Despite the hype around Ethiopia’s recent leadership change and political reforms, foreign investment in Ethiopia is still low relative to its potential. Foreign exchange shortages and capital controls are partly to blame. But what can be done to remedy this? Ethiopia’s economy has boomed but foreign investment is in decline The glow around Abiy Ahmed, […]

BY ALEXANDRA SCHMITT It’s a familiar photo in foreign affairs: a table in an ornate room, placards lined up, and a long row of men facing off on each side. One could be forgiven for thinking this was a throwback to the 1970s, when women were barred from serving as foreign service officers after marriage. […]

Singapore plans to replace streaming in secondary schools with subject-based banding by 2024. Lionel Oh explores how this banding could be implemented in a flexible yet substantive way that best captures the spirit of the policy intent, so that it does not simply become yet another form of educational stratification.

Netanyahu is attempting to head off the Gantz-Lapid challenge before it can gain too much momentum. The announcement of his indictment on corruption charges further destabilizes Israel’s turbulent politics ahead of April elections.

March 6th, 2019 Dear Dean Elmendorf, It has recently come to our attention (we are a group of Mexican students at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) that the former President of Mexico, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, was appointed last semester as a member of the Dean’s Council. In the true spirit of knowledge, diversity, and […]

Abstract This article critically analyzes the popular metaphor of the “Development Ladder” within the theory of modernization. What assumptions underpin this metaphor and what problems are associated with the theory itself? I use the work of Sachs as a modern example of a text that relies extensively on the metaphor. I discuss the key assumptions […]

BY JASON HUNG In 2001, Lord Jeffrey William Rooker, then UK Minister of State for Asylum and Immigration, asked Prime Minister Tony Blair whether there was a legal way an asylum seeker could enter the United Kingdom.[1] The latter bluntly denied such a possibility. After current PM Theresa May took over the office, she argued […]

As part of the Smart Nation initiative, the government has been pushing for Singapore to go fully cashless within the next few years. Soh Kian Peng lays out the benefits and drawbacks of this move and explains why a complete switch away from cash might not be desirable.

BY LUIS CARLOS RAMIREZ MARTINEZ In the last two decades, the United States has fought at least two trade wars. Both times, the key battleground has been steel, and lobbyists have been in the thick of it. However, one would have to go back almost four decades, to 1981 in fact, to find another example […]

In light of the troubled events in South Asia, the Pakistani and Indian students at Harvard have come forward demanding military de-escalation in the region, recognizing that any further deterioration of the situation is likely to destabilize the entire region socially, economically and politically. To this end, the South Asian students at Harvard issued a […]

Pree Release from the Harvard Kennedy School   Cambridge, MA — Juan Manuel Santos, the former president of the Republic of Colombia and Nobel peace laureate, will deliver the graduation address to the Harvard Kennedy School Class of 2019, Dean Douglas Elmendorf announced today.   Santos served as president of the Republic of Colombia from […]

BY ALEXANDRA SCHMITT The summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, scheduled for this week in Vietnam, promises to be a dramatic reunion. Trump, for his part, bragged that he and Kim “fell in love” during their last meeting in Singapore and that he “developed a very special bond” with the […]