As we wrap up one more year with IPD, let's learn more about our dedicated students. Jenny has been with us since 2015!
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1. What is your year and major at UT?
I am an incoming senior at UT majoring in Plan II, International Relations and Global Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies, minoring in Arabic.

2. How long have you been in IPD and how did you hear about the organization? Are you part of a specific team within IPD?
I joined IPD in the fall of 2015 on the Conflict and Development team, and have recently been working with the Open Aid Team. I heard about IPD from Vishal Duvvuru, a fellow classmate of mine from a class we had together about NGOs and Terrorism. He could tell I was really interested in aid projects in conflict stricken zones, and suggested I join IPD. My experience in the organization has really helped me explore these interests Vishal saw I had, and I am so thankful he introduced me to IPD.

3. What is the most rewarding part of contributing and being an active member of IPD? Have you faced any challenges while working in IPD?
The most rewarding part of being actively involved in IPD are the people I've been able to work with, and the skills I've learned from data workshops. There aren't a lot of opportunities for undergraduate students to work and collaborate with students and faculty from LBJ, but I have had incredible mentors over the past three years that have taught me so much, namely Raheem Chaudhry and Caleb Rudow. It's also amazing to be able to learn skills in OpenRefine, R, STATA, Excel, GIS, etc. without taking a semester long class; it's helped me with so many projects in IPD and even in my classes. The only challenge I would say I've faced in IPD is being an undergrad surrounded by so many successful and intelligent graduate students. They have more experience with field work, jobs, and are more narrowly studying the things we discuss in IPD - it can be a little intimidating at times. This challenge has definitely helped me grow as a student and researcher interested in aid, governance, and security.

4. How does your work with IPD relate to your career goals?
My future career goals are pretty wide, but IPD definitely relates to all these interests I hope to pursue. I either hope to work with a development aid agency, the state department in international security affairs, or with an IGO related to foreign aid projects and security. I have a strong passion about effective, long term, and sustainable aid in conflict stricken zones, and IPD is preparing me to make an impact in this field by analyzing what makes foreign aid effective. This summer I'll be living in Amman, Jordan, and will be working with the non-profit Souriyat Across Borders. I'll be volunteering with Syrian Refugees and will help them develop a summer curriculum for their aid projects in Amman. I'll be using skills that I learned from IPD lectures and workshops to build this curriculum, and can't wait to see what more I learn to bring back to IPD in the fall. 

This post was written by IPD Research Affiliate Tiffany Wang.

The agriculture sector is often the largest contributor to GDP and largest source of employment for many developing countries. In addition, many of the world’s poorest live in rural areas and often depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Sufficient agricultural investment is therefore critical for both encouraging economic development and reducing poverty rates for many of the neediest (Mogues 2008).
 
A study by Fan and Saurkar in 2008 identified public sector spending on agriculture as one of the most important policy instruments for promoting economic growth and alleviating poverty in rural areas for developing countries.  However, an increasingly popular way to supplement this public domestic spending is to attract private foreign direct investment (FDI). According to the OECD Factbook, FDI is defined as “cross-border investment by a resident entity in one economy with the objective of obtaining a lasting interest in an enterprise resident in another economy.” Developing countries value agricultural FDI because it can increase productivity, encourage the transfer of technology, and open new capital markets (OECD Statistics, 2013).
 
But do higher levels of domestic agricultural investment and higher levels of foreign investment really improve the wellbeing of the rural poor?  I explored this question using data from the Ending Rural Hunger (ERH) project developed by the Brookings Institution. My principal hypothesis was that public domestic investment in agriculture is more effective at reducing rural poverty rates than private foreign spending in agriculture.
 
In my first model, I tried to find the relative effects of public and private spending on agriculture on rural poverty, controlling for the amount of access to land for the rural poor and the investment climate for rural businesses. I was specifically interested in seeing the relative effectiveness of the two types of spending when considering how strong of a position the rural community had for doing business (as approximated by the rural community’s access to land and the strength of their business climate).

Since I used a log-log model, I found that for every 1% increase in government spending, there was a 0.475% drop in the rural multidimensional poverty headcount. This result was significant, and made sense because an increased amount of government spending should lead to less rural poverty. The surprising result was for my estimate for the effect of foreign direct investment in agriculture on rural poverty. I found that for a 1% increase in foreign direct investment, there was a 0.014% increase in rural poverty. Although this estimator was not significant, it raised interesting questions. Why would an increase in foreign direct investment in agriculture hurt rural communities? This would support the “Land Grabbing Theory” described in the literature where increased levels of FDI to agriculture can potentially be harmful to developing countries because the type of FDI to agriculture these days are resource seeking rather than long-term investment.
 
For my second model, I decided to interact the terms of foreign direct investment to agriculture and access to land. This is because I believed the efficacy of FDI to agriculture could change significantly depending on the strength of measures for amount of access to land a rural community has. This is in line with a lot of the literature related to the Land Grabbing Theory because social scientists believe that if communities have stronger access to land, then they can bargain better with foreign investors and this would lead to better development outcomes.

​The new results are very compelling. I found that for every 1% increase in government spending, there was a 0.478% drop in the rural multidimensional poverty headcount. This result was significant, and very similar to the estimator we found from the first model. The FDI to agriculture variable interacted with access to land changed signs from positive in Model 1 to negative in Model 2. The interaction also became significant, which suggests that access to land can really influence how effective FDI to agriculture is for the rural poor. I found that for a 1% increase in FDI interacted with Access to Land, there was a 0.332% decrease in rural poverty. This estimator was significant and showed that while increased levels of FDI to agriculture can be harmful to the rural poor, there is more to the story.  We have to consider the amount of access to land. We can best see how the coefficient of FDI to agriculture changes as you measure the access to land with this graphic:
 

The graphic above shows that the estimated coefficient for FDI is positive until around 3.5 on the 1-6 scale of the “Access to Land” measure created by the IFAD Rural Performance Assessments. The interpretation is that when the access to land is between 1 to 3.5, increased FDI to agriculture actually increases rural poverty, hence the positive slope coefficient. When access to land is 3.5 and above, increased FDI to agriculture decreases rural poverty. The policy implications of these results is that governments need to take steps to improve the rural poor’s access to land in order to prevent negative effects from incoming FDI. This means improving mechanisms for access to land for rural households, women, indigenous groups, and enforcing land rights so that the majority of land holdings are titled or registered.  

In summary, I found that FDI to agriculture could be harmful to the rural poor in developing countries unless there is some measure of access to land for rural communities. Possible next steps for research include adding public domestic investment and foreign aid into the analysis as other independent variables. I would also be interested in going into the data and finding out where exactly the money from foreign direct investment and public domestic investment is being spent.   

References:
Fan, Shenggen, and Saurkar, Anuja. “Tracking Agricultural Spending for Agricultural Growth and Poverty Reduction in Africa.” RESAKSS Issue Brief No. 5. 2008. 

Mogues, Tewodaj, Bingxin Yu, Shenggen Fan, and Linden McBride. “The Impacts of Public Investment In and For Agriculture.” Agricultural Development Economics Division, Oct. 2012. Web.

"Statistics / OECD Factbook / 2013 /." OECD Library: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2016.

​Riding a ferry, that was essentially a plank of wood, across the Nile, I was filled with anticipation for our trip to Northern Uganda. The Women of Uganda Network, the organization I work with, has partners, constituents, and influence throughout Uganda. This trip to Apac in Northern Uganda was intended to build our network by supporting the groups that we helped establish, as well as train and create a new network of women entrepreneurs.

The Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) has developed about 465 teams throughout Uganda that monitor the delivery of government services in their districts. These teams are 70% women and are known as VSACs, Voluntary Social Accountability Committees. Becoming members of these accountability committees put volunteers’ jobs and livelihoods at risk, especially when they first began. Yet, these brave souls endured for the betterment of their communities and their hard work has been a great success.

WOUGNET helps these groups organize and provides continued training in using ICTs (Information, Communication, and Technology) to hold the government accountable for its commitments and responsibilities in their communities. VSACs attend budget and planning meetings with local government officials at the sub-county and district level to remain aware of how money is allocated in their district. Members of the VSAC committees monitor the progress of infrastructure and other projects and report that progress to WOUGNET, as well as following up with the officials and project managers in charge of delivering those services. When services are not delivered properly or at all, VSAC members find out who is responsible for the hold up, whether it be a contractor or a government official, and demand they complete the project, else be “named and shamed” on the radio, in the newspaper, online, and in engagement meetings. Naming and shaming has proven to be a successful means of increasing accountability and service delivery in Apac, as the community is small enough that people know each other by name. Since the inception of VSACs in Apac, the community has seen major improvements in the delivery of services, including road construction, increased teacher attendance, and access to safe drinking water.

 We sat in a large circle outside under a massive tree. It was a gorgeous day to sit on such a lush piece of land. Members of this VSAC committee, who are primarily farmers, took half the day off to discuss current projects and challenges with us. The WOUGNET team discussed our plan for the way forward: increasing the use of technology to speed up communication, and thus reporting service delivery failures, and ultimately, improving service delivery. VSAC members pointed out a major road block, which is the unreliability of power in Apac. When there is no power, they cannot charge the smartphone that WOUGNET donated to them for reporting. No power = no charge = no reporting. To solve this, the WOUGNET team is working on a proposal for funding for a solar charger. Still many more challenges arose and members from WOUGNET and the VSAC discussed solutions. People agreed and disagreed and made a lot of jokes. It was a dialogue and everyone’s opinion was heard, respected and considered. After, they warmly embraced us and one woman said to call her “mama”. They discussed their individual hardships and successes, as women and as farmers. The dedication these people had to their community could not be overstated. They are empowered, resilient, organized and improving the state of Apac.

Day two on our trip to the north, we met with a group of 35 women entrepreneurs in Red Cross Hall, a large teal and red room in a village just outside Apac. They all had started their own businesses, on their own. There were tailors and bakers, retail sellers and barbers, restaurant owners and many more. My boss, Goretti got the women fired up about the opportunities afforded to groups, rather than individuals: funding grants, trainings applications, conference invitations, and perhaps most importantly, a voice that will be heard. That day the women voted in a Chair Person, a Vice Chair, a Secretary and a Treasurer. They discussed the major challenges of being female entrepreneurs in Apac and, together, we came up with solutions. Capital was the first obstacle listed. Banks have high interest rates and often won’t loan to these women. Hence, the women decided to start a bank amongst themselves. Each member of their new association would put 1,000 Ugandan Shillings (UGX) a week and after one year, members could take out loans at a very low interest rate. 1,000 UGX is about 30 cents in USD and is an affordable, yet significant amount in Apac. The money would be managed by their treasurer, an older woman who most refer to as their mother and is highly respected in the village. By the end of one year they will have collectively saved 1,820,000 UGX. We discussed marketing techniques, customer care, and the language barrier among other things. The space was collaborative and I contributed a suggestion: create signage that is both visually appealing and written in at least three languages, as that would ameliorate the language barrier, as well as improving the issues with marketing. My recommendation was heartily accepted.

At the completion of the meeting, the women clapped at us, the WOUGNET team, as a form of appreciation for our attendance and support. It was as if they were tossing the sound and motion of the clap in our direction. Then they embraced us, shook our hands and we exchanged genuine and sincere smiles filled with deep respect and gratitude.
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These women raise each other up and in that meeting they lifted us too. They are empowered and its contagious. I felt profoundly grateful to have been involved in their formation and hope that I am able to fully embody their spirit in my work, both with WOUGNET and as I start my career.  

1. What is your year and major at UT?
I am a sophomore and Economics and Mathematics double major.

2. How long have you been in IPD and how did you hear about the organization? Are you part of a specific team within IPD?
I joined IPD my freshman year, and have been here for the past 3 semesters. Being extremely interested in getting a research opportunity, I was actively looking for avenues for getting involved. That is when I heard about IPD from one of my professors. I am in the Governance and Development team, as well as the Complex Emergencies and Political Stability in Asia (CEPSA) team.

3. What is the most rewarding part of contributing and being an active member of IPD? Have you faced any challenges while working in IPD?
Being able to work closely with such motivated students and professors is definitely the most rewarding part of IPD. That has expanded my knowledge about the developmental work being done around the world. The most challenging part at first was finding the right balance between IPD and studies. But the benefits and the amount I learn at IPD provide something that a classroom education can never provide, which makes it worth the effort. 

4. How does your work with IPD relate to your career goals?
I wish to go to graduate school and eventually work in the developmental economics field. Thus it is essential that I make good use of my time at UT and gain as much knowledge and experience as I can about the field. Fortunately, IPD has given me the perfect opportunity to do so.
Working with the Governance team, collecting and analyzing data to find the existence of clientelism in Honduras, has expanded my knowledge about developmental politics. Meanwhile the CEPSA team gives me an important insight into the realm of global aid tracking and analysis, and also the limitations that come with it.

5. What are your hopes for the rest of this school year?
The hope is definitely to come up with a publication-worthy article for the Governance team, now that we have gone through the hard part of finding and cleaning up the data!

Dedicated, ambitious students are what IPD possible! Meet Haley who has been with IPD for almost two years.
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1. What is your year and major at UT?
4th year International Relations and Global Studies Major (IRG)

2. How long have you been in IPD and how did you hear about the organization? Are you part of a specific team within IPD?
I've been in IPD since the fall of my sophomore year, I heard about the organization from a friend who was in it and suggested that I might be interested in the work IPD was doing. This semester, I'm a part of the Data4Peace team. In the past I was on the Natural Resource and Conflict team. 

3. What is the most rewarding part of contributing and being an active member of IPD? Have you faced any challenges while working in IPD?
I joined IPD out of an interest in developing skills that weren't necessarily offered to me through my liberal arts courses for my IRG degree. I was really interested in learning GIS, and when I expressed this interest to team leads, they made sure to incorporate me into GIS-related projects to help me learn the ropes. I think being able to see yourself actually grow in a skill set is really rewarding, and not something you always get when taking a more conceptual and analytical course load where progress is harder to measure. In addition to the reward of that measurable personal growth, IPD has really exposed me to important global issues and opportunities to contribute to meaningful solutions to issues I find interesting. 

4. How does your work with IPD relate to your career goals?
One of my favorite parts of IPD is that it coordinates undergrads and grad students into the same space and the same conversations about issues we're all interested in. Those conversations and connections have really helped me envision the ways in which the skills I'm learning in IPD will likely come in handy when I'm applying to grad school in a few years. 

5. What are your hopes for the rest of this school year? 
GRADUATE—I'm trying to really soak in as much of UT and Austin as I can before I graduate! 

When faced with complex global issues, our nation is naturally inclined to use its military. The U.S. military is the most advanced, well-prepared, and expansive force in world history. Yet the complex security issues the world faces call for innovations in diplomacy and development – not merely military force. Violent extremism and terrorism hailing from developing nations can be more effectively prevented if the U.S. increases investments in international development funding and programs beyond its military. In building a comprehensive national security strategy, the U.S. must raise the importance of international development to that of defense as an instrument of foreign policy.

Poverty and Conflict

The causes of violent security issues are often intricately linked to a country’s economic and political state of development. Complex issues such as terrorism, insurgency, and civil war are not security issues only: they are development issues (State Department 2015). This is especially true for the least developed countries in the world, the highest concentration of which is in Sub-Saharan Africa. For example, terrorist organizations such as Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Al-Shabaab in Somalia, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and the Tuareg jihadists in Mali often hail from areas struck by droughts, failed harvests, lack of water, food, sanitation, unemployment, and more at a lower overall stage of economic and political development. Researchers of the so-called “poverty-conflict nexus” have found that poverty lowers the opportunity cost for actors to join a civil war (Collier and Hoeffler 2004). Areas with relatively higher per-capita income, for example, have more to lose from the loss of labor and economic disruptions of civil war than areas with lower per-capita income, where actors experience greater incentives to join a rebel force (Buhaug 2011). The lower opportunity cost of rebellion raises the probability of a civil conflict breaking out in impoverished regions. The U.S. should include these research findings in its foreign policy and take a comprehensive view economic underdevelopment as a leading cause of conflict.

The 3D Strategy: Development, Diplomacy, Defense
 
Since the causes of violent conflict are intricately linked to development, we can no longer separate our international security policies from our international development policies. This involves a deepening of cooperation between the Defense Department, State Department, and USAID in order to pursue what is called the “3D” strategy of diplomacy, defense, and development (USAID 2013). By pooling their unique strengths and resources, the Departments can implement a development-minded security policy. In addition to its current drone programs, airstrikes, and military measures, the U.S. should significantly expand investment in development programs and aid aimed at uplifting countries’ standard of living, economy, and democratic system in a way that would help raise communities out of poverty and the violent extremism it produces.
 
A Tillerson Plan of International Development
 
U.S. international development policy should focus its funds and capacity on priority development goals. These include improving sustainable agriculture, sanitation, disease-prevention, education and training, female empowerment, and democratic governance, among others. Arguably one of the greatest achievements in U.S. foreign policy history, the Marshall Plan of 1948, helped build economic and political capacity in Europe after World War II while opening lucrative economic markets for trade with the U.S. (De Long 1991; Miller 2014). Just like Secretary of State George Marshall paved the way for the Marshall Plan, so can the United States under Secretary Rex Tillerson cultivate a game-changing “Tillerson Plan” of international development policy that will simultaneously benefit the security and economy of developing nations and that of the U.S.
 
It would be arrogant and naïve to assume that the U.S. could solve a country’s faulting economic system, or raise the standard of living of nations like Somalia to Western standards overnight. While the 3D strategy sets high goals, it does not argue that the U.S. could or should completely transform nations on its own. Rather, it holds that raising development to the importance of diplomacy and defense in foreign policy would be effective alongside traditional military tools in addressing security issues. Beyond humanitarian objectives, any increase in U.S. contribution towards international development is a contribution towards greater international security.
 
Security through Development
 
The Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) published by the State Department in 2010 and 2015 outlines a U.S. strategy that intricately links diplomacy to development, presenting ambitious programs to reduce global poverty and forge global development partnerships  (State Department 2015). Yet this promising foreign policy continues to lack proper funding. The budget for the Department of Defense for 2016 was about $850 billion, while that of the Department of State and USAID combined was only about $50 billion (U.S. Budget FY 2016). To adequately counter violent conflict, terrorism, health epidemics, and poverty around the world, the Department of State and USAID must receive adequate political, financial, and ideological support.

Sebastian De Beurs is a Plan II Honors, Government, and History major focusing on U.S. foreign policy and international political economy. His research interests lie in sub-Saharan African peace and development, about which he blogs on www.africaffairs.org. Sebastian is a also an Undergraduate Fellow in the Clements Center and a Virtual Student Foreign Service intern with the U.S. Department of State. 

Works Cited

• Buhaug, Halvard., Gleditsch, Kristian., Holtermann, Helge., Otsby, Gudrun., Tollefson, Andreas, 2011. “It's the Local Economy, Stupid! Geographic Wealth Dispersion and Conflict Outbreak Location” The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 55, No. 5 pp. 814-840
• Collier, Paul, and Anke Hoeffler. 2004. "Greed and Grievance in Civil War." Oxford Economic Papers 56 (4): 563-95
• De Long, J. Bradford, and Barry Eichengreen. The Marshall Plan: History's most successful structural adjustment program. No. w3899. National Bureau of Economic Research, 1991.
• Miller, Paul. “The Case for Aid.” Foreign Policy. 21 January 2014. Web.
• Office of Management and Budget. “Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2016.” U.S. Government Publishing Office. 2 February 2015
• U.S. Agency for International Development. “3D Planning Guide: Diplomacy, Development, Defense.” 31 July 2012.
• U.S. Department of State. “Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review.” 29 April 2015.

Congratulations to Cassie Gianni on receiving the 2016 Spirit of LBJ Award and Scholarship! Cassie has been with IPD as a research affiliate since 2015, and we are proud that she has been an exemplar in community leadership. Spirit of LBJ award recipients are recognized for their outstanding leadership and involvement in their communities. Cassie is in the Master of Global Policy Studies program at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs where she specializes in development. Her community roles include Chair for Pride Policy Alliance and Executive Member of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee at the LBJ School. ​