Each semester the Ash Center works to spark powerful new ideas, share innovative public-sector solutions, and discuss institutional reforms through our public events. We have never shied away from tough conversations — and this past semester was no different.
Edward Cunningham, Director of Ash Center China Programs and of the Asia Energy and Sustainability Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School, discusses how decarbonization can serve as an opportunity for both countries to set aside their political tensions and work towards a common policy objective.
Government services are inherently digital services, says David Eaves, Director of the Project on Digital Government, but governments still lack the personnel and technological capacity to deliver services to a public that expects most simple tasks, such as scheduling a vaccine appointment to be done effortlessly online. That's why Eaves helped develop a free curriculum for teaching digital to future public sector leaders.
Recognizing the significant barriers Americans face in casting a ballot, graduating HKS Masters of Public Policy students, with Ash Center support, used their capstone Policy Analysis Exercise (PAE) to work with organizations committed to strengthening civic engagement and voting access.
The Ash Center sat down with Quinton Mayne, Ford Foundation Associate Professor of Public Policy, to understand how a progressive electoral alliance reimagined the relationship between citizens and city hall.
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development's Megan Minoka Hill explains how the American Rescue Plan could bring long-needed aid to Indian Country.
In a new Ash Center policy brief, Fellow Wenchi Yu details why Chinese businesses, subject to privacy and national security scrutiny, need to rethink how they add value to communities when they operate in the U.S.
President Biden unveiled an ambitious $2 trillion jobs and infrastructure proposal this week. The plan calls for $621 billion in spending for a variety of transportation initiatives, including funding roads and bridges, public transportation, rail improvements, airports and ports, as well as a bevy of new and expanded electric vehicle incentives. Congress is expected to act on the ambitious legislative proposal in the coming months.
A spring sandstorm and worsening air pollution came to a head last week in Beijing, causing the city and surrounding area to become enveloped in an orange smog. To better understand the storm and its impact on the environment, Chinese citizens and government, the Ash Center sat down with Jesse Turiel, Ash Center China Energy Postdoctoral Fellow.
On Monday, March 1st, the Georgia House of Representatives passed H.B.531, a sweeping elections bill that critics and voting rights advocates were quick to note increases restrictions on absentee voting and curtails weekend early voting hours. In contrast, just two days later, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R.1, legislation containing a broad range of democratic reforms, from automatic voter registration requirements for state agencies to campaign finance reform that its authors hope would do much to lower barriers to voting across much of the country.
The February 1st coup launched by Myanmar's military effectively put an end to the country's tentative transition to democracy as civilian political leaders were imprisoned and the results of the 2020 elections annulled. During an event sponsored by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation and moderated by HKS Professor of Public Policy Tarek Masoud, Pwint Htun, Non-Residential Myanmar Program Fellow at the Ash Center, and Derek Mitchell, president of the National Democratic Institute and former U.S. ambassador to Myanmar, discussed how... Read more about Myanmar After the Coup
As the world looks back on the events that convulsed much of the Middle East a decade ago during what became known as the Arab Spring, the Ash Center sat down with Tarek Masoud, Professor of Public Policy and Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman Professor of International Relations to discuss the prospects for democracy in the region today.
As Myanmar’s military launched a coup, imprisoning many of the country’s political leaders including Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who heads the country’s largest political party, the National League for Democracy, we spoke with David Dapice, a senior economist with the Ash Center’s Myanmar Program.
As President-elect Biden prepares to take office, we sat down with Edward Cunningham, the director of the Ash Center’s China Programs and the Asia Energy and Sustainability Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School to discuss how the friction in the U.S.-China relationship might impact America’s economic recovery, and steps that the incoming administration can take to constructively engage with Beijing.
With President-elect Biden releasing a comprehensive COVID-19 recovery plan as he prepares to take office, we sat down with Philip Jordan, a research fellow at the Ash Center with extensive experience assessing the impacts of sustainable economic development. Jordan discussed the scope of the economic challenges wrought by COVID-19 as well as how the incoming administration can best target assistance to those segments of the country hit hardest by the economic collapse.
