Strategy, Design Implementat

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This course is designed to acquaint GHD students with best practices in development planning and management that support rigorous and responsive program and project design, and to set the stage for effective implementation. The first segment of the course introduces strategies used by a range of different donor agencies and nontraditional actors to analyze critical development problems and formulate solutions to these problems. In the second segment, building on this material, student teams will learn, practice and apply standard analytical techniques used in the process of program and project design. Each team will tackle a complex development scenario in a specific country, and prepare a detailed design presentation that includes problem tree and root cause analysis, stakeholder analysis, economic analysis, and technical and institutional analysis. The teams’ design presentations will be reviewed and critiqued by a panel of experienced practitioners from agencies and implementing organizations in the Washington area. The third segment focuses on the process of organizing the implementation of program activities, including staffing, budgeting, work plans, and performance monitoring systems. Key topics in the course will be covered through selected readings, guest lectures and workshops, case studies, and interactive small group exercises in the classroom.