HIID's Sara Sievers Appointed at Center for International Development

Sara Sievers, former U.S. foreign service officer and development associate at the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID), has been appointed executive director of the Harvard Center for International Development (HCID).

Jeffrey Sachs, director of both HIID and HCID, said that "Sievers will add enormous strength to our abilities to pursue complex research projects on a wide range of worldwide development issues. She has played a key role in setting up the new Center, and her colleagues at HCID all look forward to working with her."

Jointly administered by HIID and the Kennedy School of Government (KSG), the recently established HCID expands the University's expertise in international development, and is designed to encourage interdisciplinary faculty participation throughout the University. In conjunction with the Center's establishment, KSG has created a concentration within its Master's of Public Administration degree Ñ the new MPA2 in International DevelopmentÑto enable students to specialize in international development.

"The new center will focus on the issues and challenges facing nearly 85 percent of the world's population," said Joseph S. Nye Jr., Kennedy School Dean. "And with over a third of KSG students now coming from overseas, we are delighted to have Sievers at the helm of this important new initiative."

"The barriers to development in many parts of the world require the intellectual attention of a broad range of academics and those with relevant policy expertise. As daunting as these development challenges are, they are not insoluable," said Sievers. "It is an honor to be a part

of this effort to better understand the long-asked questions of what makes some countries rich, and others poor, and what can be done to tip the balance towards prosperity."

The Center for International Development will focus initially on six broad program areas: globalization and economic growth; social and human development; health; environmental and natural resource management; governance, with a focus on political, administrative, and legal institutions; and a multidisciplinary, multiyear study of African development.

Sievers most recently completed the Africa Competitiveness Report, which she co-authored with Sachs. The volume is based on comprehensive surveys of the views of business leaders and senior government officials on prospects for growth in 24 African countries. She is currently directing a project to look at the contribution of leadership to economic growth and another research effort on foreign direct investment flows in Africa. She is also finishing a three-year study of the breakup of the Soviet Union from the perspective of the European Republics of the former USSR.

Prior to her appointment at HIID, Sievers worked for the U.S. State Department as the vice consul for political and economic affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, Ukraine, and as the special assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs in Washington. Sievers received her undergraduate degree in government from Harvard and her M.B.A. from M.I.T.