Track 1 : Local institutions and poverty reduction
Track 2 : National Institutions , Poverty Reduction Strategies and Aid
The track in ‘ Local institutions and poverty reduction ’ conceptualises socio-political and economic development as the outcome of interactions between a conditioning institutional environment and the agency of local , national and international actors , including multilateral and bilateral , governmental and non-governmental aid actors .
Special attention is paid to the importance of micro-level institutions and processes , as well as to how they condition the effectiveness of development efforts in improving livelihoods and neutralising processes of social exclusion . The detailed exploration of how local contexts transform processes involving the planning , implementation , monitoring and evaluation of development interventions is of crucial importance to recognising opportunities for resolving the poverty conundrum .
This track is intended for participants who have work experience or who aspire to a career in civil society in the South ( e . g . at research institutes or universities , or with local NGOs or entrepreneurial associations ), donor agencies ( including international NGOs , bilateral and multilateral donors ) and government institutions .
Candidates should be involved in development interventions or poverty reduction initiatives in micro-level or meso- level projects and programmes . Professionally , candidates are middle-managers with policy and / or managerial responsibilities at the interface between different policy levels ( e . g . local to national , national to international ) or between different arenas ( e . g . civil society- government , government-donors , INGOnational NGO ).
The track in ‘ National institutions , poverty reduction strategies and aid ’ focuses on the analysis of the interaction between national institutions , local politics and external actors . The basic question addressed concerns why development interventions are sometimes successful but more often fail . This leads to more operational questions such as : Which lessons have been learned from the study of past failures and successes , and how convincing are current prescriptions and paradigms for development policy ?
The programme teaches students to use appropriate analytical frameworks and to apply relevant scientific methods in evaluating results and drawing policy conclusions . It introduces students to various kinds of evaluation , based on quantitative as well as qualitative techniques .
This track is intended for participants who have work experience or who aspire to a career in government institutions ( including public research institutions ), donor agencies ( including international NGOs , bilateral and multilateral donors ), civil society ( including research institutes , universities ).
Candidates work in the field of development intervention or poverty reduction initiatives , and they are oriented towards macro-level policy . Professionally , they are middle managers with policy responsibilities and / or responsibility for managing the interface between different policy levels ( e . g . national to international , national to local ) or between different arenas ( e . g . government-donors , INGO-national NGO ). iob · 15