The course is about government policy for the global food system with emphasis on developing countries. The goal of the course is to enhance the students’ analytical capacity and strengthen their understanding of the policy process and how public policy may be used to achieve societal goals, taking into account stakeholder interests and power. A participatory social entrepreneurship approach based on case studies and active participation by students and instructor will be used. Seven video-taped lectures will be discussed along with 21 case studies selected from a collection of 60 case studies developed for such courses.
Each case is about a past, current or expected future policy situation and is written by a professional with field experience relevant to the case. Most of the case presenters are economists. Each case focuses on a situation where policy alternatives exist and where policy lessons can be learned for use in future policy analysis, design and implementation. The cases were selected to simulate real policy-making environments and to cover the key aspects of a course on policies for the global food system. The lectures provide the context for the cases.
Each case will be presented by a team of three students and discussed by all students in the course. The class discussions will emphasize stakeholder analysis and may simulate a situation in which negotiations are undertaken to arrive at policy decisions. The team will prepare a two-page written answer to the case assignment and give a 10-15 minute oral presentation to the class. It is recommended that the presentation be supported by PowerPoint slides. The instructor will chair each session, moderate the discussions and present a short summary during the last 5-10 minutes of each session, highlighting the key lessons from the case and placing them in a broader context. In order to benefit fully from the social entrepreneurship approach, it is essential that all students view the videoed lectures and read the cases to be discussed prior to class.
All cases and lectures are available on the following web site: http://cip.cornell.edu/gfs and the cases are also available in book form in Pinstrup-Andersen, Per and Fuzhi Cheng (editors) “Case Studies in Food Policy for Developing Countries, Volumes I, II, and III”, Cornell University Press, 2009 and on a cd available from the instructor. As detailed below, each morning from 9.00 to 12.30 will be used for class interaction and each afternoon will be available for team work, case reading and viewing of lectures. Morning and afternoon breaks are built into the program. No more than 30 students will be admitted to the course. |
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