Munk School Staff

U of T Reach Alliance initiative adds Howard University as its latest partner

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 14:25:01 +0000

U of T Reach Alliance initiative adds Howard University as its latest partner

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 12/05/2024 - 09:25

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Left to right: Howard University Associate Professor Amy Yeboah Quarkume, Howard student and Reach Alliance researcher Zoey Hall and Reach Alliance Executive Director Marin MacLeod (photo by Jamie Napier)

Munk School Staff

Topic

Global Lens

Reach Alliance

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

Subheadline

Founded at the Munk School for Global Affairs & Public Policy, the student-driven Reach Alliance aims to address challenges faced by the world's under-served and under-resourced communities

The Reach Alliance, a student-driven initiative founded at the ��Ƶ that aims to help under-served or under-resourced communities around the globe, has inked a new partnership with Howard University, one of the most prominent historically Black universities in the United States.

The partnership with Howard – the ninth for the Reach Alliance and the first with a U.S. university – was announced at the 2024 Reach Conference and opens a channel for Howard students and faculty members to engage in Reach Alliance projects and case studies.

It will support the expansion of Reach project targets by building access to communities through new idea networks based in the United States.

“Howard university shares a commitment with the ��Ƶ to inclusive excellence which is the key principle driving the work we do at the Reach Alliance” said Reach founder Joseph Wong, a professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and in the department of political science in the Faculty of Arts & Science who is also U of T’s vice-president, international.

Founded at the Munk School in 2015, the Reach Alliance cultivates leadership for solving urgent challenges of hard-to-reach communities – those that are under-served or under-resourced for geographic, administrative or social reasons.

Working in interdisciplinary teams, Reach’s student researchers identify innovative solutions to climate, public health and economic problems by using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a guiding framework. The students conduct their research in collaboration with local communities, with support from university faculty members. When the research is done, each team produces a case study report that is shared with policymakers and practitioners.

In less than a decade, the Reach Alliance has grown to include universities in eight countries, with partners in Australia, Canada, Ghana, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom and, now, the U.S. It has launched over 90 case studies and findings have been published in leading outlets including The Lancet, the Stanford Social Innovation Review and the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.

Amy Yeboah Quarkume, a data scientist who is Howard University’s graduate director at the Center for Applied Data Science and Analytics, is among the newest cohort of faculty mentors.

“The Reach Alliance is truly a global partnership network, which allows us to think about how we tackle issues in D.C., where Howard is, but also in Guatemala and Ghana and other places," she said. “Seeing and hearing how others are grappling with the same problems makes one feel as though we can go far if we work together.”

Before the conference started, the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth renewed their longstanding partnership with the Reach Alliance through a US$2-million gift to support key investments in enhancing Reach’s impact strategy, as well as strengthen shared network resources. Adding to the current student leadership development program, the funding allows for more cross-university collaboration, expanded knowledge translation and communications capabilities.

The 2024 gathering also expanded on media engagement with Reach initiatives. Sponsor-in-kind Devex, a media platform that focuses on stories of interest to the global development community, followed the gathering with an eye to raising the profile of Reach’s actionable research insights.

“Devex covers stories that we care about, so it felt like a natural fit,” said Marin MacLeod, the Reach Alliance’s executive director. “As we approach 2030, with much progress yet to be made on the SDGs, the time is right to ask: Who is accountable? How are we holding them accountable? And are those that are hardest to reach being accounted for?

“The higher education sector, especially the Reach Alliance, has an important role to play in co-creating actionable research insights and partnering with practitioners and policymakers to see these findings implemented.”

The participation of Devex also supports the flow of actionable information between communities and researchers throughout the world – which Quarkume said was a key strength of the alliance.

“We must find common goals to deal with common issues in order to go back and share information that helps in more than one place,” she said. “I’m excited to meet new people across the globe who are thinking, moving, trying to reach communities that have been made to wait.”

Quarkume added that the recent U.S. presidential election result will impact the role America plays on the global stage, but that she remains committed to solving global challenges.

“Political systems have changed and issues may shift, but we still must find solutions. It will take us working across borders to solve some things.”

Meet four of U of T’s latest global affairs and public policy grads

siddiq22 — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 20:14:30 +0000

Meet four of U of T’s latest global affairs and public policy grads

siddiq22 Mon, 06/19/2023 - 16:14

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Clockwise from top left: Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy graduates Joaquin Espinosa Alarcón, Sara Duodu, Vedant Puthran and Hilda-Matilda Idegwu (supplied images)

Topic

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Faculty of Arts & Science

Graduate Students

Public Policy

Graduates from the ��Ƶ’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy celebrated their convocation last week – a milestone as they look toward future careers on the international stage.

The Munk School spoke with four new graduates about what they learned in their programs and how they plan to draw on their experiences at U of T as they prepare for further education and new roles in the global policy space.

Joaquin Espinosa Alarcón

Up next: Research with the Citizen Lab

Joaquin Espinosa Alarcón’s journey to the Munk School’s Master of Global Affairs (MGA) program had many stops along the way.

Born in Quito, Ecuador, Espinosa Alarcón immigrated to the U.S. after finishing high school. He completed a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science at Bates College in Lewiston, ME, before moving to Washington, D.C. and working at the World Bank under the advisor on sexual orientation and gender identity as a point of contact for Latin American countries.

“I didn't plan on doing this. But because I have been an immigrant since I was 18, I know there are geographic limitations or legal constraints as to what you can do. That experience, and my job at the World Bank, helped me realize that I am interested in global affairs,” he says.

Espinosa Alarcón’s interest in 2SLGBTQIA+ rights and gender identity informed his time in the MGA program, where he was the director of Spectrum, a student-led initiative that helps with the professional and career development of LGBTQ+ students and their allies.

This summer, Espinosa Alarcón will collaborate with the Citizen Lab team to produce a report on transgender rights, which will be presented in Costa Rica.

— Molly Gosewich

Sara Duodu

Up next: A career focused on environmental sustainability

In starting her Master of Global Affairs program at the Munk School, Sara Duodu knew she wanted to make an impact – during her studies and beyond.

She credits a combination of her coursework, capstone project and leadership in student-led initiatives – including serving as co-editor of student publication Global Conversations, director of activities for the Munk School Black Students Association and coordinator for the school’s career exploration series – for her goal to pursue a post-graduation role focused on sustainability and innovation.

Working on her capstone project, which involved developing and presenting recommendations for a more inclusive strategy to Sustainable Development Technology Canada, underscored Duodu’s interest in making ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) a key component of her future career.

“I think there's a lot of room for working in the sustainability space and actually trying to have an impact there," she says.

— Claire Porter Robbins

Hilda-Matilda Idegwu

Up next: Taking part in the federal Recruitment of Policy Leaders program

At 16, Hilda-Matilda Idegwu came to the Munk School’s Global Ideas Institute (GII) aspiring to change the world. After moving to Canada from the U.K. 11 years ago and growing up in a priority neighbourhood in Toronto, she became interested in community advocacy.

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in international development studies from York University, Idegwu started the Diaspora Learning Centre, which provides affordable tutoring and mentorship to Black children and youth.

Founding the organization gave her the confidence to apply to the Munk School, where she has kept busy as president of the Munk School Black Students Association, handling internal relations and operations for the Public Good Initiative, contributing to the Public Policy and Governance Review and participating in the Munk School’s Anti-Racism Working Group.

Now the Master of Public Policy graduate is one of only a handful of people selected from thousands of applicants for Canada’s Recruitment of Policy Leaders program, which trains participants for a career in the federal public service.

Idegwu advises fellow graduates to remember the potential impact of their work.

“It's important to remember that we do end up changing many lives,” she says. “We have to remember to serve people with all we have, and that what we have to offer is so valuable.”

— Adrienne Harry

Vedant Puthran

Up next: Working as an analyst with the RCMP

Initially intending to become a lawyer, Vedant Puthran attended U of T's Faculty of Arts & Science for his undergraduate degree in criminology with a focus on criminal justice policy before joining the Munk School.

“For me, a career in policy seemed like the better fit for my goal of helping the public, rather than pursuing a career in law,” says Puthran, a Master of Public Policy graduate whose studies at the Munk School centred around immigration.

During his two years at the Munk School, Puthran won public policy case competitions, participated in a networking trip to Ottawa and landed an internship with the RCMP, where he hopes to keep working as an analyst after graduation.

“My top advice for students and graduates is to take advantage of available resources and seek out opportunities on your own,” he says.

— Molly Gosewich

Read the grads’ full stories at the Munk School

Margaret Atwood and Timothy Snyder to headline Ukraine benefit conference

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 19:19:30 +0000

Margaret Atwood and Timothy Snyder to headline Ukraine benefit conference

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 03/16/2023 - 15:19

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Yale historian Timothy Snyder and author Margaret Atwood are among the keynote speakers at a Ukraine benefit conference hosted by U of T's Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy (photos by Gary Leonard, dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Munk School Staff

Topic

Global Lens

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Alumni

Global

Ukraine

More than a year after Russia invaded Ukraine, universities around the world are taking steps to support scholars affected by the fighting in their country.

To date, more 170 Ukrainian institutions of higher education have been damaged and more than 20 have been completely destroyed. Academics who remain in Ukraine now conduct their research, teaching, and public service in very challenging circumstances.

On March 17-19, the ��Ƶ’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy will host a digital benefit conference with keynote talks by world-renowned author and U of T alumna Margaret Atwood, acclaimed historian Timothy Snyder and two of Ukraine’s leading public intellectuals: Mychailo Wynnyckyj and Volodymyr Yermolenko.

All money raised by the event, titled ‘What Good Is Philosophy? – A Benefit Conference for Ukraine,’ will support the Centre for Civic Engagement at Ukraine’s National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy.

“By assisting Ukrainian students and scholars today, this Centre will help pave the way for a vibrant and engaged post-war Ukraine,” says principal organizer and U of T alumnus Aaron Wendland, a Vision Fellow in Public Philosophy at King’s College, London and a senior research fellow at Massey College.

The conference will examine the role of academia during times of crisis, with participants analyzing the public impact of their academic research and exploring the relationship between the academy and civil society. It’s designed to provide individual academics, members of the public, colleges and universities, professional associations, charitable foundations, and private companies with a way to support Ukrainian students, scholars, and civic institutions.

Many philosophers from around the world will be participating. Those speaking will include Peter Adamson, Elizabeth Anderson, Seyla Benhabib, Judith Butler, Agnes Callard, Quassim Cassam, Tim Crane, Simon Critchley, David Enoch, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Sally Haslanger, Angie Hobbs, Barry Lam, Melissa Lane, Dominic Lopes, Kate Manne, Jeff McMahan, Jennifer Nagel, Philip Pettit, Kieran Setiya, Jason Stanley, Timothy Williamson and Jonathan Wolff.

The hope is to build an organization that can help counteract the destabilizing impact that Russia’s invasion has had on Ukrainian higher education and civilian life.

“Universities around the world began helping Ukrainian academics in exile through a mix of publicly and privately funded scholars-at-risk initiatives, which have helped Ukrainian refugees very much,” says Wendland. “However, academic institutions in Ukraine still need major international assistance.

“The Centre for Civic Engagement will aim to address the needs of the Ukrainian academy by offering institutional, intellectual, and financial support for students, scholars, and publicly engaged academics in the country.”

Why some countries lead – and others lag – in the race to clean energy: Study

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 17:18:47 +0000

Why some countries lead – and others lag – in the race to clean energy: Study

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 10/07/2022 - 13:18

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California is often considered a leader in limiting emissions thanks to relatively autonomous agencies such as the California Air Resources Board, which helps insulate politicians from unpopular policies (photo by Murat Taner via Getty Images)

Munk School Staff

Topic

Breaking Research

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Climate Change

Global

Political Science

Research & Innovation

Sustainability

A new analysis published in the journal Science explores the politics that influence some countries to adopt cleaner sources of energy while others resist change, revealing what hinders many governments from reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in spring 2022, oil and gas prices skyrocketed, creating a global energy crisis similar to the oil crisis of the 1970s. While some countries used the price shock to accelerate the transition to cleaner sources of energy, including wind, solar and geothermal, others have expanded the production of fossil fuels.

“Policy prescriptions on climate change and energy transitions often tend to assume countries are very similar or comparable,” said study author Phillip Y. Lipscy, a professor at the ��Ƶ’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and the department of political science in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

“The thing that really stands out from our work is that the same policy that works in one country context might not work in another.”

Phillip Lipscy

Lipscy partnered with researchers at institutions around the world to examine how different countries have reacted to the current energy crisis as well as the oil crisis of the 1970s. Their report illustrates how the structure of political institutions can support the shift to clean energy – or pose a barrier to it. The co-authors of the study include Jonas Meckling of University of California, Berkeley, Jared J. Finnegan of University College London and Florence Metz of the University of Twente in the Netherlands.

The analysis found that the countries that were most successful at pioneering cleaner energy technologies had political institutions that helped to cushion some of the consumer and corporate resistance to high short-term costs – either by insulating policymakers from political opposition or by compensating consumers and corporations for the extra costs associated with adopting new technologies.

For example, many countries in continental and northern Europe have institutions that allow policymakers to insulate themselves from pushback by voters or lobbyists, or to compensate constituencies impacted by the transition. As a result, many of these countries have been more successful at absorbing the costs associated with transitioning to a clean energy system, such as investing in greater wind capacity or upgrading transmission grids.

Meanwhile, countries that lack such institutions, such as the United States, Australia and Canada, often follow market-driven transitions, waiting for the price of new technologies to drop before adopting them.

“We describe this as a path without government involvement,” said Lipscy. “It’s in some senses a failure of government intervention to accelerate a transition. And the government essentially allows the markets to determine what kind of energy transition occurs.”

Japan is an example of a country that underwent institutional changes that made it less effective in this regard. While Japanese policymakers responded effectively to the oil shocks of the 1970s, the country has struggled to accelerate its energy transition in response to climate change and the war in Ukraine. Lipscy attributes this to electoral and administrative changes implemented starting in the 1990s.

One way to help insulate policymakers from political pushback is to hand over regulatory power to independent agencies that are less subject to the demands of voters or lobbyists. The authors cite the California Air Resources Board (CARB), a relatively autonomous agency that has been tasked with implementing many of California’s climate goals, as providing a buffer for policymakers because the agency can take the blame for unpopular policies. Thanks in part to CARB, California is often considered a leader in limiting greenhouse gas emissions, despite being a state within the U.S.

Countries such as Canada and the U.S. lack strong institutions to absorb political opposition to costly energy policies. However, Lipscy said that policymakers can still drive the energy transition forward by supporting energy research and development and removing barriers to clean technologies, which have become increasingly cost competitive with traditional energy sources.

“It’s impossible to think about issues like climate change and energy transitions without accounting for the politics,” Lipscy said. “I hope this piece serves a mechanism to connect some of the great work coming out of the field of political science to scholars who are interested in climate change in other fields.”

– with files from the University of California, Berkeley

Highway death toll signs associated with more crashes, researchers find

geoff.vendeville — Fri, 22 Apr 2022 16:49:53 +0000

Highway death toll signs associated with more crashes, researchers find

geoff.vendeville Fri, 04/22/2022 - 12:49

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A recent study co-written by U of T's Jonathan Hall suggests that death toll messages on highways can have the opposite of their desired effect (photo courtesy of Jonathan Hall)

Munk School Staff

Topic

Breaking Research

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Economics

Faculty

Global

International Collaboration

Research

Electronic billboards displaying traffic fatalities to encourage safer driving may actually contribute to an increase in crashes, a recent study co-authored by the ��Ƶ's Jonathan Hall suggests.

Jonathan Hall

Using years of highway data from Texas, Hall – an assistant professor in the department of economics in the Faculty of Arts & Science and the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy – teamed up with Joshua Madsen, of the University of Minnesota, to test the effectiveness of this strategy to reduce accidents.

They found that a message advertising the number of traffic deaths was linked with a 4.5 per cent uptick in crashes over the next 10 kilometres. That’s an increase comparable to raising the speed limit by between roughly 5 and 8 kilometres per hour or reducing the number of highway troopers by 6 to 14 per cent.

“Our back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that fatality messages cause an additional 2,600 crashes and 16 fatalities per year in Texas alone, with a toal social cost of (US) $377 million per year,” the researchers said.

Extrapolating to a nationwide figure, the researchers say safety messaging causes an extra 17,000 crashes across the U.S. and 104 deaths per year, with a social cost of US$2.5 billion.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Hall said he and Madsen were surprised by their findings. "We did not start this project thinking these signs hurt, we thought they helped," he told the paper. "I think a reasonable takeaway would be that state departments of transportation should test their messages and track which of these messages are too distracting and which are helpful."

The researchers suggest that efforts to reduce traffic fatalities by way of electronic messaging may be backfiring because they are temporarily distracting and lead drivers to make mistakes.

Hall and Madsen took their data from Texas because messages there were consistently displayed one week a month. They compared highway data from the time of the campaign, from 2012 to 2017, to the two years prior, comparing weekly differences within each month.

“The messages increased the number of multi-vehicle crashes, but not single-vehicle crashes,” Hall said. “This is in line with drivers with increased cognitive loads making smaller errors due to distraction, like drifting out of a lane, rather than driving off the road.”

Moreover, the researchers found that the effect is worse as the year progresses and the traffic fatality count displayed on message boards increases. The largest number of additional crashes was recorded in January, when the fatality number was the highest. Hall and Madsen suggest that more sobering, in-your-face messaging could be even more distracting and harmful.

“Driving on a busy highway [and] having to navigate lane changes is more cognitively demanding than driving down a straight stretch of empty highway,” said Madsen, who teaches at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. “People have limited attention. When a driver’s cognitive load is already maxed out, adding on an attention-grabbing, sobering reminder of highway deaths [can] become a dangerous distraction.”

But the researchers did find that the safety messages fulfilled their intended purpose when the number of displayed deaths was low and when the interventions occurred on less busy highways. Madsen says this may be because these messages were not as taxing on drivers' attention.

While safety campaigns vary from place to place, the researchers say authorities should consider other ways to promote road safety.

“One of the key takeaways from this research was that fatality message campaigns increase the number of crashes, so stopping these campaigns is a low-cost way to improve traffic safety,” Hall says.

“This study illustrates why it is so important to study the effects of ‘nudges’ and other behavioural interventions. Just because a policy is well-intentioned doesn’t mean that it will result in a good outcome.”

This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program.

With $4 million in funding, U of T-based program aims to improve local taxation in lower-income countries

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 08 Apr 2022 15:41:37 +0000

With $4 million in funding, U of T-based program aims to improve local taxation in lower-income countries

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 04/08/2022 - 11:41

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Building on a pilot project in Freetown, Sierra Leone, the Local Government Revenue Initiative seeks to help local governments in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia collect more local revenue equitably and fairly (photo Abdul Karim Jalloh/Unsplash)

Munk School Staff

Topic

Global Lens

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Faculty of Art & Science

Global

Political Science

An applied research initiative based at the ��Ƶ’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy aims to improve public services and governance in lower-income countries through more effective local taxation.

The Local Government Revenue Initiative (LoGRI) – which has drawn more than $4 million from funders including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the French Ministry of Economics, Finance and Recovery – is developing policy-relevant research and tools to help local governments in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia collect more local revenue, more equitably and fairly, and in ways that promote trust, transparency and accountability.

LoGRI is an initiative of the International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD), a leading global policy research network dedicated to improving the quality of tax policy and administration in lower-income countries. The ICTD is based at the Institute of Development Studies in Brighton, U.K., with a large hub at U of T.

“Our goal is to improve people’s lives by helping local governments raise the revenue they need to provide better local public services and strengthen local governance,” said Wilson Prichard, an associate professor at the Munk School and the department of political science in the Faculty of Arts & Science, and chief executive officer of the ICTD. “We are especially focused on supporting stronger property taxes, which can provide the stable source of income cities need to provide key services like sanitation, critical small-scale infrastructure and environmental services. Yet in practice property taxes are the least effectively collected major tax in lower-income countries due to significant barriers such as incomplete property tax rolls, inconsistent ways of valuing properties and mistrust and low compliance among taxpayers.”

LoGRI works at the intersection of research and practice to overcome both technical and political challenges to reform and support the construction of more effective systems of local revenue raising. This includes building research-informed tools and resources to support reforms and partnering with local governments and international development agencies on property tax reform programs. It extends and expands the previous work of the African Property Tax Initiative (APTI), which counts among its achievements a highly successful pilot project in Freetown, Sierra Leone. That project tested a fairer, simpler and more consistent way of valuing properties in lower-capacity environments, led the design of a new IT system for property tax administration, supported the introduction of automated payments at banks and introduced and led a process of participatory budgeting for allocating a share of property tax revenues.

LoGRI has attracted support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the French Ministry of Economics, Finance and Recovery and German Development Cooperation implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. Several international development agencies have already contracted LoGRI to provide property tax reform expertise for their country programs and LoGRI is in discussions with additional donors to further expand the initiative.

“One of the exciting things about LoGRI is that it bridges the gap between traditional academic research, policy and practice,” said Titilola Akindeinde, executive director of LoGRI. “Our research is informing more effective approaches to property tax administration, while partnering with local governments across multiple countries to design and pilot reform programs that provide unique insights and experience that we can incorporate into our research. We believe this mutually reinforcing approach will enable us to develop robust tools and resources that will demonstrably improve property tax systems and quality of life in lower-income countries.”

Key to LoGRI’s success is engaging its project teams’ local tax experts and researchers to ensure its findings reflect a deep understanding of the complex legal, political and social contexts in the countries where it works. LoGRI is focusing initially on both francophone and anglophone countries in sub-Saharan Africa, with future plans to engage in south Asia. Projects are already planned in Zambia, Cameroon, Sierra Leone and Malawi, with more expected to be developed as LoGRI expands its networks.

“LoGRI is part of the Munk School’s strategy to shape global conversations about major challenges of the future of democratic and democratizing societies,” said Peter Loewen, director of the Munk School and a professor at both the Munk School and the department of political science in the Faculty of Arts & Science. “As many countries grapple with uneven economic growth, rapid increases in population, poverty and inequality, we see a tremendous opportunity to learn from and collaborate with partners in these regions to address these pressing issues through better governance. We also look forward to deepening our engagement and networks in Africa.”

False claims about COVID-19 must be repeatedly debunked, study finds

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 04 Feb 2022 19:03:47 +0000

False claims about COVID-19 must be repeatedly debunked, study finds

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 02/04/2022 - 14:03

Cutline

A study involving U of T researchers found that COVID-19 "fact checks" can be effective, but that frequent exposure is necessary for addressing misinformation during the pandemic (photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Topic

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Faculty of Arts & Science

Researchers at the ��Ƶ, Dartmouth College, the University of Exeter and the University of Kent have found that fact checking can quickly correct misperceptions about COVID-19 – but that beliefs in wrong information often return.

The study, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, asked respondents from the United States, Great Britain and Canada to rate the perceived accuracy of four claims on COVID-19 that have been debunked by scientific and public health authorities: that the Chinese government created the coronavirus as a bioweapon; that a group funded by Bill Gates patented the coronavirus; that antibiotics are effective in preventing and treating COVID-19; and that the medication hydroxychloroquine is proven to cure or prevent COVID-19.

They found that fact checks did indeed reduce people’s misperceptions, but that the changes did not persist over time.

“Our findings suggest that fact checks can successfully reduce misperceptions about COVID-19 immediately after people read them,” said study co-author Peter Loewen, director of U of T’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and a professor in the department of political science in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

“Now that we know those misperceptions often return, we can expect that convincing someone to adopt new understanding about COVID-19 may include setbacks. We also know that frequent exposure helps so what this tells us is that the best approach is a long term strategy.”

Study participants shared political and demographic information about themselves and rated the accuracy of both true and false claims about COVID-19. They were then randomly assigned to receive fact-checked or unrelated placebo articles. The research team then compared belief in the claims over time between respondents who were shown the fact checks and those who weren’t.

The study’s findings have implications for how we dispel misinformation around the coronavirus pandemic.

“Our results suggest that effectively addressing misbeliefs about COVID-19 will require repeatedly debunking false claims about the coronavirus. Otherwise, people will tend to revert back to the level of belief that they had before,” says co-author Brendan Nyhan, the James O. Freedman presidential professor in the department of government at Dartmouth.

“Fact checks were most effective among people who are more vulnerable to misperceptions of COVID-19 at baseline,” said Nyhan.

These groups included supporters of conservative leaders, those with high conspiracy predispositions and those with low trust in health institutions. However, these effects did not persist over time in follow-up surveys conducted in the U.S. and Britain.

“By comparing U.S. data on the effects of COVID-19 fact checks to that of Great Britain and Canada, we found that our results are parallel across all three countries, which suggests that the effects are not an artifact of polarization over COVID-19 in the U.S.,” says co-author Jason Reifler, a professor of political science at University of Exeter.

The study is the first to estimate the effects of fact checks on COVID-19 misperceptions over time and across countries. The results provide evidence that COVID-19 fact checks can be effective but that frequent exposure is necessary for addressing misinformation during the pandemic.

John M. Carey from Dartmouth, Andrew M. Guess from Princeton University, Eric Merkley from U of T, and Joseph B. Phillips from the University of Kent also contributed to the study, which was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Economic and Social Research Council, and the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and the dean of U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science .

With files from Amy Olson / Dartmouth.

Peter Loewen appointed director of U of T’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 29 Sep 2021 15:01:21 +0000

Peter Loewen appointed director of U of T’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 09/29/2021 - 11:01

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(Photo by Alexis MacDonald)

Munk School Staff

Topic

Our Community

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

Massey College

U of T Mississauga

Professor Peter Loewen, a leading political scientist, has been appointed as the new director of the ��Ƶ’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy.

Currently the Munk School’s associate director for global engagement and director of PEARL (Policy, Elections and Representation Lab), Loewen will assume his new role on Nov. 1, 2021 for a term that ends on June 30, 2026.

“I am honoured and humbled to be the director of the Munk School,” said Loewen. “I have a deep connection to the school and I believe that we have a vital role to play in convening important conversations, producing rigorous and relevant research, and educating students to have broad, multi-disciplinary perspectives. The Munk School’s centres have exceptional regional expertise and our labs are at the forefront of their fields.

"We live in a time of shifting powers and great global challenges – the Munk School is generating and sharing answers for a world that wants to know how democracies will fit in a changing global order, how we can continue to equitably increase prosperity and how we can live in an increasingly digital world.”

Loewen holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Mount Allison University and a PhD in political science from the Université de Montréal. He joined U of T Mississauga in 2010 as an assistant professor in the department of political science, receiving tenure and promotion to associate professor in 2015 and promotion to professor in 2018. He has held visiting positions at the University of Melbourne, Princeton University and Stanford University.

He served as director of U of T’s School of Public Policy and Governance from 2016 until its amalgamation with the Munk School of Global Affairs in 2018. From 2013 to 2016, he was the director of the Munk School’s Centre for the Study of the United States. Loewen is a senior fellow at Massey College, a fellow of the Public Policy Forum and an associate director at U of T’s Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society.

Loewen’s research focuses primarily on how politicians can make better decisions, how citizens can make better choices, how governments can address the disruption of technology and harness its opportunities, and the politics of COVID-19. He has been published in several leading journals and he is the co-editor of four books. He is a frequent contributor in Canadian and international media, providing opinion and commentary in prestigious news outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Globe and Mail.

In his capacity as associate director, global engagement, Loewen has led discussions with leading thinkers from across the political spectrum. He chairs the David Peterson Public Sector Leadership Series and is a co-organizer of both the North American Colloquium and the Canada-UK Colloquium.

“Professor Loewen has distinguished himself as a leading academic and a convenor, bringing together scholars, politicians and practitioners to discuss some of the most pressing issues of our time,” said Melanie Woodin, dean of U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science. “He is an excellent choice to direct the Munk School and has been instrumental in building the school as we know it today.”

Loewen says he looks forward to working together with students, faculty, staff and the school’s fellows to advance new initiatives and to continue to foster a strong sense of community within the school. “In addition to building on the success of our degree programs and bolstering our public engagement, one of the key priorities over the next few years will be to complete the construction of the academic wood tower,” says Loewen. “Through the tower, we have the opportunity to come together as one school and create a shared culture and sense of place.”

Loewen assumes the role of director from University Professor Cheryl Misak, who has served as interim director since December 2020, following the departure of Michael Sabia, who was appointed deputy minister of finance.

“We are fortunate to be building on both Cheryl’s and Michael’s leadership,” said Loewen. “Through the creation of our strategic plan, the appointment of thematic leads and the hiring of new faculty to augment the school’s four areas of focus – the Digital World, the Political Economy of Innovation, the Changing Global Order and the Future of Democratic Societies – we are in an excellent position to grow the Munk School’s reputation and influence around the world.

“At the Munk School, we have exceptional faculty from multiple disciplines, each of whom brings an important lens to the study of global affairs and public policy. Through our areas of focus and the strength of our regional expertise, we will continue to produce cutting-edge research, shape global conversations and contribute ideas with real-world impact.”

Reach Alliance, first launched at U of T, expands to three universities outside Canada

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 30 Apr 2021 16:11:59 +0000

Reach Alliance, first launched at U of T, expands to three universities outside Canada

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 04/30/2021 - 12:11

Cutline

The Reach Alliance's three new international partners are (from top to bottom) University College London, Tecnológico de Monterrey and University of Oxford (Peter Spiro/Getty Images, Gildardo Sánchez, Clive NIchols/Getty Images)

Munk School Staff

Topic

Global Lens

Reach Alliance

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

Joseph Wong

Sustainability

The Reach Alliance’s reach just got a little longer.

The ��Ƶ research initiative – which brings together undergraduate and graduate students with faculty mentors to investigate how organizations are delivering services to vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations around the globe – is expanding to three leading universities: University of Oxford, University College London and Tecnológico de Monterrey.

Joseph Wong (Photo by Johnny Guatto)

Joseph Wong, U of T’s vice-president, international, and Reach Alliance founder, announced the three international partners Friday at the closing of the 2021 Reach Symposium, an annual gathering of leaders from the academic, private and civil society sectors to share insights on how to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

“We have much to learn from our colleagues at the University of Oxford, Tecnológico de Monterrey and University College London,” Wong said. “This appetite for collaboration will guide us as we continue to scale the Reach Alliance around the world.”

Based at the ��Ƶ’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, the Reach Alliance began as the Reach Project in 2015. To date, it has produced 23 case studies in 16 countries, publishing findings in prestigious journals including The Lancet, the WHO Bulletin, and BMJ Global Health.

Reach teams work together for 12 to 18 months to conduct research, meet with stakeholders, produce case studies and share insights for policy change. Since 2015, U of T students have crossed the globe investigating successful interventions including polio eradication in India, vaccine delivery in Mozambique, women’s economic empowerment in Mexico, mobile money apps in Kenya and self-directed home-care service delivery in Ontario.

Gustavo Merino, a professor at the School of Government and Public Transformation at Tecnológico de Monterrey, is enthusiastic about the Reach approach.

“By working on the challenge of reaching the hardest to reach, increasing awareness of this challenge and promoting collaboration on these issues with universities from several countries, this initiative can go a long way in improving developmental outcomes in many countries,” he said.

Two of the three partners have begun work on their case studies. Tecnológico de Monterrey’s first case study examines the barriers faced by migrant Indigenous people in the university’s home city of Monterrey, Mexico. In the first phase of the project, student researchers will examine why Indigenous Peoples are blocked from accessing basic services, and how this perpetuates cycles of poverty.

Gustavo Merino, a professor at the School of Government and Public Transformation at Tecnológico de Monterrey, and Marin MacLeod, executive director of the Reach Alliance, at last year’s Reach Symposium (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

The partnership with the University of Oxford includes the university’s Saïd Business School and the Blavatnik School of Government. For its first case study, researchers are examining an intervention in the Indian State of Madhya Pradesh that aims to improve women’s experiences in seeking assistance from police, with a focus on gender-based violence.

“Crossing the last mile of service delivery is a global challenge facing governments, businesses and civic organizations,” said Akshay Mangla, associate professor in international business at Oxford’s Saïd Business School. “The Reach Alliance partnership offers a valuable opportunity for academic institutions to collaborate on complex questions and produce impactful research. I hope it will lead to deeper insights on how to make frontline services work for citizens across the world.”

For Marin MacLeod, executive director of the Reach Alliance and an alumna of the program who studied biometric cash transfers to Syrian refugees in Jordan, the initiative is about sharing insights that will lead to innovation and policy change.

“As a global cross-university network of leading student researchers and faculty, the Reach Alliance shows the academy’s commitment to accelerate the impact of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.”

Reach’s expansion is made possible through the support of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, its principal funder. As the program grows, U of T will serve as the global headquarters for the Reach Alliance, while continuing to run its own research programs.

The academic network is set to expand to six universities by 2022.

By creating a volunteer group, U of T grad Adam Zivo brought food to low-income seniors during COVID-19

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 16:59:56 +0000

By creating a volunteer group, U of T grad Adam Zivo brought food to low-income seniors during COVID-19

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 11/19/2020 - 11:59

Cutline

Adam Zivo, who is graduating this week from U of T's Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, created LifeCrates to address food insecurity among low-income seniors at the outset of the pandemic (photos courtesy of Adam Zivo)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

When the pandemic forced communities into lockdown in March, Adam Zivo offered to deliver groceries to his mother as a way to help in a time of need.

Soon after, he set out to help the broader community by creating LifeCrates, an initiative that helped to address food insecurity among low-income seniors.

“Low-income seniors are a particularly vulnerable demographic during the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Zivo, a master of public policy student at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy who is graduating this week. “In the earlier stages of this health crisis, it was unclear whether it was safe for seniors to shop at grocery stores. Some were able to work around their safety concerns by to arranging for grocery delivery.

“For some seniors, though, grocery delivery wasn’t financially feasible.”

Nearly 16 per cent of Toronto’s population are seniors aged 65 and over, according to the 2016 cenus. Out of this group of older adults, nearly half live in economically precarious conditions and 17 per cent of seniors are considered low income. The pandemic exacerbated food security issues for this group.

“Older adults are already vulnerable in normal times and, as the pandemic unfolds, many have been cut off from their regular support systems, such as food banks,” says Zivo. “When I launched LifeCrates, no other organization appeared to focus on needs of low-income seniors. It simply made sense for this initiative to fill that gap.”

LifeCrates began as way to address the acute food security crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. With the help of registered dieticians who vetted packages for their nutritional value and longevity, LifeCrates personnel delivered a month’s worth of food to low-income seniors. Given the critical nature of food insecurity, Zivo’s main focus was to set up quickly by “getting the simplest, market-viable product out there” and making improvements as he went.

“In situations like these, it isn't a choice between an imperfectly equitable solution and an equitable one, but rather a choice between an imperfectly equitable solution and no solution at all,” he says.

Read about LifeCrates on BlogTo

Read about LifeCrates in the Globe and Mail

Zivo says that peers from the MPP program contributed to the development of LifeCrates.

“Lawrence Zhang created an initial jurisdictional scan that helped identify other organizations that were offering services that were similar to what I wanted LifeCrates to offer. Arpit Kumar conducted research on community engagement. Finally, Erica McLaughlin, who is finishing the joint MPP-JD program, wrote a fantastic evaluation report based on a small sample of qualitative interviews with our initial food recipients.”

Zivo notes that formally studying program evaluation and implementation in the MPP program has been instrumental to LifeCrates’ success.

“We managed to secure a sizeable partnership with Fred Victor, which is one of Toronto’s leading organizations servicing housing-insecure individuals. Incorporating the skills and practices I learned in the MPP program meant that I could more confidently communicate LifeCrates’ value and negotiate a deal to get food out to communities as soon as possible.”

LifeCrates completed its final delivery in August.

“Even post-pandemic, there will always be food insecure individuals,” Zivo says. “Our core mandate was to address an acute crisis during the early months of COVID-19, and we did that by delivering 7,500 kg of food to more than 400 individuals. We saw what the food deliveries food meant to the recipients. I’m extremely proud of what we accomplished.”

Zivo is set to graduate from U of T at a virtual convocation ceremony on Nov. 21 and has been working at Harbourfront Centre’s new digital transformation department since September. In addition to helping him make LifeCrates a success, Zivo credits the MPP program with helping him excel in his new job role.

“My goal, as always, is to find new ways to add value to the people I work with,” he says. “My MPP degree has supported my work at Harbourfront Centre by providing me with the ability to understand the centre within a larger institutional and policy context. There are significant overlaps between what I do at Harbourfront now and what I did with LifeCrates. My work here is fundamentally about communications and innovation, which is what LifeCrates was all about.”

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By creating a volunteer group, U of T grad Adam Zivo brought food to low-income seniors during COVID-19

Read about LifeCrates on BlogTo

Read about LifeCrates in the Globe and Mail