Financial Institutions for Private Enterprise Development (FIPED)

Open Course Brochure

Description:
Despite the explosion of global capital flows into emerging markets in the past fifteen years, the vast majority of the poor in developing nations do not have access to formal banking and financial institutions. The provision of financial services for family businesses and low-income households in a commercially sustainable manner has emerged as a prime example of social entrepreneurship.

FIPED explores how financial intermediaries for the "unbanked majority" can both earn profits and have positive impacts on the income, employment, and quality of life of their customers. This is commonly referred to as the "double bottom line," whereby bankers for the poor can create both private AND social value. FIPED demonstrates that "doing well by doing good" is more than just an aspiration, and that financial viability and poverty alleviation objectives can be complementary rather than contradictory. FIPED is also unique in that it covers both microfinance and small and medium enterprise (SME) finance. Microfinance and SME finance are usually dealt with separately, but this course explores the lessons they offer each other: the similarities between these markets, especially in risk identification and mitigation; the key strategic and operational differences, particularly in product development and delivery systems; and the difficulties in graduating from microfinance to SME finance

Participant Level: Officials and employees of financial institutations, government agencies, NGO's, and international organizations in MSME financing.

Duration: 2 weeks

Dates: August 16 - 28, 2010

Leaders in Development: Managing Political and Economic Change (LID)

Open Course Brochure

Description:
Today's leaders face an increasinlgy complex tapestry of economic, political, and social challenges. Increasingly, leaders encounter arenas in which authority to respond to problems is more diffuse, the issues they are called upon to deal with are more complex, and the imperative to incorporate knowledge and participation is greater. Leaders in Development is designed for leaders in public affairs whose responsibilities place them at the center of these issues. During the program, participants will:

• Sharpen problem solving, analytic, and strategic action skills to help them plan, introduce, and sustain major policy and institutional reform.
• Consider new ways to strengthen representative politics and open markets, and manage the challenges of globalization.
• Share experiences with their counterparts in other countries in a collective search for effective responses to change.

Participants return to their countries with enhanced understanding of the tasks of leadership in promoting reform, greater knowledge of changes taking place internationally, and a renewed commitment to working with others to develop their societies.

Participant Level: Political leaders, senior-level policy makers and managers, executives of political and public interest organizations, or leaders of NGO's.

Duration: 2 weeks

Dates: June - June 18, 2010

Innovation for Economic Development (IFED)

Open Course Brochure

Description:
Developing countries are increasingly recognizing the role of technological innovation in fostering economic growth, enhancing global competitiveness, and protecting the environment. The Innovation for Economic Development program at Harvard Kennedy School provides high-level leaders from government, academia, industry, and civil society with a unique opportunity to explore how to harness the power of emerging technologies to promote prosperity. The program focuses on how to design and implement innovation policies for economic development. The program seeks to outline strategies and measures needed to align technological trends with development policy objectives.

Participant Level: high-level leaders from government, academia, industry, and civil society.

Duration: 1 week

Dates: April 4 - 9, 2010

Infrastructure in a Market Economy: Public Private Partnerships (IME)

Open Course Brochure

Description:
Infrastructure in a Market Economy helps senior decision-makers address critical questions about public-private partnerships in infrastructure. The program brings together senior-level officials from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to examine lessons learned and best practices from public-private infrastructure development projects around the world. The program addresses such questions as:

• Why have some types of partnerships succeeded where others have failed?
• What partnership models are best suited to what political and economic circumstances?
• How can governments develop and implement reforms to make them politically and economically sustainable over time?
• What are the opportunities and limitations involved in using private capital markets to finance infrastructure?
• When is regulation of tariffs necessary and when can governments achieve effective outcomes using market forces?
• If governments regulate, what mix of contractual and discretionary regulatory mechanisms should be used?

The course focuses on physical infrastructure, transportation, and utility services. Education, health care, and similar services are not directly considered.

Participant Level: Course is designed for senior officials involved in developing, managing, and financing public-private partnerships in infrastructure, including: senior elected and appointed government officials involved in making decisions regarding infrastructure investment and regulation; officials from multilateral banks; executives from private-sector firms that build, operate, or finance infrastructure projects; and aid agency officials.

Duration: 2 weeks

Dates: July 11 - 23, 2010

Comparative Tax Policy and Administration (COMTAX)

Open Course Brochure

Description:
Comparative Tax Policy and Administration (ComTax) brings together high-level practitioners from government, academia, and the private sector to examine the latest developments in the design and implementation of tax systems around the world. This ten-day program provides participants with practical tools – along with detailed examples of their application – to help formulate the most appropriate tax policies and tax administration for their particular environments.

Participant Level: Course is dessingd for tax policy professionals seeking to deepen their knowledge of the latest approaches in tax policy design and implementation.

Duration: 1.5 weeks

Dates: June 20 - July 1, 2010

Public Financial Management (PFM)

Open Course Brochure

Description:
The objective of the Public Financial Manangement program is to strengthen the knowledge and skills of senior officials, members of legislatures concerned with budget oversight, and others concerned with public finance management, so that they are better able to analyze how their budgetary systems perform and to assess the options available to improve them.

Participant Level: Public Sector Officials only

Duration: 3 weeks

Dates: July 5 - 23, 2010

Innovations in Governance (IG)

Open Course Brochure

Description:
The Innovations in Governance program explores new methods of working across traditional jurisdictions and sectors to identify, understand, and address emerging social problems. Topics include:

• Strategic Management in the Public Sector: Creating “public value propositions” that command legitimacy and support from a variety of stakeholders.
• Adaptive Leadership: Anticipating, embracing, and shaping change, and mobilizing the full resources of a community to deal with the problems it faces.
• Public Sector Innovation: Developing new operational methods and governance arrangements that can increase the capacity of a society to deal with both emergent and intransigent problems.
• Principled Negotiation: Going beyond positional bargaining to build b, resilient relationships with key partners.
• Political Innovation: Finding new ways to identify and engage stakeholders in order to better define problems and identify and build support for effective solutions.

Participant Level: Designed for leaders in the public, non-profit and private sectors who see their roles as reaching across these traditionally separate spheres to build new structures that can produce significant, valuable change. The most critical qualification for the course is a record of entrepreneurial activity and accomplishment in creating public value.

Duration: 1 week

Dates: October 25 - October 30, 2009

Leadership for the 21st Century (L21)

Open Course Brochure

Description:
Leadership for the 21st Century: Chaos, Conflict and Courage is an executive education program offered at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government that delves into why we lead the way we do. The program offers a personal, stimulating, and challenging week that invites you to learn how to act courageously and skillfully when exercising leadership.

Participant Level: The program is intended for senior executives in government, business, and non-profit organizations who wish to improve their capacity to lead.

Duration: 1 week

Dates: January 24 - January 29, 2010 or April 11 - April 16, 2010

Mastering Negotiation (MN)

Open Course Brochure

Description:
Mastering Negotiation: Building Sustainable Agreements goes beyond other negotiation workshops in acknowledging and addressing the challenges of negotiating across cultures, organizations and sectors. Mastery of one’s own sector is no longer sufficient. In a world of intensely multifaceted economic, political and social problems, sustainable solutions necessitate achieving consensus among an unprecedented variety of stakeholders. Therefore, the program examines the effects of both social and organizational culture on negotiation, while at the same time helping participants develop the adaptive skills they need to translate their effectiveness to other settings.

This five-day program will further develop participants’ skills in:

• Shaping the agenda for strategic action in the face of resistance and uncertainty
• Cultivating relationships in order to build coalitions for effective deal crafting
• Exploiting leverage points in rules, prior commitments and obligations to influence perceptions and alternatives.
• Mapping the influential players to anticipate barriers to and opportunities for negotiated agreements.
• Framing persuasive arguments and alternatives in order to create added value
• Shifting the balance of forces within and across organizations to build momentum
• Initiating strategic moves at and away from the table to ‘change the game’
• Assessing negotiation outcomes with a view to improving future performance
  

Participant Level: Senior-level executives in the business, government, and nonprofit sectors. The program is intended for people who have some practice in negotiation in a professional context, or who have taken a negotiations course in the past.

Duration: 1 week

Dates: April 25 - April 30, 2010

Women and Power (W&P)

Open Course Brochure

Description:
Women and Power focuses on helping women in senior positions develop effective leadership strategies, with an emphasis on creating successful alliances and enduring partnerships. At its core, the program is an intense, interactive experience designed to help women advance to positions of influence and use them well.

Specifically, participants will:

• Explore new conceptual frameworks for analyzing political and strategic management issues in the public, non-profit, and corporate sectors.
• Consider the most recent research on women and leadership and its application in the workplace.
• Develop skills and strategies for negotiation, coalition-building and influencing political processes.
• Compare lessons learned with women from diverse professional backgrounds and similar levels of career achievement.

Participant Level: Designed for senior executive women from the public, nonprofit and private sectors. Appropriate positions include corporate presidents, vice presidents, board chairs and C-level officers, non-profit board members and senior officers such as executive directors, senior posts in national and international civil service, and senior elected and appointed public officials.

Duration: 1 week

Dates: May 16 - May 21, 2010

Leadership Decision Making: Optimizing Organizational Performance (LDM)

Description:
Leadership Decision Making: Optimizing Organizational Performance offers important new insights into leadership based on breakthrough scientific discoveries about decision making. The goal of the program is to prepare participants with the skills to become effective ‘decision architects’, who design optimal decision making environments within their organizations and improve overall organizational performance.

Tough decisions are the essence of leadership. Using the latest research, case study discussions, and real-time activities in the new Harvard Decision Science Laboratory, program participants will have the opportunity to examine both the scientific basis for and the practical aspects of judgment and decision making, and learn how to build lasting leadership skills that incorporate this knowledge. World-renowned Harvard faculty members will teach such topics as how to design optimal decision environments in your organization, how to communicate risk effectively, and how to avoid the emotional and cognitive pitfalls that can lead even the most experienced leaders to make mistakes. The program components will provide participants with essential tools for sound executive decision making in a risky world.

The program will also include an opportunity for self-assessment in the laboratory, where participants will learn more about their own biases, their attitudes toward risk, their ability to regulate emotions, and other key personal insights that can sharpen decision-making.

Harvard Decision Science Laboratory - Opened in January of 2009, the Harvard Decision Science Laboratory provides state-of-the-art capabilities for faculty and researchers across Harvard University who study how people make judgments and decisions. This facility, unique among schools of public policy, features thirty-six cubicles, three interview rooms, and a menu of cutting-edge technologies that enable researchers to analyze the link between human physiology and decision-making behaviors. Custom-designed software integrates recordings of physiologic responses, audio, and video. Removable partitions offer researchers the ability to run experiments with up to 36 subjects simultaneously. Executive education groups began using the laboratory in summer 2009, and have responded with great enthusiasm.

Participant Level: The program is intended for senior executives in government, business, and non-profit organizations who wish to improve their capacity to lead.

Duration: 1 week

Dates: November 14 - November 19, 2010