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Workshop in Development Practice
What is the Workshop in Development Practice?
The Workshop in Development Practice is one of most exciting opportunities within the EPD concentration, and is also open to a limited number of students in the Human Rights Concentration and International Media, Advocacy and Communications specialization. Officially, it is a spring-semester course for second-year master's degree students, but workshop activities begin in the fall semester through the course on Methods for Development Practice. Through the workshop, students gain practical experience by engaging in on-going cutting-edge development efforts, often involving country fieldwork. Working in teams with a faculty supervisor, students assist a variety of clients on a wide array of assignments in international development. Students take a multidisciplinary approach to their work and learn extensively from each other as well as from the hands-on tasks of the workshop itself. Another key strength of the workshop is that it allows students to explore the intersection of development concerns with human rights, corporate social responsibility, humanitarian affairs, public health and environmental policy. In recent years, the workshop has had the pleasure of partnering with the Human Rights concentration, the International Media, Advocacy and communications specialization and Humanitarian Affairs program at SIPA, and the Earth Institute, the Center for Sustainable Urban Development, the Mailman School of Public Health, the Harriman Institute, the Institute for Latin American Studies and the Middle East Institute at Columbia. Reflecting the utility of workshop assignments, a number of workshop reports are available on client websites and have been published.
Past workshop projects have included:
- Developing a text messaging system to improve surveillance of children's nutrition levels
- Recommendations for microfinance institutions to expand the products and related services they offer to poor clients
- Marketing strategies for products of local artisans and small producers
- Toolkit for planning water and sanitation delivery in refugee camps
- Designing a monitoring system for a grassroots organization providing paralegal services in poor rural communities
- Mapping vocational training programs for internally displaced youth in a post-conflict area
- Developing a food security assessment tool for a rural development NGO
- Developing a business plan for a bamboo bike venture
- Assessing business services needed by African immigrant women in New York
Past clients have included:
UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF and UNIFEM; the World Bank; national and local governments; NGOs such as Catholic Relief Services, FilmAid International, International Institute for Rural Reconstruction, International Rescue Committee, Seva Mandir, Trickle Up, WaterAid, and Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children; and development advisors such as DAI and Technoserve. The precise scope of the workshop project and outputs that the students will deliver are negotiated with each client.
Workshop Final Presentations
Workshop in Development Practice 2011-2012 Final Presentations
Workshop Project Reports by Year
2010 – 2011
2009 – 2010
2008 – 2009
2007 – 2008
2006 – 2007
2005 – 2006
2004 – 2005