This course is designed to provide an introduction to the process of political development. It introduces a set of analytic tools based on the strategic perspective of political science and political economy to evaluate the current debates in political development and to draw policy-relevant conclusions.

‘Political development’ is a generic concept that refers to the development of institutions, social structures and civic values that form the basis of a society's political organisation. Contrary to what was believed in the recent past, it is by no means the result of a universal model of historical evolution that applies to all societies. It takes shape as a result of a combination of changes brought about by national, transnational and international factors.

This course examines the politics of persistent policy challenges in the Global South, a term that traditionally refers to developing nations but also encompasses marginalized communities in wealthier countries affected by globalization.Poverty, inequality, hunger, communicable diseases, water scarcity, political and financial instability, and corruption are among the most persistent challenges in the Global South. While policymakers have invested significant resources to address these issues, their global roots often make them more complex and difficult to resolve.

This lecture course examines the dynamics between state and society from a range of political economy perspectives, with particular attention to governance and the ways societies define and pursue wellbeing. Students are expected to have a basic familiarity with social science theories and methods. Core readings are primarily scholarly works that introduce a range of theoretical frameworks and comparative tools, applied to real-world policy challenges.

Virtually everyone at Columbia has travel documents issued by a state. Most of these are passports issued to citizens.    But what are these things we call “states?”   How are they related to “nations,” “non-state actors,” the “state system?”  And what is “citizenship?” How does it shape individual identities, conferring (or impinging on) rights, implying loyalties, creating privileges and defining opportunities? And what do policy-makers need to know as they contemplate changing expectations of states and evolving norms of citizenship? 

Historically, the vast majority of human society has been governed by non-democratic regimes.  Even today, more than half the world’s people live in autocracies.  Many SIPA students come from countries whose governments are not democratic, and will work in institutions and sectors where regimes are not democratic.  Yet almost all of the literature of political science on policy-making is devoted to democracy—its genesis, stability, challenges, consolidation, processes, merits, and flaws.

The course has two broad objectives: 1) to explore how economics can be used to understand various facets of development and 2) to provide tools and skills useful in policy work. In the course, we will describe the basic facts surrounding the development process and use economic theory to make sense of these facts and to identify gaps in our understanding. We will also learn about the tools that development economists use to fill in those gaps. These will include analyzing real-world data and thinking in terms of causality and its relevance for policy.

This course will provide students with a framework for historical and current debates on development. It will offer students a basic understanding of what constitutes “development” (ends) and how to promote it (means). The initial lecture presents the broad issue of development trends and the multidisciplinary approach, as seen today through the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015. The subsequent classes then look at classical and contemporary theories of economic development.

Pre-requisites: A calculus-based micro-economics course (SIPA IA6400) or equivalent. This is an advanced course in development economics, designed for SIPA students interested in rigorous, applied training. Coursework includes extensive empirical exercises, requiring programming in Stata. The treatment of theoretical models presumes knowledge of calculus.

This is the first of a two-course sequence for second-year students concentrating in Development and Governance (D&G), formerly Economic and Political Development (EPD). The second course is the Workshop in Sustainable Development Practice. These courses are integrated into a year-long encounter with the applied practice of sustainable development, guided by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Capstone Workshop in Sustainable Development Practice is one of the most exciting opportunities within the Development and Governance concentration, and is also open to a limited number of students in other concentrations. 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 Sustainable Development Practice.

Research shows that countries with deeper levels of financial inclusion -- defined as access to affordable, appropriate financial services -- have stronger GDP growth rates and lower income inequality. In recent years, research around the financial habits and needs of poor households has yielded rich information on how they manage their financial lives, allowing for the design of financial solutions that better meet their needs, boosting financial inclusion. Nevertheless, an estimated 1.3 billion people globally remain underserved by financial services. 

This course is the first in a two-course sequence on innovation for development in practice. It will focus on institutional reforms and how to leverage innovation to help drive organisational change within international development organisations. The second course will focus on innovation in low and middle-income countries, including the role of innovation in fostering inclusive growth, in efforts to advance locally led development principles and in fostering inclusive innovation ecosystems, among other themes. 

This course focuses on innovation in low and middle-income countries and how international development organisations and governments can drive better development processes and outcomes. Sessions will cover the role of innovation in fostering inclusive digital transformation, economic growth as well as practical applications of innovation in development policies and programmes.

This course equips students with economic tools to analyze the impacts of international migration on destination and origin countries. Emphasizing migration between low-, middle-, and high-income economies, it explores the effects of migration restrictions, remittances, diaspora networks, and labor market outcomes. Students will review key economic models, assess policy debates, and engage with empirical research. The course combines lectures, case discussions, and applied assignments to strengthen analytical skills and inform policy recommendations in migration and development.

This course provides a foundational understanding of the role of evaluation within international organizations and how it is planned, conducted, and used. International organizations play a key role in supporting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) implementation that advance the cross-cutting issues of human rights, gender equality and environmental sustainability.

This course will be useful for students who are committed to evidence-based operations, programming, strategy, and overall effectiveness. Impact evaluations, combined with strong data systems, are integral tools for this evidence-driven work. At the end of the course, students will understand why and when to conduct impact evaluations, how to manage one, and how to recognize and differentiate a good impact evaluation from a non-rigorous one.

Spring 2026 Course Dates: March 27-28 & April 3-4

This course examines the principles and practices of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in international development and humanitarian assistance. Students will learn to design theories of change, develop indicators, plan and conduct evaluations, and communicate results effectively. Emphasis is placed on adaptive management, complexity-aware approaches, and emerging trends such as equitable and decolonized evaluation and the integration of generative AI tools.

This seven-week course examines the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and monitoring, evaluation, research and learning (MERL) in international development and humanitarian contexts. Students will explore two critical dimensions: using MERL approaches to assess AI systems (MERL of AI) and leveraging AI tools to conduct MERL activities (AI for MERL).

This course aims at familiarizing students with historical and contemporary debates on Latin American economic development and its social effects. The focus of the course is comparative in perspective. Most of the readings deal, therefore, with Latin America as a region, not with individual countries.

The course provides students with a theoretical and empirical overview of the policies designed to address poverty and inequality in the developing world, as well as the political context in which these policies are chosen and implemented, with a particular (though not exclusive) focus on the Brazilian experience. The first meetings focus on normative perspectives and the general political implications of poverty and inequality. We then briefly examine differences in social policies between developed and developing countries and proceed to discuss various practical approaches to the issue.

How do the world’s poorest people save money without access to banks or credit? This course explores the power of informal savings systems, such as tandas in Mexico, susus in West Africa, and dhikutis in Nepal, that help hundreds of millions build financial stability through trust, discipline, and community support.

The aspirations outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are in jeopardy as the world faces cascading and interrelated global crises and conflicts. It has become increasingly apparent that traditional funding modalities are falling tragically short to meet the financing requirements in addressing the SDGs - currently estimated to be around US$4.2 trillion per year. Hence, there is an urgent need to leverage alternative and innovative sources for financing development initiatives.

The objective of this course is to learn and apply practical approaches to leveraging business innovation to spur socially and environmentally sustainable development, based on an understanding of the role of enterprises—especially small and growing businesses (SBGs)—in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs).

Corruption undermines governance, saps resources and undermines development.  It is also exceptionally difficult to identify, address, and resolve due to the intrinsic opacity of its operative mechanisms, endemic nature inside systems, and persistence.

This course will teach:

Drawing on the co-instructors' experience at MERL Tech Initiative and Dalberg Design, this course challenges the notion that technology alone can solve complex development problems and that a human-centered ecosystem approach is critical. While innovations like mobile money and AI are often hailed as silver bullets, history shows that their impact depends on context, users, and systems.

This course aims at familiarizing students with major issues surrounding global economic governance, exploring both the issues that have been or are now subject to current debates, as well as the institutional questions involved.

This course explores how Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and climate considerations are reshaping public market investment strategies. Students will learn how institutional investors use ESG signals and climate-related data to assess risk, identify opportunity, and support real-world outcomes—all while meeting fiduciary obligations.

This course examines global and national energy policies with international implications, focusing on the intersections of energy sustainability, energy security, and energy equity, commonly referred to as the "energy trilemma." Students will explore how national decisions shape global outcomes and how international frameworks influence domestic policies. Special attention is given to the political economy of the energy transition, with case studies on fossil fuels, renewables, subsidies, and critical mineral supply chains.

Geopolitics is complicating the already difficult task of moving from a carbon-intensive energy system to one of net-zero emissions. Today’s geopolitical tensions risk slowing the pace of the urgently needed clean energy transition, while some dynamics within the transition itself are exacerbating existing geopolitical challenges. Competition between great powers—a defining feature of the emerging global order—now threatens progress through trade disputes and national security concerns. The uneven global transition is also deepening divides between developed and developing countries.

This course examines the relationship between energy production, human development, and sustainability. It explores how energy projects, businesses, and policies—collectively referred to as “energy enterprises”—operate in frontier markets and developing countries. Students will analyze how energy access and use intersect with critical issues such as poverty, gender, health, displacement, and environmental justice.

Emerging and developing economies are expected to account for the bulk of the energy demand and carbon emissions growth in the coming decades. Drastic changes are necessary to their current energy systems and future energy infrastructure so that it is in line with global climate goals—an effort that will require significant amounts of capital. This course will look at the formidable task of financing the energy transition in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs).

This course explores how Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) objectives and data are integrated into investment decision-making. Through a combination of academic theory, real-world case studies, and hands-on exercises, students examine how ESG considerations affect risk, return, and portfolio design. Key topics include ESG portfolio theory, impact investing, fixed income and labeled bonds, engagement and proxy voting, and climate-aware investing.

Impact Investing I: Foundations introduces students to the core principles, tools, and actors shaping the field of impact investing. The course provides a foundational understanding of how capital markets can be leveraged to address global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, inequality, and poverty, while also generating financial returns.

Impact Investing II: Blended Finance'' equips students with a detailed understanding of the tools, strategies and innovative approaches being utilized by investors seeking both financial and impact returns, via blended finance transactions. Students in this course will study cases, dig into transactions and be prepared to be a professional contributor to a transaction at a future employer.

As impact investing further embeds into the mainstream, Impact Measurement and Management (IMM) is its key differentiator, helping impact investors understand a company’s intention to create positive outcomes and impacts and the evidence it uses to demonstrate whether (“if”) the impact, value, or benefit is indeed being created, and importantly, in what ways (“how”) it is improving the lives of concerned stakeholders and the environment.

The field of responsible investment has grown rapidly over the last twenty years, with the climate crisis serving as the paradigmatic ESG issue for investors. In the private sector, investors pledge to decarbonize their portfolios, ask for carbon reporting to manage that task, join together to engage corporations on their transition plans. As activity has grown, questions about the effectiveness and limitations of climate finance approaches to the climate crisis have grown along with them.

The social, environmental, and governance challenges of the 21st century represent both companies’ greatest risks and opportunities.

The Social Impact: Business, Society, and the Natural Environment course explores the relationship between corporations, society, and the natural environment. Specifically, it examines the ways in which governments, (for-profit and non-profit) organizations, and investors (fail to) have positive impact and manage issues where the pursuit of private goals is deemed inconsistent with the public interest.

Unlike typical “Ethical AI” or “Technology for Development” courses that debate whether technologies are good or bad or focus on isolated deployments, this course is designed for non-technical students who want to truly understand both the technologies themselves and the environments they operate in for current and future applications.

Registration is only available to MPA-DP Students.

This course will examine the role and impact of gender in the financial sector and its implications for gender equity more broadly. Access to capital and financial products and services determines who has the ability not only to best meet their basic financial needs, but to build and grow businesses, to become property owners, to invest and build wealth, to take risk, and to be full participants in the political and financial economy.

This course provides a practitioner’s perspective on how global capital markets operate, focusing on the instruments, institutions, and frameworks that channel capital to companies, households, and governments. Students will explore interest rate and FX swaps, derivatives, credit default swaps, asset-backed securities, and structured finance, alongside tools for interpreting yield curves and understanding credit markets. The course integrates current developments, including monetary policy, inflation trends, and systemic risk, with a close look at how financial actors respond.

This course examines the evolution of capital markets in emerging economies and the forces shaping their current and future trajectories. Through a combination of case studies, financial theory, and practitioner insights, students will explore sovereign defaults, financial crises, policy responses, and structural reforms across Latin America, Asia, and beyond. Key topics include the influence of global liquidity cycles, the rise of China, ESG investment trends, and the implications of new technologies such as generative AI.

The transition to a net-zero economy is of particular relevance to Emerging and Developing economies, which are both the most vulnerable to climate change and also the largest emitters of greenhouse gases.

The transition is creating considerable challenges but also opening up significant opportunities: over $200 trillion of investments will be needed in order to ensure that global temperatures stay well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, with most to be invested in the infrastructure sector of emerging and developing economies.

This intensive short course explores the financing, development, and policy landscape of energy and infrastructure projects. Students will examine how partnerships are structured to allocate risk, how capital is raised and deployed across project stages, and how political and regulatory environments shape investment decisions. Through real-world case studies, from carbon pipelines and LNG terminals to rail and airport concessions—students will analyze evolving infrastructure models and evaluate the roles of private, public, and multilateral actors.

This course explores both the theory and policy of international trade. In the first half, students will learn why countries trade, what determines trade patterns, and how trade affects prices, welfare, and income distribution. Key models covered include the Ricardian, Specific Factors, and Heckscher-Ohlin models, along with extensions on migration and offshoring. In the second half, the course focuses on trade policy instruments such as tariffs, quotas, and subsidies, examining their effects under different market structures.

This course introduces the major theoretical approaches and substantive issues in international political economy (IPE). Students will explore realist, liberal, and critical perspectives while engaging with topics such as trade, finance, monetary systems, sovereign debt, economic crises, and development. Through close examination of historical and contemporary case studies, the course considers the interplay of power, institutions, and markets in shaping global economic outcomes.

Given the dramatic changes in US Trade Policy, businesses and governments are having to navigate a patchwork of “managed trade” agreements and myriad tariff rates and non-tariff barriers. This short course will equip students with a solid grasp of the fundamentals of the current world trading system – both the “multilateral” system centered on the WTO and still practiced among most countries, as well as the US-centered multiplex system created by the Trump II Administration.

Instructor permission required. This graduate seminar explores the politics of international economic relations, with a focus on contemporary issues in trade, finance, monetary policy, foreign investment, climate change, and globalization. Rather than surveying the entire field of international political economy (IPE), the course investigates selected topics in depth, emphasizing how interests, institutions, and interactions shape economic policy across borders.

Prerequisite: SIPA IA6200 Accounting. (Note: Based on their performance in SIPA IA6260 Accounting Fundamentals, IA6260 students may be allowed to register if space remains.) 

This course explores the economics and politics of sovereign debt, focusing on the sustainability of public borrowing and the power dynamics shaping debt resolution processes. Students will analyze how debt decisions are made under uncertainty and examine the implications for domestic economies and the global financial system.

This course explores sovereign risk through the lens of credit rating agency methodologies, historical debt crises, and contemporary developments in sovereign debt markets. Students will examine the interplay of fiscal, institutional, political, financial, and geopolitical dynamics that shape sovereign creditworthiness. Students will gain fluency in rating criteria, peer comparisons, and debt sustainability analyses, with a focus on Moody’s sovereign bond rating methodology. The course culminates in a mock credit rating committee exercise.

This course offers students a strategic and applied framework for understanding the global financial services industry, spanning commercial and investment banking, asset and wealth management, central banking, and financial regulation. Students will examine the sector’s evolution, current challenges, and future direction. Topics include risk management, regulatory change, financial technology, global competitive positioning, and the strategic dilemmas faced by CEOs in a post-2008 financial landscape.

This is a theory and applications course in international macroeconomics and finance. It provides students with the basic tools to analyze real-life macroeconomic, policy, and financial market situations. The class is suitable for those interested in working at domestic or international policy institutions, in diplomatic service, the financial sector, or the media. Lectures are fairly rigorous, though if the student has some first-year economics, knows basic algebra and graphs, they will handle the material fairly easily.

This seminar examines the evolution of global monetary policy from 2000 to the present, focusing on the actions and strategies of the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of England. Students study the major economic disruptions of the era, including the Global Financial Crisis, the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the recent surge and subsequent decline in global inflation. The course analyzes how central banks operated under constraints such as the effective lower bound and explores the adoption of unconventional monetary tools.

This course introduces students to the theory and practice of political risk analysis, focusing on how geopolitical dynamics shape markets, investment strategies, and global governance. Students will examine frameworks such as the G-Zero world, J-Curve, and state capitalism, and explore how they apply to real-world risks across countries and sectors. Taught by leading experts in the field, the course emphasizes interdisciplinary tools and methodologies for identifying, assessing, and managing political risk—including scenario planning, risk indices, and game-theory modeling.

This course examines the rise of economic inequality through the lens of empirical research and policy analysis. Emphasizing the upper end of the income and wealth distribution, the course explores key drivers of inequality, including firm dynamics, tax evasion, intergenerational mobility, technological change, and globalization. Students will engage with cutting-edge research, international comparisons, and the policy tools used to address inequality, including taxation, welfare programs, and state capacity.

Industrial policy is returning, and this is not just a US phenomenon  China, the European Union (EU), Japan, and Korea have each increased subsidies in support of key industries, while a number of countries, such as Australia and the United Kingdom (UK) have been updating their national lists of sensitive sectors that are required to remain in the hands of domestic firms and individuals  New export control measures have been introduced by the United States and other nations, and a combination of legal and policy tools are being utilized to support priority sectors, limit, and dire

Intelligence activities are traditionally thought to comprise the activities of a nation state’s intelligence organizations attempting to steal secrets, usually those pertaining to national security, from the organizations of another nation state.  However, intelligence activities have seldom, if ever, been confined to the government sphere.  Most nation states have employed their national intelligence systems to steal privately held economic information from other countries to benefit their economies: many continue to do so.

The class covers basic economics thinking and policy applications derived primarily from labor economics, industrial organization and international economics. It will examine the effects of government policies on firms, labor, and capital markets. It will also focus on issues of corporate and national governance and performance. There will be several guest lectures on these and other topics.

Open to all SIPA with pre-req or concurrent-req: Macroeconomics. This course aims to provide a well-rounded understanding of financial development over time and across countries, with an emphasis on public policy. Topics include a review of the foundations and processes of financial development; the roles of markets, instruments, and institutions; issues related to systemic financial stability; links to financial repression and globalization; and the developmental and oversight roles of the state.

This course focuses on financial stability monitoring and evaluation as an essential discipline for macroeconomic, financial and prudential policymakers.  We begin by defining financial stability, examining the dynamic behavior of macroeconomic models with developed models of the financial sector, and considering conceptual frameworks for assessment of threats to financial stability.  From there, we identify key signatures of financial instability, how they can be measured and combined in a monitoring system, and how such measurement systems signal changes in the level of systemic

This short course will start with a brief overview of the post-crisis reforms and focus on the gap that macroprudential policy was meant to fill: the lack of a system-wide perspective on financial stability.

This workshop-style course introduces students to the principles of social entrepreneurship and human-centered design. Working in teams, students will identify pressing social or environmental challenges, conduct stakeholder research, and develop new venture ideas through iterative prototyping, budgeting, and pitching. The course emphasizes design thinking methodologies and includes instruction in customer discovery, solution testing, and storytelling for social impact.

This course explores the strategies, tools, and policy environments required to scale ventures beyond the startup phase, particularly in regions outside traditional tech hubs such as Silicon Valley. Students examine the entrepreneurial journey from early traction to sustained growth, considering both bottom-up approaches focused on talent, capital, and customer acquisition, and top-down approaches focused on policy and ecosystem design. Emphasis is placed on high-impact sectors including AI, blockchain, fintech, and edtech, as well as opportunities in underserved markets.

This intensive course introduces students to the principles and practice of impact investing and financial innovation in both developed and emerging markets. With a focus on sustainability, students explore how capital can be deployed to generate financial, social, and environmental returns. The course analyzes key instruments such as social impact bonds, green bonds, and microfinance, and examines the role of policy, measurement frameworks, and regulatory developments shaping the field. Students develop their own applied projects, either research papers or business plans.

This experiential course prepares students for careers in the growing field of impact investing by building essential practical skills. Students will analyze real investments, assess both financial viability and impact potential, and simulate the due diligence and negotiation process from sourcing to term sheet. Through case studies, hands-on assignments, and team-based presentations, students will learn how to evaluate and structure impact investments. The course emphasizes applied tools used in the field and offers insight into pathways for careers in impact finance.

This course equips students with the skills and tools to design, assess, and manage impact measurement and evaluation (M&E) strategies within sustainable development and social impact contexts. Emphasizing both technical rigor and real-world application, the course prepares students to develop M&E frameworks, apply theories of change, track and evaluate outcomes, and communicate findings to diverse audiences.

This course provides an applied introduction to cost-benefit analysis (CBA) as a tool for evaluating public policies. Students will learn how to interpret and produce CBAs through lectures, problem sets, and real-world case studies focused on environmental, financial, agricultural, and transportation policies. Emphasis is placed on CBAs conducted by government agencies, including critical review of regulatory analyses and formulation of public comments.

International migration’s substantial economic and social effects are at the forefront of today’s academic discussion, international debate, as well as national policy strategies. This course introduces students to the key notions, norms, and narratives of international migration from economic, sociological, legal, policy, international relations, and normative perspectives.

This course is the first in a two-course sequence on innovation for development in practice. It will focus on institutional reforms and how to leverage innovation to help drive organisational change within international development organisations. The second course will focus on innovation in low and middle-income countries, including the role of innovation in fostering inclusive growth, in efforts to advance locally led development principles and in fostering inclusive innovation ecosystems, among other themes. 

This course focuses on innovation in low and middle-income countries and how international development organisations and governments can drive better development processes and outcomes. Sessions will cover the role of innovation in fostering inclusive digital transformation, economic growth as well as practical applications of innovation in development policies and programmes.

This course provides a foundational understanding of the role of evaluation within international organizations and how it is planned, conducted, and used. International organizations play a key role in supporting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) implementation that advance the cross-cutting issues of human rights, gender equality and environmental sustainability.

This course examines the principles and practices of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in international development and humanitarian assistance. Students will learn to design theories of change, develop indicators, plan and conduct evaluations, and communicate results effectively. Emphasis is placed on adaptive management, complexity-aware approaches, and emerging trends such as equitable and decolonized evaluation and the integration of generative AI tools.

This course explores the foundational and advanced dimensions of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), alongside relevant aspects of International Human Rights Law (IHRL) as they apply to situations of armed conflict. Designed for students interested in the legal regulation of contemporary warfare, the course focuses on providing the conceptual and practical tools to identify, interpret, and apply international legal norms in real-world conflict situations.

In many parts of the world, humanitarian actors cannot successfully alleviate and prevent the suffering of people living in areas affected by armed conflict without engaging with armed groups.  The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) estimates that there are over 450 armed groups of humanitarian concern worldwide, over 130 of which are parties to a non-international armed conflict. Africa accounts for over 40% of these groups, with about 20% in each of the Near and Middle East (NAME), the Americas, and in the Asia and Pacific.

In the 21st century, armed conflict continues to put millions of children in harm’s way, exposing them to human rights violations, including recruitment and use by armed forces and armed groups, military detention and ill-treatment, rape and other forms of sexual violence, forced displacement, family separation, and physical injuries. Children also suffer from trauma and other serious and long-lasting psychological consequences resulting from the violence they have experienced.

Whilst the global number of people living in poverty has significantly decreased over the last decades, there is an increasing number of severe and protracted humanitarian emergencies, caused by conflict, governance failures, climate change, and man-made disasters. These challenges are compounded by recent changes in geopolitical strategies and policies, which already have profound immediate and will have long-term impact on reducing extreme poverty, resolving conflicts, and making the Sustainable Development Goals increasingly elusive..  

Education is often the first casualty of crisis—and the cornerstone of recovery.

This course will provide students with a comprehensive introduction to the international humanitarian response system. Upon completing this course, students will have an understanding of:

A surge in violent conflict since 2010 has led to historically high levels of forced displacement. More recently, the war in Ukraine has caused the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since the end of World War II. Globally, there are more than 100 million forcibly displaced people  including refugees, internally displaced persons and asylum seekers who have fled their homes to escape violence, conflict and persecution. 

According to the 2025 Global Humanitarian Overview, humanitarian partners are seeking over $47 billion to assist nearly 190 million people facing life-threatening and urgent needs across 72 countries. These alarming figures are driven by various factors, including conflicts, political instability, climate change, disease outbreaks, poverty, and natural disasters. Additionally, a rise in nationalism is impacting multilateral cooperation, which is essential for the effective functioning of the humanitarian system.

This short course is designed to enable participating students to weigh and apply humanitarian principles, concepts, best practices, and minimum standards to a simulated humanitarian emergency response. The simulation exercise challenges student participants with issues and dilemmas confronting humanitarian practitioners when responding to a complex emergency, and inspires them to work within the humanitarian system and architecture to solve problems in creative ways.

Drawing on the co-instructors' experience at MERL Tech Initiative and Dalberg Design, this course challenges the notion that technology alone can solve complex development problems and that a human-centered ecosystem approach is critical. While innovations like mobile money and AI are often hailed as silver bullets, history shows that their impact depends on context, users, and systems.

Gender equality, and women’s and girls’ empowerment, are now widely accepted as development goals in their own right, and essential to inclusive and sustainable development.    But despite progress in many areas, gender gaps and discrimination persist.  How did gender equality move from the periphery to the center of development discourse, and what difference has this made?

This advanced seminar critically examines the evolving challenges, limitations, and potential of human rights and humanitarianism as frameworks for justice and global governance. Centering human rights discourse, the course invites students to examine foundational concepts such as universality, accountability, sovereignty, and identity, while addressing complex topics and challenging cases.

This interdisciplinary course examines the complex intersections of climate science, human rights, and sustainable development. Students will first explore the fundamentals of Earth’s climate systems and core human rights frameworks. The course then analyzes how global climate disruption intersects with social vulnerability, equity, and justice. Topics include the science of climate variability, international climate governance, climate change litigation, migration and displacement, adaptation strategies, and sector-specific impacts on food, health, and livelihoods.

Over 25 years ago, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security, and since then, it has adopted an additional 9 related resolutions. This agenda marks the first time in the UN’s 80-year history that women’s experiences, particularly their contributions to promoting peace and security in contexts of violent conflict, closed political spaces, and rising extremism, are acknowledged. It is also the first time that the need for women’s protection has been strongly noted.

This course equips students for humanitarian, human rights, foreign policy and political risk jobs that require real-time interpretation and analysis of conflict data. The course will introduce students to contemporary open-source data about conflict events, fatalities, forced displacement, human rights violations, settlement patterns in war zones, and much more. Students will learn about how this data is generated, what data reveals, what data obscures, and the choices analysts can make to use conflict data transparently in the face of biases.

This course explores how artificial intelligence is shaping the future of conflict prevention. With case studies and insights drawn from real-world applications, students will examine how AI tools are being developed and used to anticipate political, economic, and military trends. Through critical literature reviews and debate-based discussions, the course engages students in the practical, policy, and ethical questions surrounding the integration of AI into peacekeeping and peacebuilding operations.

This course examines three decades of international peacemaking efforts to assess what has been learned, and what has been unlearned, through major conflicts. Drawing on the instructor’s experience leading UN peacekeeping operations and conflict resolution initiatives, the course explores case studies from various regions, including Rwanda, Bosnia, Libya, Syria, Colombia, Ukraine, and Israel-Palestine. Students will analyze how geopolitical shifts, institutional capacities, and strategic choices have influenced outcomes.

Gender has important implications for international security policy. Gender bias can influence policy choices, distort understandings of military capability—especially among nonstate armed groups with women combatants—and aggravate the causes of war. It can increase internal and interstate violence in settings where women are mistreated or where sex imbalances create instability. Gender also shapes how individuals experience wars and disasters, as existing inequalities are often intensified.

This is a two-day intensive course. Over the past decade, the number of civil wars globally has increased dramatically, driven by a proliferation of non-state armed groups, illicit transnational networks and regional actors. The rise of civil wars has meant conflicts are not only harder to resolve via traditional forms of diplomacy, but also more likely to relapse; in fact, 60 per cent of the civil wars that reached peace agreements in the early 2000s have since fallen back into conflict.

Effective communication is critical to the success of international organizations (IOs). Whether securing funding from member states, raising awareness of global challenges, or countering misinformation, IOs rely on strategic communications to fulfill their mandates. As noted by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, “strategic communications is central to the success of all our work.”

This course examines the United Nations Development System (UNDS) as the world’s most prominent multilateral development actor. Students will explore the governance and funding structures of over 35 UN agencies, programs, and funds, and analyze how they collaborate to achieve country-level results. Topics include joint responses to global crises, UNDS reforms, SDG financing, and partnerships with governments, donors, civil society, and the private sector.

This course introduces students to the theory and practice of risk management in crisis and conflict settings, with a focus on the United Nations’ efforts to deliver on mandates in complex environments. Drawing on UN doctrine and international standards such as ISO 31000, the course emphasizes practical skills and real-world applications across the UN’s peace and security, development, human rights, and humanitarian pillars.

This course introduces the study and practice of international conflict resolution, providing students with a broad understanding of the subject and a framework for approaching more specific strands of study offered by CICR. Can a war be stopped before it starts? Is it realistic to talk about ‘managing’ a war and mitigating its consequences? What eventually brings adversaries to the negotiating table? How do mediation efforts unfold and how are the key issues resolved? Why do peace processes and peace agreements so often fail to bring durable peace?

This course explores how contemporary conflict is changing and how conflict prevention and resolution strategies must evolve in response. Through case studies and practitioner insights, students examine shifting conflict dynamics, the role of international institutions, and a range of peacebuilding tools—from mediation and state-building to justice and sanctions. Emphasis is placed on ethical dilemmas and operational challenges in real-world contexts. No prerequisites are required, though prior exposure to conflict studies is beneficial.

Instructor permission and application required. Join the waitlist in Vergil to request registration.

This course prepares students to engage in peacebuilding practice by developing fieldwork-related competencies rooted in critical reflection, professional strategy, and ethical engagement. Students examine foundational values, frameworks, and dilemmas in the peacebuilding field, while cultivating skills in project design, monitoring and evaluation (MEAL), communication, collaboration, and cultural awareness.

This highly participatory course equips students with the tools and frameworks to negotiate effectively, resolve conflict, and build consensus in public and international affairs contexts. Through simulations, students learn to navigate a range of scenarios, including environmental disputes, diplomatic negotiations, and organizational conflicts, using both distributive and interest-based strategies. Core topics include preparation and strategy, cross-cultural communication, power dynamics, consensus building, and coalition management.

Historically, the vast majority of human society has been governed by non-democratic regimes.  Even today, more than half the world’s people live in autocracies.  Many SIPA students come from countries whose governments are not democratic, and will work in institutions and sectors where regimes are not democratic.  Yet almost all of the literature of political science on policy-making is devoted to democracy—its genesis, stability, challenges, consolidation, processes, merits, and flaws.

This course is the first in a two-course sequence on innovation for development in practice. It will focus on institutional reforms and how to leverage innovation to help drive organisational change within international development organisations. The second course will focus on innovation in low and middle-income countries, including the role of innovation in fostering inclusive growth, in efforts to advance locally led development principles and in fostering inclusive innovation ecosystems, among other themes. 

This course focuses on innovation in low and middle-income countries and how international development organisations and governments can drive better development processes and outcomes. Sessions will cover the role of innovation in fostering inclusive digital transformation, economic growth as well as practical applications of innovation in development policies and programmes.

International migration’s substantial economic and social effects are at the forefront of today’s academic discussion, international debate, as well as national policy strategies. This course introduces students to the key notions, norms, and narratives of international migration from economic, sociological, legal, policy, international relations, and normative perspectives.

This course provides a foundational understanding of the role of evaluation within international organizations and how it is planned, conducted, and used. International organizations play a key role in supporting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) implementation that advance the cross-cutting issues of human rights, gender equality and environmental sustainability.

This course will be useful for students who are committed to evidence-based operations, programming, strategy, and overall effectiveness. Impact evaluations, combined with strong data systems, are integral tools for this evidence-driven work. At the end of the course, students will understand why and when to conduct impact evaluations, how to manage one, and how to recognize and differentiate a good impact evaluation from a non-rigorous one.

Spring 2026 Course Dates: March 27-28 & April 3-4

This course examines the principles and practices of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in international development and humanitarian assistance. Students will learn to design theories of change, develop indicators, plan and conduct evaluations, and communicate results effectively. Emphasis is placed on adaptive management, complexity-aware approaches, and emerging trends such as equitable and decolonized evaluation and the integration of generative AI tools.

This seven-week course examines the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and monitoring, evaluation, research and learning (MERL) in international development and humanitarian contexts. Students will explore two critical dimensions: using MERL approaches to assess AI systems (MERL of AI) and leveraging AI tools to conduct MERL activities (AI for MERL).

The course provides students with a theoretical and empirical overview of the policies designed to address poverty and inequality in the developing world, as well as the political context in which these policies are chosen and implemented, with a particular (though not exclusive) focus on the Brazilian experience. The first meetings focus on normative perspectives and the general political implications of poverty and inequality. We then briefly examine differences in social policies between developed and developing countries and proceed to discuss various practical approaches to the issue.

This course explores the foundational and advanced dimensions of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), alongside relevant aspects of International Human Rights Law (IHRL) as they apply to situations of armed conflict. Designed for students interested in the legal regulation of contemporary warfare, the course focuses on providing the conceptual and practical tools to identify, interpret, and apply international legal norms in real-world conflict situations.

In many parts of the world, humanitarian actors cannot successfully alleviate and prevent the suffering of people living in areas affected by armed conflict without engaging with armed groups.  The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) estimates that there are over 450 armed groups of humanitarian concern worldwide, over 130 of which are parties to a non-international armed conflict. Africa accounts for over 40% of these groups, with about 20% in each of the Near and Middle East (NAME), the Americas, and in the Asia and Pacific.

In the 21st century, armed conflict continues to put millions of children in harm’s way, exposing them to human rights violations, including recruitment and use by armed forces and armed groups, military detention and ill-treatment, rape and other forms of sexual violence, forced displacement, family separation, and physical injuries. Children also suffer from trauma and other serious and long-lasting psychological consequences resulting from the violence they have experienced.

Whilst the global number of people living in poverty has significantly decreased over the last decades, there is an increasing number of severe and protracted humanitarian emergencies, caused by conflict, governance failures, climate change, and man-made disasters. These challenges are compounded by recent changes in geopolitical strategies and policies, which already have profound immediate and will have long-term impact on reducing extreme poverty, resolving conflicts, and making the Sustainable Development Goals increasingly elusive..  

This course will provide students with a comprehensive introduction to the international humanitarian response system. Upon completing this course, students will have an understanding of:

A surge in violent conflict since 2010 has led to historically high levels of forced displacement. More recently, the war in Ukraine has caused the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since the end of World War II. Globally, there are more than 100 million forcibly displaced people  including refugees, internally displaced persons and asylum seekers who have fled their homes to escape violence, conflict and persecution. 

According to the 2025 Global Humanitarian Overview, humanitarian partners are seeking over $47 billion to assist nearly 190 million people facing life-threatening and urgent needs across 72 countries. These alarming figures are driven by various factors, including conflicts, political instability, climate change, disease outbreaks, poverty, and natural disasters. Additionally, a rise in nationalism is impacting multilateral cooperation, which is essential for the effective functioning of the humanitarian system.

Corruption undermines governance, saps resources and undermines development.  It is also exceptionally difficult to identify, address, and resolve due to the intrinsic opacity of its operative mechanisms, endemic nature inside systems, and persistence.

This course will teach:

Drawing on the co-instructors' experience at MERL Tech Initiative and Dalberg Design, this course challenges the notion that technology alone can solve complex development problems and that a human-centered ecosystem approach is critical. While innovations like mobile money and AI are often hailed as silver bullets, history shows that their impact depends on context, users, and systems.

Gender equality, and women’s and girls’ empowerment, are now widely accepted as development goals in their own right, and essential to inclusive and sustainable development.    But despite progress in many areas, gender gaps and discrimination persist.  How did gender equality move from the periphery to the center of development discourse, and what difference has this made?

The seminar explores how political and legal philosophers, as well as leaders of political movements and established states, envision international order.  It asks and critically assesses how they imagine international politics is governed and how it should be governed. 

Instructor permission required. Join the waitlist in Vergil to request registration.

Geopolitics is complicating the already difficult task of moving from a carbon-intensive energy system to one of net-zero emissions. Today’s geopolitical tensions risk slowing the pace of the urgently needed clean energy transition, while some dynamics within the transition itself are exacerbating existing geopolitical challenges. Competition between great powers—a defining feature of the emerging global order—now threatens progress through trade disputes and national security concerns. The uneven global transition is also deepening divides between developed and developing countries.

As impact investing further embeds into the mainstream, Impact Measurement and Management (IMM) is its key differentiator, helping impact investors understand a company’s intention to create positive outcomes and impacts and the evidence it uses to demonstrate whether (“if”) the impact, value, or benefit is indeed being created, and importantly, in what ways (“how”) it is improving the lives of concerned stakeholders and the environment.

The social, environmental, and governance challenges of the 21st century represent both companies’ greatest risks and opportunities.

ESG and Corporate Political Strategy examines how organizations align environmental, social, and governance (ESG) priorities with corporate political strategies to shape policy, manage risk, and advance system-level change. As public expectations of corporate responsibility grow, firms must navigate both market and non-market arenas to sustain value, engage with stakeholders, and influence the rules by which they operate.

Pre-req: SIPA IA6501 - Quant II or equivalent quantitative methods course. Instructor permission required. Join the waitlist in Vergil to request registration. 

This course bridges the gap between data science and public policy by bringing together students from diverse academic backgrounds to address contemporary policy challenges using large-scale data. With the rapid growth of digital information and the increasing influence of machine learning and AI on public life, the ability to work across disciplines is becoming essential.

Unlike typical “Ethical AI” or “Technology for Development” courses that debate whether technologies are good or bad or focus on isolated deployments, this course is designed for non-technical students who want to truly understand both the technologies themselves and the environments they operate in for current and future applications.

This course introduces the legal frameworks, institutions, and advocacy strategies that underpin the international human rights system. With a practitioner’s lens, students will explore civil, political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights through treaties, customary law, and jurisprudence. Emphasis is placed on understanding where and how the law offers avenues for redress, and the evolving role of human rights advocacy in confronting modern challenges, including corporate accountability, gender discrimination, and climate justice.

This course equips students with practical skills for designing and implementing human rights advocacy strategies. Through a mix of case studies, simulations, and applied writing assignments, students will learn how to identify advocacy goals, analyze targets and power structures, and select effective tactics. The course explores advocacy with governments, legislatures, and UN bodies, as well as the use of media, digital tools, and coalition-building to advance human rights.

This course introduces students to the diverse methodologies, actors, and outputs involved in human rights research and reporting. Students will examine how governments, international organizations, NGOs, and journalists approach documentation and advocacy, while developing skills in interviewing, document analysis, data collection, and report writing. The course emphasizes ethical considerations, sociocultural awareness, and gender sensitivity throughout the research and reporting process.

This course explores the evolving relationship between the private sector and human rights, with emphasis on legal frameworks, global standards, and practical approaches to corporate accountability. Students examine the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and other key instruments that shape responsible business conduct across sectors.

This course examines the intersection of human rights and economic inequality, exploring how political and economic governance influence access to rights and justice. Students will assess how human rights principles are integrated into economic policy frameworks, including trade, labor, development, and environmental regulation, and how these frameworks shape both public accountability and corporate responsibility.

This course examines the political and ethical challenges of confronting historical violence and the demands for redress in transitional, democratic, and post-conflict societies. Through case studies from across the globe, students explore how memory, historical responsibility, and justice intersect in efforts toward reconciliation.

Over 25 years ago, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security, and since then, it has adopted an additional 9 related resolutions. This agenda marks the first time in the UN’s 80-year history that women’s experiences, particularly their contributions to promoting peace and security in contexts of violent conflict, closed political spaces, and rising extremism, are acknowledged. It is also the first time that the need for women’s protection has been strongly noted.

Instructor permission required. This graduate seminar explores the politics of international economic relations, with a focus on contemporary issues in trade, finance, monetary policy, foreign investment, climate change, and globalization. Rather than surveying the entire field of international political economy (IPE), the course investigates selected topics in depth, emphasizing how interests, institutions, and interactions shape economic policy across borders.

This course introduces students to the theory and practice of political risk analysis, focusing on how geopolitical dynamics shape markets, investment strategies, and global governance. Students will examine frameworks such as the G-Zero world, J-Curve, and state capitalism, and explore how they apply to real-world risks across countries and sectors. Taught by leading experts in the field, the course emphasizes interdisciplinary tools and methodologies for identifying, assessing, and managing political risk—including scenario planning, risk indices, and game-theory modeling.

This course equips students for humanitarian, human rights, foreign policy and political risk jobs that require real-time interpretation and analysis of conflict data. The course will introduce students to contemporary open-source data about conflict events, fatalities, forced displacement, human rights violations, settlement patterns in war zones, and much more. Students will learn about how this data is generated, what data reveals, what data obscures, and the choices analysts can make to use conflict data transparently in the face of biases.

This course explores how artificial intelligence is shaping the future of conflict prevention. With case studies and insights drawn from real-world applications, students will examine how AI tools are being developed and used to anticipate political, economic, and military trends. Through critical literature reviews and debate-based discussions, the course engages students in the practical, policy, and ethical questions surrounding the integration of AI into peacekeeping and peacebuilding operations.

Intelligence activities are traditionally thought to comprise the activities of a nation state’s intelligence organizations attempting to steal secrets, usually those pertaining to national security, from the organizations of another nation state.  However, intelligence activities have seldom, if ever, been confined to the government sphere.  Most nation states have employed their national intelligence systems to steal privately held economic information from other countries to benefit their economies: many continue to do so.

The collection and use of intelligence have been functions of the state for thousands of years, and an essential element of the national security and foreign policy systems of the modern nation state.  However, it has long been apparent that different states conduct intelligence activities differently.  What accounts for these differences?  Until recently, the secrecy surrounding the activities, structure and impact of the specialized organizations involved in the intelligence process have made them difficult to study on a comparative basis.  Recent advances in the uncla

Threat Financing and Anti-Money Laundering is a class that provides an overview of the world of money laundering, terrorist financing, and sanctions.

This course examines three decades of international peacemaking efforts to assess what has been learned, and what has been unlearned, through major conflicts. Drawing on the instructor’s experience leading UN peacekeeping operations and conflict resolution initiatives, the course explores case studies from various regions, including Rwanda, Bosnia, Libya, Syria, Colombia, Ukraine, and Israel-Palestine. Students will analyze how geopolitical shifts, institutional capacities, and strategic choices have influenced outcomes.

Pre-requisites: A calculus-based micro-economics course (SIPA IA6400) or equivalent. This is an advanced course in development economics, designed for SIPA students interested in rigorous, applied training. Coursework includes extensive empirical exercises, requiring programming in Stata. The treatment of theoretical models presumes knowledge of calculus.