Laurence Simon

Practicing Development bridges the gap between academia and the world of practice to address challenges and propose concrete steps toward more equitable, effective, and sustainable development. The authors draw from their on-the-ground experiences as they discuss what "development" is, how to attain it, and what their findings mean for the funding and practice of development efforts. Often challenging conventional wisdom, they provide a range of concrete examples of innovation, responsiveness, and sustainability―and perhaps most important, explore how practitioners might be better educated to achieve positive change.

The partnership between the Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program (IFP) and Brandeis University’s Graduate Programs in Sustainable International Development (GPSID)1 was founded on the shared belief that the end of poverty and preventable disease required a leadership for social justice at all levels of society. IFP promotes a goal of building a global community of social justice leaders through advanced study opportunities. The Heller School for Social Policy and Management, GPSID’s home institution, has a motto “Knowledge Advancing Social Justice.” Through our admissions policies, financial aid, research, teaching, and advocacy, GPSID has since 1994 led the way for graduate training through a holistic and innovative professional curriculum. That curriculum integrates development with the study of political and economic institutions, the allocation of scarce resources, the connection of policy and practice with ecology, demography, and human rights and capabilities, and it draws upon intellectual and cultural histories of justice and social change. IFP and GPSID shared a common goal of access to education aimed clearly at overcoming the marginalization of the world’s poor. This chapter identifies the underlying values of this partnership, discusses some of the challenges of incorporating IFP Fellows, and concludes with the lessons GPSID draws from the teaching of IFP Fellows.