Rwanda by helping to identify the policy changes required to ensure the sustainability of this public-private partnership. As a proof-of-concept, the success of AIF, will result in new public-private development opportunities. This initiative offers a case study demonstrating how collaboration between the private sector and government actually provides positive benefits for both farmers and nutritious food for consumers.

Why Stanford? How has being here helped your work?

Serving here at Stanford represents my first opportunity to work in academia on a full-time basis. I am a lawyer with over 30 years of experience of working on complicated domestic and global humanitarian and development issues; particularly, hunger related issues. I believe my experience adds value to any academic community. But in many institutions, the value of experience is not readily embraced, particularly because I don't have a PhD and haven’t spent 20 years in a classroom. At Stanford, I discovered collegial faculty, brilliant students and a recognition as well as a respect for my experience-based knowledge. I have received a welcoming response across the campus, collaborating with the law school, colleagues in the medical school, earth system sciences and the business school. The only limit to my participation and partnership with the amazing academic leaders here at Stanford has been time. I am quite looking forward to the opportunities for engagement provided by my additional time on campus.

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The Payne Distinguished Lectureship is awarded to scholars with international reputations as leaders, with an emphasis on visionary thinking, practical problem solving, and the capacity to clearly articulate an important perspective on the global political and social situation. Past Payne Lecturers include Bill Gates, Nobel Laureate Mohamed El Baradei, UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot, and novelist Ian McEwan.

The Center on Food Security and the Environment (FSE) addresses critical global issues of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation and is a joint effort of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is an interdisciplinary center for research on development in all of its dimensions:  political, economic, social and legal, and the ways in which these different dimensions interact with one another.

"The idea that the big internet platforms are not media companies has never really been tenable, and the contradictions in their public protestations of neutrality have become ever more apparent over time," writes Francis Fukuyama in The American Interest. Read the article here. 

"In my previous post, I noted how public policy education needs to shift its focus from training policy analysts to training leaders who are capable of actually implementing good policies. In our experimentation both at my Center’s Leadership Academy for Development and in the new Stanford Masters in International Policy, case teaching has become an integral part of the approach," writes CDDRL Director Francis Fukuyama. Read the article here. 

"Public policy education is ripe for an overhaul. Rethinking how it should be done has been one of my major preoccupations over the past decade, and is the focus of work that we are doing now at Stanford in restructuring our Masters in International Policy (MIP) Program. It is also at the core of several mid-career programs we run at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), such as the Leadership Academy for Development (LAD). The essence of the needed transformation is to shift the focus from training policy analysts to educating leaders who can accomplish things in the real world," writes CDDRL Director Francis Fukuyama. Read here.

"What is different today is the speed and extraterritorial reach of disinformation. Over-restriction on content undermines our democratic values, but understanding the mechanisms of manipulation opens up the solutions." Our Eileen Donahoe, Executive Director of CDDRL's Global Digital Policy Incubator, said in the podcast "Digital Media: Combatting Threats in the Era of Fake News." Listen here.

With so much circulating about the Helsinki summit on social media and in the press, we asked one of our resident Russian experts and historians at CISAC, Prof DAVID HOLLOWAY, for his 60 second quick take-aways on the Trump-Putin meeting of July 16th.

Quick-Take: Helsinki 2018 with David Holloway 

Q:What specific results/agreements have come out of the meeting?

A: That’s not clear.  We have only the press conference to go on.  Putin mentioned a number of areas in which working groups might be reestablished.  Trump mentioned that the NSC would follow up with the Russians on issues addressed in the meeting.  Those included arms control, the humanitarian in Syria, and counterterrorism.  Cooperation in those areas could be beneficial. 

Q: Trump mentioned that the meeting marked a “fundamental change” in US-Russian relations.  Is that true?

A: First, we don’t know what specific agreements – if any – have been concluded.  A broader dialogue between the two governments appears to be likely, and there are some areas in which agreement could be reached quickly – extension of New START, for example.  But reconstituting working groups is no guarantee that agreements can be reached.

Second, the tone of the press conference was extraordinary.  Trump’s earlier tweet that the US was to blame for the worsening of US-Russian relations set the tone.  Putin showed much greater command of the issues than Trump, which was to be expected.  Trump seemed obsessed by US domestic politics and his own political position, which was not a surprise.  Trump’s unwillingness to back his own intelligence agencies on the issue of Russian interference in the 2016 election was perhaps predictable, but nonetheless remarkable in the context of a meeting with Putin.

Third, taken together with the NATO summit last week, the meeting with Putin may come to look like a turning-point in US foreign policy, overturning – or at least greatly weakening – a long-standing alliance and creating dangerous uncertainty in European security relations.

About David Holloway:

DAVID HOLLOWAY is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, a professor of political science, and an FSI senior fellow. 

His research focuses on the international history of nuclear weapons, on science and technology in the Soviet Union, and on the relationship between international history and international relations theory.

Want to hear more from our experts?

FSI Director, MICHAEL MCFAUL, has been reporting live on the Trump-Putin summit from Helsinki. For access to his interviews with NBC News and MSNBC in the lead up to and the aftermath of the July 16th meeting, click here. To hear his post-Summit interview with NPR News, click here. 

In her latest article for The Atlantic , 'The Self-Inflicted Demise of American Power', CISAC co-Director AMY ZEGART argues that Trump’s foreign-policy doctrine can be summed up as “Make America Weak Again.” For the full article click here.

FSI's Deputy Director, KATHRYN STONER weighs in on the Helsinki summit and how disheartening it is to our own president reject the findings of our own Justice Department and Intelligence Agencies to defend Putin and blame everything on Hillary Clinton and her email servers. Listen to the episode of Background Briefing with Ian Masters click here. 

Discover More:

Check out the Russia Research page on our website for all articles and interviews about US-Russian relations with FSI faculty and visiting scholars.

In the immediate aftermath of the Helsinki Summit, FSI's Eileen Donahoe joins Sen. Marco Rubio; Sen. Mark Warner; Damian Colllins, the MP for Folkestone & Hythe and Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee; and former Ukrainian Minister for Finance Natalie Jaresko, in a discussion about how to #stopmeddling in democratic elections. 

Today, while the President of the United States challenged the US intelligence agencies’ conclusion on Russia’s interference in 2016 election, the Atlantic Council and the Alliance of Democracies organized a series of conversations on “Kremlin’s Interference in Elections.”

Eileen Donahoe, Executive Director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University was among the speakers. She called the meeting of transatlantic parliamentarians, an "important show of transatlantic support for democracy and recognition that we need to take election integrity seriously!"

To discover their sessions on #electionintegrity and to learn about how we can better #DefendDemocracy, check out the Atlantic Council's webcast of the event here.

Selected from among 668 applicants, the 2018-19 Ukrainian Emerging Leaders at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) stood out for their outstanding civic records, leadership potential and contributions to Ukraine’s political and social development.

Nataliya Mykolska, Ivan Prymachenko, and Oleksandra Ustinova will arrive to Stanford this September to begin the 10-month fellowship program. Taking courses with leading faculty and working on fellowship projects, these emerging leaders will step back from the demands of their work and immerse themselves in an academic experience that will reset their professional trajectories.

Since the 2013-14 Revolution of Dignity, Ukraine has fought to define itself as a democracy. Not only has it faced external challenges in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, but also internal ones as it grapples with institution-building and reforms. These three incoming fellows are all pioneering new approaches to dismantle the Soviet past and re-shape the future of their country. From export promotion to education reform to anti-corruption work, their projects at Stanford will contribute to Ukraine’s democratic transition.

As the first year of the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program draws to a close, the inaugural cohort of fellows will return to Ukraine to apply what they learned and work on reforms that will shape their country. They will join a community of mid-career practitioners in Ukraine who have graduated from CDDRL’s other core leadership programs - the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program and the Leadership Academy for Development.

The Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program would not be possible without the support of a generous set of donors who have made this program possible, including; Western NIS Enterprise Fund; Svyatoslav Vakarchuk; Tomas Fiala; Rustem Umerov; Oleksandr Kosovan; and Viktor and Iryna Ivanchyk.

TRANSFORMING UKRAINE INTO AN EXPORTING NATION

[[{"fid":"231857","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto"},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"4":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto"}},"attributes":{"style":"height: 600px; width: 400px; margin: 5px 10px; float: right;","class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto","data-delta":"4"}}]]Name: Nataliya Mykolska, @mykolska

Hometown: Kyiv and Lviv, Ukraine

Organizational affiliation: Trade Representative of Ukraine - Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade

Professional Background:

- In the Ukrainian government, I am responsible for developing and implementing consistent, predictable and efficient trade policy. I focus on export strategy and promotion, building an effective system of state support for Ukrainian exports, free trade agreements, protecting Ukrainian trade interests in the World Trade Organization, dialogue with Ukrainian exporters, and removing trade barriers. Prior to joining the government, I worked for almost 15 years as a legal counsel in top Ukrainian law firms, with a concentration on all aspects of international trade.

Why do you do the work you do?

- I do believe in international trade and that it brings growth to the world economy and prosperity to the world. I also believe that exports are not only driving Ukraine’s economy but are of paramount importance for further development and growth of Ukraine. Exports change Ukraine and Ukrainian businesses. Moreover, improving Ukraine’s export strategy will change people’s mindset -it will not only create a new generation of businesses but a new generation of Ukrainians.

What do you hope to achieve at Stanford through the fellowship and your project?

- For me, this program is an opportunity to enhance my academic foundation and skills to reload and upgrade in order to develop a strategic vision and apply relevant implementation instruments, and thus to achieve a higher level of professional and personal development. This is a tremendous opportunity to work on an ambitious vision of Ukraine as an exporting nation. The project will create a program to help Ukrainians understand why exporting is important not only for the further development and growth of Ukraine, but also how it impacts them directly. I plan to do this through education, culture, social movements and changing mindsets. This campaign should promote efforts to increase exports, and not only create a new generation of business, but a new Ukrainian perspective on exports.

Favorite quote or fun fact about yourself? 

“What was a progress yesterday, will be the ichthyosaurs tomorrow.” Lina Kostenko, Ukrainian poet and writer.

QUALITY AND ACCESSIBLE EDUCATION AS THE KEY TO THE FUTURE

[[{"fid":"231860","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto"},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"7":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto"}},"attributes":{"style":"width: 570px; margin: 5px 10px; float: left; height: 387px;","class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto","data-delta":"7"}}]]Name: Ivan Prymachenko, @iprymachenko

Hometown: Donetsk, Ukraine

Organizational affiliation: Prometheus

Professional Background:

- I am an educational technology innovator and co-founder of the largest Ukrainian massive open online courses platform Prometheus, which has 600,000 users. Prometheus hosts 75 massive online courses from top-rated Ukrainian universities, governmental bodies, international organizations such as United Nations Development Program, the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and leading companies such as Microsoft Ukraine and Ernst and Young Ukraine. Among my organization’s key activities is the integration of our courses as a part of the curricula in Ukraine’s educational facilities in a blended learning format: twenty-two Ukrainian universities are already participating in this program.

Why do you do the work you do?

- In high school, I loved history but had to travel for hours to study with one of the few renowned historians in my region. With her guidance, I won the All-Ukrainian competition in history, an accomplishment that got me admitted to the best Ukrainian university. Quality education was the key to my future. Now, with the use of new technologies, I want to bring free access to the best education to every student in Ukraine.

What do you hope to achieve at Stanford through the fellowship and your project?

- At Stanford, I plan to design a technology-driven Ukrainian education reform roadmap, covering the teaching process itself, retraining of teachers and integrating the principles of financing. I want to research cutting-edge educational practices and to learn how to scale them for millions of students in Ukraine and eventually worldwide. My intended impact is to create equal educational opportunities that will kick-start economic development and promote citizens’ participation in social and political life.

Favorite quote or fun fact about yourself? 

- To launch the first massive open online course in Ukraine as a student-historian in 2013, I studied programming with the help of massive open online courses from American universities and created a website for the project on my own.

CORRUPTION IS A BATTLE I CAN FIGHT

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Hometown: Kyiv, Ukraine

Organizational affiliation: Anti-Corruption Action Center (ANTAC)

Professional Background:

- I am a board member of the Anti-corruption Action Center (ANTAC) where I direct communications strategy and advocacy campaigns. I have been working in this field for over ten years. Previously I ran the press-center for the National Anti-Tobacco movement that resulted in the ban of tobacco advertisements and smoking in public places, as well as the increase of taxes on tobacco products.

Since the 2013-14 revolution on Maidan, one of Ukraine’s major struggles in building its democracy has been the one against corruption. My team has advocated for over 20 laws establishing new anti-corruption bodies, such as the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor and Anti-Corruption Court, as well as for public access to land and property registers, criminal liability for illicit enrichment and other anti-corruption tools. I also manage the Corruption in Healthcare Project which focuses on reforming the medical procurement process.

Why do you do the work you do?

- I personally believe that if everyone gives up 10 percent of their time for something good we could change the world. A lot changed with the Revolution of Dignity when my countrymen died for a better future for Ukraine. After 2014, I gave up a well-paid job in an American IT company and began working full-time to fight corruption. Corruption is Ukraine’s second front, other than the war with Russia. A lot of young men, including friends of mine, went to fight in the war in Eastern Ukraine and never returned. Corruption is the battle I can fight: That’s why I have to do what I can to change the country.

What do you hope to achieve at Stanford through the fellowship and your project?

- I want to study the best anti-corruption practices, cultural behavior changes and new trends in politics to return with a campaign to implement. The heart of it will be to change Ukrainians’ attitudes toward corruption. Currently many Ukrainians see corrupt officials as successful businessmen rather than thieves. With the rise of populism, the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2019 may see these officials gaining power. This attitude of accepting corruption needs to change and I hope to learn the best practices for fighting this mindset. Once successfully implemented in Ukraine, the communication campaign I design at Stanford could be replicated in other Post-Soviet countries. I am convinced that Ukraine is a laboratory for new anti-corruption solutions and good governance tools.
 

Favorite quote or fun fact about yourself?

 - Dream Big!