Masters Course on Human Development Presented in New York

The School of Economics of the Moscow State University, which I have the honour to represent at this Global Forum, is one of the leading educational and research institutions in Russia and, as I hope, an institution that has become well-known throughout the world. As a leading Russian institution in Economics, we try to keep pace with all the recent developments, findings, ideas and concepts in this area. This is the reason why our researchers met with great interest the Human Development Report when it was first published in 1990. Since then it has become one of the major reference and information sources in our publications and studies.

Why did our School find the Global Human Development Reports so important? The HDR offered us a totally different, people-oriented, concept of Human Development. Owing to the findings and recommendations published in the Report we came to understand how to adequately evaluate the impact of the state policy on people and adjust it accordingly. This was a new and very attractive approach.

National Human Development Reports for the Russian Federation (we have already published five of them) have also raised much interest both in Russia and abroad. The 1997 Report came to be the first publication that contained the calculation and comparative analysis of the Human Development Indices for 89 regions of Russia, the regions, which the world still knows very little about.

Today we note with great satisfaction that the Human Development concept comes to be gradually recognized in Russia and, which is even more important, is now used more often as a tool in the nation’s policy-making. Regional leaders now have an opportunity to look at their region’s HD ranking and analyze why they are ahead of or lag behind others.

At the same time the academic community also comes to know and begins to employ the Human Development concept. Today the HDR is referred to in various studies. This fact is also proved by annual NHDR hearings, at which the discussions become ever more professional and the participants now easily employ the human development terminology.

Inspired by these results, we have decided to take further steps. Our idea was to introduce the Human Development concept to all major target groups on a long-term and durable basis. This was how we came to realize the need of teaching Human Development. This nationally executed project is implemented in coordination with and with the support of the UNDP Office in the Russian Federation, the Regional Bureau for Europe and the CIS and also the Human Development Report Office.

As far as we know, we were the first, at least in our region, to launch such an educational project, which I would like to outline below. The project consists if three major components.

The first component is educational. We have chosen the most advanced group of our students, that is Masters School students. Each year about 350 students are admitted to our Masters School. They can enroll in various Masters Programmes, including Business Administration, International Business, Finance and Banking, and Public Administration.

Within each programme students can choose different areas of study and last academic year a group of students who enrolled in Public Administration Masters Programme chose to specialize in Human Development.

In 1997 we started a two-month pilot course and published our lectures. Today we are implementing a full academic year course, and a team of our professors has prepared a HD textbook. The textbook is now being translated into English and I hope it will be published this year.

The second component of the project is the dissemination of the course. In April this year we organized a two-week Train-the-Trainers Workshop with the view to replicate the HD course in other universities. Attending the Workshop were professors from Universities of different regions of Russia, including St.-Petersburg, Central Russia, Siberia and Russian Far East, as well as the UNDP officers and university professors from Armenia, Kazakhstan, Lithuania and Tadjikistan.

By now we have received 10 confirmation letters and requests from various regional universities to assist in creating Human Development programmes for qualifying for students Masters and Bachelor’s degrees. Today our capacities do not allow us to meet all the requests. So far we decided to support two pilot courses and one of the universities has already been selected. It is the Novosibirsk University, which is the main regional research centre.

I fully agree with Mr. Mark Malloch Brown, the UNDP Administrator, who said at yesterday’s session that we will never succeed without good governance. We think that the educational process should be in parallel with presenting the HD concept to the decision-makers of the country. This is the third component of the project.

Without going into much detail, I should mention that we have participated in Human Development round table meetings at the both chambers of the Russian Parliament. In November we plan to hold a one-week HD workshop for the Government and Parliament officials with an emphasis on the policy implications.

On behalf of the School of Economics I would like to say that we are proud to implement this truly innovative project. Promotion of Human Development is especially important for our region – the CIS and Eastern Europe, where the countries are now undergoing a very painful transition process and human values are, unfortunately, too often ignored.

In conclusion I would like to thank The Human Development Report Office and its Director, Ms. Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, the Regional Bureau for Europe and the CIS and its Director, Mr. Anton Kruiderink for their guidance and support. We also thank Ms. Juliette El Hage, UNDP Centre in Bratislava, Mr. Philippe Elghouayel, UNDP Resident Representative with whom we have been working very closely on a daily basis, and Ms. Ewa Ruminska-Zimny who helped us to design the Project document.

Special thanks to Mr. Terry McKinley from the UNDP Bureau for Development Policy who has most actively participated in this project, gave excellent lectures both to the students and professors, as well as coordinated the preparation of the Human Development textbook.