Welcome to the Global Master's in Development Practice Programs Network

Leaders from the global network of MDP universities meet with Jeffrey Sachs, Director, Earth Institute, and John McArthur, President, Millennium Promise, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on July 28, 2009. Universities represented: Emory University, James Cook University, Trinity College Dublin,, Tsinghua University, University of Cheikh Anta Diop, University of Botswana, and University of Ibadan.

The Global Master's in Development Practice (MDP) is a two-year degree providing graduate-level students with the skills and knowledge required to better identify and address the global challenges of sustainability development, such as poverty, population, health, conservation, climate change, and agricultural productivity. The

John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

has committed over $15 million to create MDP programs at up to 20 universities worldwide over the next three years. In June 2009, the MacArthur Foundation announced that 10 universities across the globe will receive significant grants to estabish new MDP programs.

Please join us in welcoming the first members of the Global Network of MDP programs:

Columbia University (New York, New York)
Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia)
TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) University (New Delhi, India)
James Cook University (Cairns and Townsville, Australia)
Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin (Dublin, Ireland)
Tsinghua University (Beijing, China)
University of Cheikh Anta Diop, UCAD (Dakar, Senegal)
University of Botswana (Gaborone, Botswana)
University of Florida (Gainesville, Florida)
University of Ibadan (Ibadan, Nigeria)

In October 2009, the MacArthur Foundation welcomed five additional academic institutions that will join the Global Network of MDP programs:

BRAC Development Institute, BRAC University (Dhaka, Bangladesh)
CATIE (Turrialba, Costa Rica)
University of California, Davis (Davis, California)
University of Peradeniya (Peradeniya, Sri Lanka)
University of Waterloo (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada)

Other universities will launch a Master's in Development Practice program with funding from other sources. These universities are also members of the Global Network of MDP programs:

University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
University of Denver (Denver, Colorado)

In 2007 the MacArthur-supported International Commission on Education for Sustainable Development Practice, found that worldwide, many people working in the field of development are not sufficiently prepared to tackle the challenges they face. The creation of MDP programs is an acknowledgement that addressing extreme poverty and sustainable development throughout the world required expert knoweldge and an interdisciplinary approach across four key competencies; the natural sciences, health sciences, social sciences, and management.

The Global Master's in Development Practice Secretariat, supported by MacArthur and based at Columbia University's Earth Institute, will help manage the MDP network of universities, develop an open-source repository for the MDP curriculum and other teaching materials, and will offer an online, Global Classroom on sustainable development for students worldwide.