Master of International Development Policy (MIDP) students are mid-career professionals who plan to dedicate their careers to policy-making and public service in and for developing countries.
“I’m from the state of Paraná in Brazil. When I was a teenager, I went to a Catholic school, and for a field trip, we visited poor communities – favelas – and I started to wonder: ‘I get to study at this good school and these people are struggling to Read more
I’m a senior captain in the Chilean army. I have been in the army for 18 years until this past August when I got a two-year leave to come to Duke. My wife is a student at Fuqua doing a full-time MBA. We have two children, one age five, and Read more
Since middle school, I had a dream to be a part of John F. Kennedy's dream of having Americans serve abroad and learn about different cultures, so this was a big vocation for me to achieve. I learned about Madagascar when I was an undergrad at James Madison University. I Read more
I was very good at numbers when I was little. It just made sense to me. In China, finance was super popular 20 years ago because you could easily find a decent well-paid job. I worked as a finance manager at a large state-owned enterprise, Beijing Urban Construction Group Co., Read more
I always knew that I look like my grandmother, but she does not look like a typical Armenian. I am Polish by birth but Armenian by heritage. My parents originally moved to Poland because of the collapse of Soviet Union. There was also war and after living in Poland for Read more
My name is Kyipyar. I am from Myanmar (formerly called Burma) which is situated between India and Thailand. I got a scholarship from Open Society Foundations to study in the MIDP program at Duke. For a decade or so, my professional experience has been in the humanitarian or international development Read more
I realized I was gay at 13, thanks to European cinema. Then, at 18, when I went into college, I joined a queer group that became activists, and with them, I went to my first Pride parade in Peru. I was terrified of someone familiar seeing me. I put my Read more
In my last semester of university, I met an entrepreneur who had a company that facilitates access to health care for indigenous women in Argentina. Me and a friend asked if we could pilot his idea in Colombia. That was the start of our company Bive. The initial idea was Read more
This month was like, a really, really terrible month to be honest, for me. It’s not that I have a lot to do, but because in my home country it was a terrible month. In the end of the September, there was a war in Armenia that started. It was Read more
“One thing that I love about this community is that we are so diverse, from so many different countries and as students we are exposed to so many different cultures. It never gets boring- you can have a gathering and someone turns on some music and someone else starts dancing Read more
#SanfordAlumni ”I am working as an Economic Consultant in the Office of the World Bank’s Managing Director, Operations, within the Global Reimbursable Advisory Services Unit. Specifically, I work with a team to do portfolio analysis to increase effectiveness of the World Bank operational program as well as to improve the Bank’s support Read more
Anant: 20 years back, we both studied in the same engineering college. But there was a difference of two to three years. . Rajkumar: He was senior to me in the college so we never interacted there. The first time we met here, we said, ‘You’re from which college?’ ‘Oh, Read more
“We need more women to participate in policy. In Nagaland, my people are an ethnic minority. We take so much pride in our customary laws; that is what defines us. But it also comes with a set of challenges: because of these laws, women aren’t encouraged to be part of Read more
"We often view economic sustainability and environmental sustainability as separate. However, we cannot achieve long-term economic sustainability without environmental sustainability. During my summer internship researching gaps in climate finance at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), I researched which countries have the widest climate finance gaps, so that the IFC could plan Read more
“Even though I’m in a one-year program, Sanford gave me a lot of talented and wonderful people from all over the world and the program itself is quite challenging but at the same time it gave me the opportunity to improve myself through navigating the courses. There are so many Read more
“I come from India. I’m an officer of commute in Indian government service. And I have been dealing with taxes for the past 18 years. I’ve handled a lot of assignments in the past. Law in our country is very different. I was part of this tax enforcement project (explained Read more
[In the early 1990s Sierra Leone was engulfed in violent conflict.]“When the war came to the city, I fell into an ambush at one of the places where I had to go to work after high school to get money for university. This guy from the rebels took me away. Read more
“I’m from #Turkey, and I worked for the Minister of Finance there before coming to Sanford. It was a good job. It was a hard job, but hard is good. As a government official, you have to deal with difficult, unexpected situations. The toughest things I had to deal with Read more
Traditionally in Kazakhstan, women have very long hair. But as westernization began to happen, it took too long to take care of, so women started cutting their hair. My mom cut her hair! But she didn’t want me to cut mine. I like traditions like long hair. My daughters have Read more
Right now in Nigeria, volunteering isn’t so big. We’re still a developing country, so most people are just thinking about how to get through the day. We want to create a culture of volunteerism by making it as easy and fun as possible. We’re also trying to demonstrate impact. So many Read more