Poverty Lab
The Asia Pacific region is a remarkable natural laboratory for identifying public policies that successfully reduce poverty and improve peopleās welfare and well-being, often from very low bases after the experience of colonialism.
Some of this success comes from sound macroeconomic management and growth, but much is also due to more micro-level programs that cushion shocks, improve grassroots productivity and help poor people access labor markets. The Poverty Lab is a living evaluation of alternative ways to reduce poverty, with an equal focus on peopleās well-being and sense of community.
Quick facts: Poverty Lab
Availability
Year-round
Eligibility
- School of Foreign Service graduate students
- Georgetown SFS Asia Pacific students
- Executive education professionals
Credits
- Academic credit available for Georgetown students
Offerings
- 4 courses, or
- Applied research
Faculty
- Scott Guggenheim
- Sinta Satriana
Overview of the Poverty Lab
The Poverty Lab is a field-based course or research lab where historical context, quantitative analysis and direct community engagement come together. Every course in the program includes a fieldwork component that grounds your learning in the lived realities of the communities you are studying.
Join the Poverty Lab
The Poverty Lab is open to Georgetown graduate students, GSAP students, and executive education professionals year-round, though individual course and research offerings will vary.
Take a course
The Poverty Lab offers four courses:
- Social protection
- Community development
- Conflict analysis
- Labor markets in Asia and the Pacific
Contact the Poverty Lab faculty to find out which courses are currently available.
Applied research
The Poverty Lab conducts ongoing research into the forces that shape poverty and well-being across the Asia-Pacific. Current research focuses on four areas:
- Environment and livelihoods
- Urban change and displacement
- Natural resource benefit-sharing
- Improving targeting in social protection
What you’ll learn
Across all courses and research in the Poverty Lab, you will develop a distinctive, bottom-up lens for understanding and addressing poverty. Specific learning outcomes include:
- Looking at poverty policy from the bottom up
- Situating poverty programs within their historical, cultural and institutional context
- Linking poverty to local sources of growth
- Assessing constraints on public service delivery to the poor
- Applying gender analysis to issues of exclusion and inclusion
- Exploring new frontiers in technology that will improve local opportunity
Fieldwork
Fieldwork is an integral part of every course offered in the Poverty Lab. You will engage directly with communities, governments and partner organizations across the region, connecting what you learn in the classroom to the realities on the ground. You can also partner with the World Bank, NGOs and civil society organizations for various periods of time, some of which carry academic credit.
Faculty
-
Scott GuggenheimDirector of Policy Labs and Research Professor of the Practice -
Sinta SatrianaGSAP Research Fellow