SIPA Students, Dean Yarhi-Milo Travel to Paris for Annual GPPN Conference

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Fourteen students — along with Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo and Tsuya Yee, associate dean for student affairs and SIPA’s GPPN focal point — represented SIPA at the 2024 Global Public Policy Network (GPPN) conference in Paris. This year’s conference, held February 22 and 23, was hosted by the School of Public Affairs of Sciences Po. 

The annual GPPN conference offers participating  students the opportunity to present their projects to the deans of eight of the most prestigious schools of public affairs as well as network with students from all over the world. The theme for this year’s conference was policy proposals to reduce the impact of climate change on vulnerable populations and territories. 

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SIPA students were organized into four teams and competed among 31 overall teams from around the world. A group of four MPA in Development Practice (MPA-DP) students — Ganita, Kim Vidal, Swathi Pottabathini, and Taylor Garner — received the runner-up award for their project “Resilient Futures: Integrating Index-Based Flood Insurance (IBFI) for Climate-Resilient Agriculture of Smallholder Farmers in Assam, India,” which showcased an approach to safeguarding the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Assam against the devastating effects of floods.

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MPA-ESP students Charlotte Giff, Vasu Jayanthi, Greg Porter, and Cate Twining-Ward also made it to the second round of the competition with their project, “Water Equity in Monterrey, Mexico.” 

Other participating SIPA students included Ankita Aggarwal and Alexandra Dignan (“Safeguarding Statehood and Citizenship for Small Island Developing States (SIDS)”); and Leigh Therese Mante, Raihan Amir Rashidi, Nadirah Daud, and Airin Wu (“Securing Energy Access for Flood Vulnerable Rohingya Refugees in Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh”).

Yarhi-Milo, attending her first GPPN conference as dean, said, “The impact of climate change on vulnerable populations is one of our most pressing policy challenges. I'm so proud of our students for proposing actionable policy solutions to address this issue locally and globally.”

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Founded in 2005, the Global Public Policy Network (GPPN) is a partnership between Columbia University, Sciences Po Paris, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, FGV-EAESP in São Paulo, Graduate School of Public Policy (GraSPP) at the University of Tokyo, the Hertie School in Berlin, and the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy. Under the auspices of the GPPN, SIPA offers students the opportunity to pursue two degrees, at two different Universities on two continents in two years, giving students the opportunity for a truly global perspective. In spring 2025 SIPA will host the GPPN conference, which will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the network.

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