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

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)
The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) 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)

The 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 $15 million to create MDP programs at up to 15 universities worldwide oer 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.

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.