International Development: Breaking into the field

fence

How to launch a satisfying career in international development

I am often asked how to break into the field of international development.  In this post I’m going to address this question. I’m going to assume that you are interested in doing interesting work and having a satisfying career as an independent consultant. In an effort to keep things short, I’m going to zero in on the three things I consider the most critical.

Get a graduate degree in a related field

Because of the vast number of issues covered in international development, a degree in practically any field, from economics to health to statistics to law to education, will be useful. However, degrees in some fields are likely to open up more opportunities than others. This is either because they are more broadly transferrable, or because there is a lot of work in this sector.  In the first category I would include anything related to economics, statistics, sociology, public policy, or international relations. In the second category, I would include agriculture, health, education, finance, water and energy. However, the farther along you are in your career, the less the specific degree matters. When I work with team members who have at least 5 to 10 years of experience, what they studied all those years ago is often more of a conversation starter than anything else.

When you are just starting out, expect to have shorter contracts and do more work that involves research. If you don’t have a lot of experience yet, being hired to do a desk review may be a common entry point. This is not a bad thing at all, however. It enables you to become familiar with and build expertise in a particular subject, while demonstrating that you are reliable and have good writing skills. (This last is important). With time, you will start working as a specialist or team leader

Be willing to travel anywhere

Travel abroad is obviously a big part of a career in this field. For some assignments, it can mean a foreign posting, for others it may involve months on end away from home. However, in many cases trips last from one to several weeks.

The more willing you are to go to less desirable places and stay there for longer periods, the better your chances of finding work.  Think of it as paying your dues. I have friends who, for family reasons, were unable to take on long-term assignments in challenging countries (like Iraq or Afghanistan) and were stymied in their career goals. I have others who spent a year or more in some of the world’s least desirable countries, and it opened doors for them.

Let people know you exist

people-cooperation

Finally, people simply need to know that you exist.  From a strictly mathematical perspective, the more people in the field who come across your CV or, better yet, meet you in person, the more likely you are to find work.

So put your CV in the public realm. You have various options here. For a monthly fee, you can post your CV on Devex.com and other websites, such as Assortis (for work in Europe). Create a LinkedIn profile. Many consulting firms also ask you to upload your CV and other data onto their company websites, which they then check when trying to find consultants. Applying to specific jobs is another way of getting noticed. Even if you don’t get the assignment – a fair number of job advertisements seem to be pro-forma, with a preferred candidate already selected – many organizations will keep your CV on file and may contact you about other opportunities in the future. Of course, if you have a blog or a book out there, or have won an award in your field, you have opened up a whole new platform on which to stand and let the world know who you are.

I have found that a highly effective way of addressing this existential issue is meeting people face to face. It may appear counterintuitive in our digital age, but making that personal connection remains important. Perhaps it is related to the fact that everyone is now adept at curating their online persona; meeting people in the flesh, where self-editing is more difficult, is a more reliable gauge of character.  I have found work because I happened to meet someone at a party, because I shared an office with them for a few days, or because I was introduced to them at a dinner with friends. Of course, qualifications matter, but it seems that the crucial factor was first getting a sense of the person.  This informality, and serendipity, still plays a large role in moving along the career path.

There are many ways of getting out and meeting people. Here are some:

  • Attend events, seminars, BBLs in the international development field.
  • Join a professional association (I belong to the American Evaluation Association and the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, among others) and attend their events and conferences
  • Send out emails to people working in your field (blind calls). Although many won’t respond, some will. And those that do will tend to be the kind ones who are interested in helping others.
  • Request informational meetings through people you know, and thus expand your circle of contacts.
  • Go to more parties and dinners!

If you need some tips on taking a a healthy approach to and getting the most out of networking, , I recommend the book Make Your Contacts Count.

In another post, I’ll discuss some of the keys to getting repeated work in the field.

Good luck!

 

Nils Junge September 19, 2016

Consulting / International development / networking /

Argentina tries and fails to raise its extremely low utility prices

Argentina - Gov House - Casa-rosada

Well, it’s happened again, to paraphrase the Car Talk guys from NPR: someone has wasted another perfectly good opportunity to do tariff reforms properly.

This time, the Government of Argentina is in the hot seat. The Economist reported that the government recently tried to quadruple the price of gas and raise the price of electricity sixfold. It did so just as autumn set in, when customers heating bills go up anyway. Protests erupted, predictably enough. Reducing subsidies or raising prices is a balancing act requiring

Now, raising the price of anything by 400% or 600% at one go may sound extreme. But Argentina’s utility prices have been at rock bottom for a long time. They are a a legacy of populist measures under the previous Kirchner regimes. In fact, the cost of electricity per kWh is just 1 cent per kWh, compared with 16 cents in Brazil and 12 cents in Chile. The previous governments had kept prices artificially low through massive state subsidies, which ballooned to 12.3% of government spending by 2014. A nice parting gift to the new administration of President Mauricio Macri. This is a precious use of public resources that could be put to far better use elsewhere. The Economist noted that the subsidies were costing the government $16 billion a year.

When a commodity is so cheap, it also tends to be wasted. Who is going to turn the lights off when you will hardly notice the difference in your bill? A knock-on effect is rolling blackouts, as power producers struggle to generate enough supply.

With mounting opposition to the price hikes on August 18, the Supreme Court ordered the increases blocked. According to the Financial Times , the grounds for the decision were that the gas price increase “violated the right to participation by consumers in the form of public hearings in the revision of tariffs.”

And so yet another chapter can be added to the story of how not to raise utility prices. There is a long list of governments failing in this particular endeavor.

What could the Macri government have done differently? Lessons from efforts by other countries to introduce price reforms could have been studied. They boil down to taking some basic measures. A few, but not all of them relate to the Supreme Court’s comments:

  • Engage in consultations with key stakeholders
  • Offer some concessions, instead of imposing the changes by fiat
  • Study the potential impacts, preferably using multiple tools – surveys, focus groups, stakeholder consultations – and doing so in an open, manner.
  • Time price increases better, so they didn’t kick in right at the time when usage is highest, i.e. with the cold weather season starting
  • Do a better job of communicating your rationale for raising prices
  • Introduce measures to mitigate the impact on those most affected

Of course, none of the above would have guaranteed that the price increase would have stuck. But preparing better would have considerably reduced the risk of failure, while also addressing public concerns. The failure to both raise prices and to consult more with consumers may effectively cost the government billions of dollars. That is money which could be spent on a host of other areas the country needs to invest in.

Nils Junge September 3, 2016