PONPO Seminar Series

The PONPO seminars are a series of presentations and discussions on international and indigenous non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Their main objective continues to be to map current research in the field. Presentations include both Yale and outside participants, scholars and practitioners.

Seminars take place on the Yale School of Management campus in New Haven, CT, and are free and open to the public.

The seminar series is sponsored by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Yale Institution for Social and Policy Studies.

2007-2008 Seminar Series

September 18 - Nava Ashraf

October 9 - Graeme Auld

November 6 - Nancy Zucker Boswell

November 13 - Gidon Bromberg

March 25 - Franck Wiebe

View a summary of this presentation.

Abstract: The controversy over whether and how much to charge for health products in the developing world rests, in part, on whether higher prices can increase use. We test this hypothesis in a field experiment in Zambia using door-to-door marketing of a home water purification solution. Our methodology separates the screening effect of prices (charging more changes the mix of buyers) from the psychological effect of prices (charging more stimulates greater use for a given buyer). We find that higher prices screen out those who use the product less. The amount paid does not have a psychological effect on use, but there is some evidence that the act of paying increases use. We use our data to estimate an economic model of product use, simulate counterfactuals, and develop tentative implications for pricing policy.

Link to the working paper.

Abstract: In many sectors, certification programs are developing as sources of private regulation for pressing global problems. Developing standards dictating appropriate social and environmental practices in forestry, agriculture and fisheries, among other sectors, they attempt to offer market benefits to those companies, cooperatives, and small farmers that voluntarily participate and pass an independent inspection audit. Though increasingly rich empirical work assesses reasons for their inception, uptake, and diffusion across and within sectors, few studies unpack organizational differences in rules for membership, standards development, monitoring and inspection, and label-use, nor examine how such differences influence organizational development over time. Through a comparative study of certification programs in the coffee, fishery and forestry sectors, this paper begins to fill this gap. It examines the conditions that led individual certification programs to adopt varying organizational forms and, then, traces the implications of these choices for the program’s subsequent evolution. It finds that although initial conditions and forces of organizational inertia shape program development, forces facilitating adaptation are significant.

Graeme Auld is a Ph.D. candidate at Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He holds a M.S. from Auburn University and a B.S. in Forestry from the University of British Columbia. His research examines factors and processes driving the origins, uptake and diffusion of emerging social and environmental certification programs both across and within sectors. His recent publications include “Choosing How to be Green: An Examination of Domtar Inc.’s Approach to Forest Certification,” in the Journal of Strategic Management Education, 2006; and Governing Through Markets: Forest Certification and the Emergence of Non-State Authority (with Benjamin Cashore and Deanna Newsom) published by Yale University Press in 2004.

Nancy Boswell has been the Managing Director of the US chapter of Transparency International (TI), since its inception in 1994.  In addition, she serves on the Board of Directors of TI, the global non-profit coalition to curb corruption in international development and business transactions. 

Boswell works with government officials and representatives from the corporate, legal, accounting, and other sectors to promote transparency, accountability, and good governance. 

Previously, she practiced law at Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, DC, focusing on international legal and regulatory matters, including extraterritorial jurisdiction, export controls, and customs and trade disputes.  Boswell has also acted as director for congressional liaison at the American Association of University Women and was in the International Division at Citibank. 

She serves on the US State Department Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy and is a cleared advisor on the USTR Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Committee.  A member of the Executive Council of the Securities Law Committee of the Federal Bar Association and a member of the board of directors of PACT, she is also a director on the board of the International Senior Lawyers Project. 

Boswell is a graduate of American University’s Washington College of Law. 

Transparency International is a non-profit, non-partisan organization founded in 1993 to curb corruption in international transactions. Through its network of chapters in over 80 countries, TI encourages governments to implement effective anti-corruption laws and policies, promotes reform through international organizations, and raises public awareness. 

Gidon Bromberg is the Israeli Director of EcoPeace / Friends of the Earth Middle East. Friends of the Earth Middle East is a unique regional organization that brings together Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli environmentalists to promote sustainable development and advance peace efforts in the troubled Middle East. The organization has offices in Tel-Aviv, Bethlehem and Amman, employs 37 paid staff and actively involves hundreds of volunteers.

Bromberg founded the organization under the name of EcoPeace in 1994 and has been the Israeli Director ever since. In 1997 Mr. Bromberg led the entry of the organization into Friends of the Earth International. He has spear headed the advocacy campaigns of the organization both in Israel and internationally and developed the cross border community peace building program "Good Water Neighbors" that is seen as a model for other programs in conflict areas.

Bromberg speaks regularly on water, peace and security issues; including at the UN Commission for Sustainable Development; before the US House of Representatives, International Relations Committee; the European Parliament; and before the advisory meeting to the UN High Level Panel on Security. In 2007 Mr. Bromberg was invited to join the prestigious East West Institute's International Task Force for Preventive Diplomacy. Mr. Bromberg was most recently selected for the 2007 World Fellowship at Yale University on global leadership.

Bromberg is a member of the Israeli inter-ministerial committee on the future of the Dead Sea, of the Israel UNESCO World Heritage Committee and the inter-ministerial committee for Sustainable Development in Israel.

Bromberg is an attorney by profession having previously worked in public interest environmental law. He is a member of the Israel Bar Association. He holds a bachelor of Economic and a Law degree from Monash University in Australia. As a fellow of the New Israel Fund he completed a master's degree in international environmental law at the American University in Washington DC. He has published over twenty academic and popular publications concerning Middle East environmental policy and water security issues.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation aims to reduce poverty through economic growth. This mandate rests on solid empirical evidence of the relationship between growth and poverty, as well as a growing literature that documents the importance of institutional factors within developing countries in the determination of aid effectiveness. To raise incomes and lower poverty, donor assistance needs both an appropriate institutional framework and an appropriate understanding of the role of donor-funded public sector spending on accelerating economic growth.

As Chief Economist, Dr. Franck Wiebe is responsible for ensuring the quality and consistency of the analysis of economic logic and growth impact across all of MCC’s activities. The Chief Economist manages the division of Economic Analysis and Evaluation within the Department of Policy and International Relations. In this capacity, Dr. Wiebe’s responsibilities include establishing appropriate guidelines for MCC’s economic analysis that is used to assess the potential growth impact of investments proposed by partner countries. This work starts with the conduct of an analysis of constraints to growth that is used to help focus the proposal development process. Economic analysis continues through due diligence and into implementation to ensure that activities funded by MCC have a reasonable expectation of generating adequate returns. Dr. Wiebe coordinates the technical work of economists during compact development and implementation through the management of the Economics Practice Group within MCC.

Dr. Wiebe is also responsible for MCC’s investments in independent impact evaluations. In some situations, projects proposed to MCC for funding present unusual opportunities to learn more about the circumstances under which development assistance can be most cost-effective. In such cases, MCC allocates additional resources outside of the country compact budget to set in place rigorous impact evaluations by independent contractors. The Chief Economist is responsible for managing the work of the Impact Evaluation Practice Group.

Prior to joining MCC, Dr. Wiebe was Chief Economist and Director of Economic Reform and Development programs at The Asia Foundation. During his tenure at the Foundation, Wiebe expanded the Foundation’s engagement in programs aimed at enhancing the dynamism of the small business sector through regulatory reform and in sustaining Foundation programs fostering regional economic cooperation. Under his management, The Asia Foundation developed new programs directed at corporate governance reform, and designed and implemented programs to ready regional exporters for the end of quotas in garments and textiles.

Dr. Wiebe also worked for the Harvard Institute for International Development, where he served as project associate on the Customs and Economic Management Project in Jakarta, Indonesia. As a staff economist, his responsibilities included food and agricultural issues, poverty and social welfare concerns, and, during the Asian financial crisis, a range of macroeconomic issues, including inflation, exchange rate, and banking sector concerns. Previously, Wiebe was a faculty member in the Master of Public Policy Program at National University of Singapore, and has worked as a consultant for the Government of Indonesia, The World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. Dr. Wiebe’s published papers include “The Role of SMEs in Economic Development,” in Small and Medium Enterprise Development in Nepal, and “Income Insecurity and Underdevelopment in Indonesia’s Informal Sector,” Policy Research Working Paper, The World Bank. Wiebe started his work in international development more than 20 years ago as a volunteer with the Mennonite Central Committee in Bangladesh, where he managed an integrated rural development project.

Dr. Wiebe received a joint Bachelor/Master’s degree in Political Science from Northwestern University, a Master in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in development economics from the Food Research Institute at Stanford University.

View past PONPO Seminars