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The Master's In Development Practice Backgrounder

  

• The creation of the Master's in Development Practice degree was a key recommendation of the International Commission on Education for Sustainable Development Practice, whose report was released in October 2008. The MacArthur-supported Commission was co-chaired by John MacArthur, Chief Executive Officer of Millennium Promise, and Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and included 20 top thinkers in the field of sustainable development from around the world.

• The MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. In addition to the MacArthur Fellows, the Foundation works to defend human rights, advance global conservation and security, make cities better places, and understand how technology is changing children and society.

• Columbia University's Earth Institute (New York, USA), - BRAC Development Institute, BRAC University

(Dhaka, Bangladesh), - CATIE (Turrialba, Costa Rica), Emory University (Atlanta, USA), James Cook University (Cairns and Townsville, Australia), The Institute of Political Sciences (Sciences Po) (Paris, France) -TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) University (New Delhi, India), - Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin (Dublin, Ireland), -Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (Turrialba, Costa Rica), - Tsinghua University (Beijing, China), - Universidad de los Andes (Bogot�, Colombia), - Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), - University of Botswana (Gaborone, Botswana), University Cheikh Anta Diop, UCAD (Dakar, Senegal) - University of California, Berkeley, (Berkekey, USA), University of California, Davis (Davis, USA), - University of Denver (Denver, Colorado), University of Florida (Gainesville, Florida), - University of Ibadan (Ibadan, Nigeria), - University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, Minnesota), - University of Peradeniya (Peradeniya, Sri Lanka), University of Waterloo (Waterloo, Canada).

• View the interactive MDP map at http://grantmap.macfound.org/hosting/mdp/

• The MDP is a two-year program of study and applied research designed to train aspiring development practitioners to understand and manage integrated approaches to global sustainable development challenges across the health sciences, natural sciences, social sciences and management.

• A Global Master's in Development Practice Secretariat, supported by MacArthur and based at Columbia University's Earth Institute, nurtures and expands the MDP network of universities, develops an open-source repository for the MDP curriculum and other teaching materials, and offers an online, Global Classroom on sustainable development for students worldwide.

• The MDP curriculum has been designed to implement the recommendations of the International Commission on Education for Sustainable Practice. The curriculum includes courses in four core competency areas (natural sciences, social sciences, health sciences and management).

• UWinnipeg will offer the only Master's in Development Practice specializing in Indigenous Development in the world acting as an academic hub in this field of study.

• Students will develop practical skills through comprehensive periods of field training to provide hands-on, problem-solving experiences in a developing community (domestic and international).

• Graduates will be part of a new generation of development practitioners with a high level of professional skills needed to meet and respond to the complex challenges associated with global development and to comprehend the relationship between global development and Indigenous identity.

• MDP graduates will be prepared to design and implement integrated solutions that will promote sustainable Indigenous development locally and globally.

• The UWinnipeg program will be created in partnership with Indigenous leaders, modeled on the Millennium Villages Project. Working with clusters of Indigenous communities, teams will develop and implement integrated, community-based development strategies.

• This MDP would fulfill the demand for development practitioners with particular insight and skills to deal with the special challenges of Indigenous Development and creating UWinnipeg as an international hub in this field of study.

• The MDP program at UWinnipeg and its partner universities is based on the concept of `development with identity' articulated in the Inter-American Development Bank's Operational Policy on Indigenous Peoples and Strategy for Indigenous Development. The commitment to Indigenous development and well-being with cultural identity on a global basis is a simple concept - Indigenous peoples should not have to choose between sharing in the benefits of development and retaining their identity.