Master of Development Policy and Practice (MDPP)

Strategic Policy for Development: Analysis and Practice

This course aims to equip participants with knowledge and tools to identify, design and build support for priority development policies. The course will:

• Provide a comparative overview of different approaches to development policymaking across countries and over time
• Explore ways to identify a ‘good fit’ between policy design and a country’s economic, political, and social context and institutions.
• Introduce and apply tools that can help build momentum for policy change by engaging multiple government and non-governmental stakeholders in the policy formulation process.
• Anchor the learning in case studies, with an emphasis on South African, and other African examples; and
• Provide a practical bridge between priority policy objectives in the participant’s place of work and the knowledge and tools explored in the course.
• Provide participants with methodological tools to evaluate current knowledge and data and facilitate the making of sound judgements on policy and implementation.

Policy Implementation 
  





This course aims to equip students with knowledge and tools to move from broad policy goals and strategies to the details of design and implementation that are key to development effectiveness. The course will: 

• Survey the multiple management functions that need to be addressed within the public sector (including budget planning; management of public expenditure and administration; procurement; parastatal governance); 
• Diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of public bureaucracies as instruments of implementing public policy. 
• Examine the potential of a variety of tools to enhance the transparency, accountability, and effectiveness of public bureaucracies.
• Anchor the learning in case studies, with an emphasis on South African, and other African examples; and
• Provide a practical bridge between priority policy implementation challenges in their places of work and the knowledge and tools explored in the course.
• Review key economic concepts, with a focus on their relevance for policymaking, and the governance of markets.
• Explore the role and challenges of market regulation, e.g., utility regulation, environmental regulation, competition policy, with a focus on how economic reasoning can help guide regulatory design.
• Provide continuing instruction in methodological tools to evaluate current knowledge and data and facilitate the making of sound judgements on policy and implementation.

Public Leadership and Governance

The aim of the Public Leadership and Governance course is to support students in their leadership development journey through gaining insights into their beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours and contextual developmental realities in Africa and globally. The course is offered in two parts: the first part takes you on a journey of self and social-awareness in supporting your personal development and agency in effecting change in your management and leadership roles. Classes focusses on understanding self; emotional intelligence; transformational leadership; personal, interpersonal and organisational transformation; mindfulness; neuro-leadership; COVID-19 and leadership; and public governance. The second part explores ethical leadership and public accountability with a focus on ethical awareness, ethical blindness and ethical decision-making, including whistleblowing. The interaction between individual and institutional integrity is examined in the light of a critical evaluation of current international efforts to counter corruption. The course introduces students to a range of relevant theories, conceptual frameworks, case studies, tools, and practices in class, supported by distance assignments and coaching.

Topics in African Economic Development

This course will help students navigate the challenges presented by an adverse global context and emerging mega-trends when pursuing structural transformation. It will assess the opportunities offered by regional dimensions, modern-day industrialisation pitfalls and innovative sources of financing. Africa undoubtedly has great potential, so too is the size of the challenge that African leaders face as countries prepare to take their place in the future global economy. They must transform their economies in the context of a harsh global climate, where patterns of industrialisation have changed, characterised by an unfriendly trade environment, complex intellectual property rights, circumscribed policy space, and fractured internal structures. Case studies and in-depth analysis of uneven efforts at structural transformation will help illustrate the complexity of policy making.

Research Design and Qualitative Methods

The course will provide students with the foundational knowledge, skills and orientation to help them prepare for their thesis proposals and thesis research activity and writing. This course introduces students to the fundamental concepts and principles of research design and methods for application in their thesis research. It begins with an introduction to the philosophies of contemporary research paradigms and proceeds to learning the key methods of data collection, analysis and writing of qualitative research. Also included is a focus on ethics and values in research, and issues related to conducting research in institutional contexts.


Discourses in Development Policy in Africa

This course aims to provide students with the capacity to critically examine and evaluate development policies in Africa. Key subject areas include discourses in trade policies of South Africa and the African continent, including regional integration, bilateral relations, global governance, and the climate-development nexus in Africa. The subject areas will enable students to engage and participate in discourses on the challenges of African public institutions, and development policy formulation and implementation, with a primary focus on trade strategy formulation and negotiations at a bilateral, regional, or multilateral level, and a secondary focus on the political economy of climate change, just transition, and the green economy, among other topical discourses.

Global Leadership Priorities

This multi-disciplinary course explores the intricate relationship between climate change and development on the African continent. It introduces students to various climate change-related topics that are prevalent in African policymaking circles and encourages students to also think about climate change critically through different disciplinary lenses. The primary objectives of this course are: (1) to introduce and help students understand African interests in climate change negotiations; (2) provide analytical tools and knowledge to help students understand different (and sometimes competing interests) of international players, especially global powers, in climate negotiations; and, (3) draw on different disciplines, such as economics, international relations, environmental science, and development studies, to provide students with a broad spectrum of knowledge that they can draw on to think critically about climate change and its impact on Africa’s development.

Research Design and Proposal Development

The course is designed to equip students to carry out successful research for their research project. It builds on the previous courses focussing on research design and methodology for qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods research. This course will emphasize the development of the topic and research question to structure the design, execution, and completion of research project. The course will also cover issues of ethics, research reporting and academic writing, and plagiarism. Teaching during the course will be through seminars, workshops, and individual supervision, working towards the submission of a completed research proposal.


Research project

This is the final phase of the Masters programme, in which the participant submits a research project written up in the form of a long paper up to 15 000 words. The research project should demonstrate the participant’s ability to apply the material covered in the Masters programme to a concrete development problem. It is desirable, though not required, that the research project address a development problem linked to the participants’ work experience.