In January and February 2016, the participants successfully completed their third and final module of the Executive Master in Development Policies and Practices (DPP), hosted in Geneva at the Villa Barton. Graduation ceremony speeches were delivered by Mr. Philippe SAS, Chief of Staff Regional Cooperation, of the Swiss Development and Cooperation Agency and by Mr. Alex MEJIA, Senior Manager of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). Both organisations provide funding, promotion and regional logistics support to the DPP. Also in attendance was Mr. Nicolas Kerguen, Chargé de projets, Service de la solidarité internationale du Canton de Genève, a longstanding and generous sponsor (of scholarship funds) for the Executive Master.
The participants’ 3-week capstone experience in Geneva was a culmination of six months of study, combining in-class sessions and learning-at-work. Participants began last summer with an intensive, month-long learning module hosted in one of five regional hubs, and then continued learning at their place of work.
This final module brought cohorts together from different regions for further learning and skills-building led by DPP instructors, but also to create “South-South” and “East-West” exchanges between the groups, including a cross-pollination of ideas that comes from the mutual sharing of participants’ thesis projects, which they conducted from work in their home cities during the Fall 2015 term.
Session topics during the final module ranged from advanced Leadership to Mediation and Negotiation Skills to a broad range of common development challenges, from Water Diplomacy to Gender and Intercultural Relations. Special events included a Colloquium on Extractive Industries with Comparative Perspectives on Governance from Africa, Asia and Latin America, as well as a High-Level Panel on Security and Fragility, exploring issues of migration, radicalisation and rapid urbanization.
In total, the DPP has five regional learning hubs. The Institute’s team in Executive Education organises learning in the region for the first two modules of the degree experience (Module 1 is face-to-face, and Module 2 online). The third module is hosted each year in Geneva over two sessions, in order to maintain small class sizes, personalized experience and a high level of participant exchanges. Session I in January included a tri-lingual programme (simultaneous translation), with participants attending from Latin America, Francophone Africa and Southeast Asia. Session II included the groups from Anglophone Africa and Central Asia.
The Executive Master DPP is designed for mid-career professionals working in the development sector and allows them to continue in their professional roles while further contributing to organisation’s objectives through an applied project.
Final applications are being invited for the 2016 programme that begins “in-region” with module #1 in the summer. Learn more >