Community-Driven Development, Data & Discovery - Abu Dhabi & Philiippines

Who should lead development efforts in the poorest parts of the world? Can local communities do a better job at identifying and meeting their development needs than the international community? How can data help us answer these questions? In contrast to top-down efforts that have long dominated international development, donors and governments now invest heavily in Community Driven Development (CDD) in an effort to empower communities to improve livelihoods, governance and social cohesion.  Centered around a field study in the Philippines, where Professor King has been part of a randomized control trial of a CDD initiative, this course examines (1) the theory and goals behind CDD, (2) the experience of implementing, studying, and living CDD, and (3) the data that helps us determine if and how the approach works. Over January term, NYU Abu Dhabi students will visit with CDD donors, policy-makers, practitioners, researchers, and participating communities. Working with primary quantitative and qualitative data, students will learn from the challenging processes of research design, data collection, and analysis and move forward their abilities to ask and answer tough and pressing global questions.

See the 2019 syllabus here.