Development and Humanitarian
Assistance
To meet the challenges of a world
with a growing population, affected by human-made and natural disasters, the
Development and Humanitarian Assistance career track prepares students to
support international development and humanitarian operations. Students
completing this career track gain the skills and knowledge needed to develop
and implement new approaches to address these challenges.
The international community has made
great strides in reducing poverty and improving livelihoods around the world.
Despite this progress, exemplified by the success of the UN Millennium
Development Goals, much more can alleviate human suffering and create the
conditions for economic opportunity.
This track draws on the Maxwell
School’s experience in program management and evaluation, pairing this with
technical skills in program and project design, as well as the cultural and
regional understanding needed to ensure that relief programs are appropriate to
the needed target environment.
Course offerings focus on health,
education, environmental sustainability, state-building and democratization,
social change, economic growth, humanitarian assistance, and the political and
cultural context of these operations.
Faculty
Public Administration and International Affairs Faculty
John McPeak, Advisor
Constance Freeman*
Masoon Hyder
Steve Lux
Rebecca Peters
Sabina Schnell
(*teaches in Maxwell-in-DC program)
Maxwell Faculty
Merima Ali (ECN)
Hans Buechler (ANT)
A. Peter Castro (ANT)
Azra Hromadzic (ANT)
Audie Klotz (PSC)
Amy Lutz (SOC)
Devashish Mitra (ECN)
Deborah Pellow (ANT)
Tom Perreault (GEO)
Robert Rubinstein (ANT)
Core Course Recommendations
Development and humanitarian assistance work requires an
understanding of changing conditions on the ground, the ability to work at the
non-governmental, intergovernmental, and international level, understand how to
use economic and statistical analysis to assess the policy impact of
interventions, and conduct research conduct to support programming or policy
analysis.
As such, students are encouraged to consider the following
classes for their core requirements:
- Economics:
PAI 720 Principles of Economic or PAI 723 Economics for Public Decisions.
- Management
of Programs and Staff: PAI 762:
Challenges of International Management and Leadership or PAI 763: NGO Management in Developing and
Transitional Countries.
- Research
Design and Evaluation: PAI 705:
Research Design for IR Practitioners, PAI 722: Quantitative Analysis, or ANT 681 Ethnographic Techniques
- Signature
Course: PAI 707: Culture in World
Affairs or PAI 716: Economic
Dimensions of Global Power.
Development and Humanitarian Assistance Course Offerings
ANT 624 Negotiation: Theory and Practice
ANT 679 Anthropology of Global
Transformation
ANT 663 Global Health
ANT 683 Social Movement Theory
LAW 831 Refugee and Asylum Law
PAI 601 Fundamentals of Conflict Studies
PAI 700 Food Security
PAI 713 Governance and Global Civil Society
PAI 715 Global Sustainability and Public
Policy*
PAI 719 Fundamentals of Post-Conflict
Reconstruction
PAI 757 Economics of Development
PAI 764 UN Organizations: Managing for
Change
PAI 765 Humanitarian Action: Challenges,
Responses and Results
PSC 681 Comparative State-Society Relations
PSC 682 Social Theory in the Middle East
PSC 700 Civil Wars
PSC 758 Global Migration
(*taught in Maxwell-in-DC program)
Career Outcomes
Due to the ongoing need for highly
trained development and relief professionals, students pursuing this career
track prepare themselves for positions similar to the following:
Non-Government
Organizations
Deputy Chief of Party-Mongolia,
Chemonics International
Zimbabwe Country Director,
Mercy Corps
Government Service
Private Sector Cooperation Manager, German Agency for International
Cooperation
Foreign Service Officer, U.S. Agency for International Development
International Civil Service
Head of Delegation, International Committee of
the Red Cross