2025
See the newly launched tech database
Agriculture, Health, and Education
Access in the RESOURCES tab
2025
See the newly launched Tech Database
Agriculture, Health, and Education
Access in the RESOURCES tab

Harvard Student Policy Research Supports Ministerial Planning

Dean's Briefing

What are the factors affecting gender equity in higher education in Zambia? Which districts should pilot a stay-in-school program for girls in Sierra Leone? What have been the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Ethiopia’s essential health services? These are pressing issues that Harvard Ministerial alumni Ministers are currently facing. Over the past year, 44 … Read more

Preparing for COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout in Africa

Preparing for COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout in Africa

Ramping up the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in Africa is essential not only to stemming the pandemic, but also to alleviating loss of income, increased poverty and growing food insecurity, as well as to more rapidly regenerate economic activity. Although the severity of the pandemic in Africa has seemingly not reached the same intensity as … Read more

2021 Tessa Jowell Doctoral Fellowship Will Support Education Reforms in Ghana

Charles Gale

Charles Gale, a Ph.D. candidate in the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) is the 2021 recipient of the Tessa Jowell Doctoral Research Fellowship.  Charles’ research will build on education reforms in Ghana by identifying measurable factors that can predict the performance of early career teachers. The Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program annually awards the Tessa … Read more

Harvard Ministerial Webinar: Preparing for Vaccine Delivery in Africa

On February 17 the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa co-hosted a webinar with some of Africa’s most experienced leaders on what practical steps governments should be taking now to organize across government and in communities to meet public expectations that vaccines will be equitably distributed and accessible. Panelists … Read more

Apply Now: Tessa Jowell Student Research Fellowship

The late Baroness Tessa Jowell stands to the left of Harvard Ministerial Program Advisory Board Chair Julio Frenk during a reconvening of program participants in Geneva.

The Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program established the Tessa Jowell Student Research Fellowship providing up to $15,000 in support of doctoral or post-doctoral level research.  Research must focus on health, education or other human capital development-related sectors with the goal of informing government policy, programs, and priority setting in countries participating in the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program.

To apply, please submit a CV and a one-page research proposal outlining the principal objectives of your research, the proposed methodology, and expected outcomes.  Please indicate the expected timing of the research project. Also provide information on any other sources of funding for your project. Applications must be received before January 31 and can be submitted here: https://forms.gle/vpV5f3nSjyxA2GgP6.

Read more

Harvard Ministerial Student Policy Research Fellows

Harvard Ministerial Student Policy Research Fellows

This is the the fourth year of the Harvard Ministerial Student Policy Research Fellowship, a flagship program engaging Harvard graduate students in providing research support to ‘alumni Ministers’ participating in the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program. Students are assigned to teams of four to respond to requests from Ministers for policy-related research to help inform ministerial decision making. Usually, this program involves initial remote research by graduate students teams with an in-country field research component during the January winter session. This year however, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Fellowship will not involve in-country travel, but has been adapted to still provide substantive policy research for Ministers and a unique learning experience for students working virtually.

Read more

Former Finance Minister Moeketsi Majoro Takes the Reins

Moeketsi Majoro

Leading a thinly balanced coalition government is challenge enough for any Prime Minister, but taking office after your predecessor is implicated in the murder of his former wife and on the eve of a global pandemic would severely test the resilience of most. Undaunted, the Rt. Hon. Moeketsi Majoro, Prime Minister of the Mountain Kingdom … Read more

Dashboard to Help Ministers Re-Set Priorities in an Era of COVID

Human Development Dashboard

The Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program was compelled early in the year to pivot to virtual engagement with the some-80 Program ‘alumni’ Ministers currently in office in countries across Africa, South East Asia and Central America. The challenge was how to be useful to Ministers caught up in the worst global pandemic of the past 100 years while avoiding replicating the work of major institutions such as the World Health Organization and the World Bank. ‘Alumni’ Ministers told the Ministerial Program they were suffering from information overload and would value concise, data-based guidance to the specific decisions they ought to be considering as they worked to combat the pandemic and respond to the adverse social and economic repercussions.

Read more

Student Researchers Help Reshape Maternal Health Care in Gambia

Student Researchers Help Reshape Maternal Health Care in Gambia

During January Michelle Korte and her classmate Oriol Solé Borràs, traveled to the Gambia to research the social determinants adversely affecting maternal mortality in this small West African nation. This was her first experience in Gambia; she had worked previously in East Africa and Myanmar, and was excited to learn more about this new country. … Read more

2020 Tessa Jowell Fellow Following in Her Parents’ Footsteps

Brenda Onguti

The Tessa Jowell Fellowship, named in honor of the late Baroness Tessa Jowell, a founding member of the Harvard Ministerial Program Advisory Board, is annually awarded to a doctoral-level student whose research focuses on policy-related questions of priority to Ministers participating in the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program. Applicants should intend to conduct most of their … Read more