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Capstone Workshop in Sustainable Develop

Capstone: Sustainable Dev

The Capstone Workshop in Sustainable Development Practice is one of the most exciting opportunities within the Development and Governance concentration, and is also open to a limited number of students in other concentrations. Officially, it is a spring-semester course for second-year master's degree students, but workshop activities begin in the fall semester through the course on Methods for Sustainable Development Practice. Through the workshop, students gain practical experience by engaging in on-going cutting-edge sustainable development efforts aligned with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals, and often involving in-country work. Working in teams with a faculty supervisor, students assist a variety of clients on a wide range of assignments related to sustainable development. Students take a multidisciplinary approach to their work, learning extensively from each other as well as from the hands-on tasks of the workshop itself. Another key strength of the workshop is that it allows students to explore the intersection of development concerns with human rights, corporate social responsibility, humanitarian affairs, gender, public health, and environmental policy. Reflecting the utility of workshop assignments, several workshop reports are available on client websites and have been published. Past clients have included UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNIFEM, and WFP; the World Bank and IDB; national and local governments; NGOs such as Catholic Relief Services, Endeavor, FilmAid International, International Institute for Rural Reconstruction, International Rescue Committee, Seva Mandir, Trickle Up, WaterAid, and Women's Refugee Commission; and development advisors such as DAI and Technoserve. The precise scope of the workshop project and outputs that the students will deliver are negotiated with each client.