Harvard Institute For International Development

Even as PepsiCo, international agencies and embassies pull out of Burma, a country whose military dictatorship is believed to be guilty of human rights violations, at least one organization is going in.

The Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID), a 22-year-old think-tank dedicated to helping nations join the global economy, is currently planning a research mission into the embattled Southeast Asian country.

The Burma project, to be funded by the Japanese government, will consist of field research by international experts in economic development.

Although the group will not work directly with the Burmese government, activist groups protesting foreign investment in Burma are wary of HIID's involvement, fearing that the groups' work will lead to Burmese investments by the Japanese government.

"As long as [the Burmese military government] is in power, no investment or development assistance will help the Burmese people," says Marco B. Simons '97, an organizer of the Harvard Burma Action Group.

According to Jeffrey D. Sachs '76, director of HIID, such fears are completely unfounded. The mission, he says, will under no circumstances provide analysis of potential Burmese investments for the Japanese government.

While the politics of developing nations are often complex, this level of controversy is unusual for HIID. The group's activities, funded by outside parties, often foreign governments, generally focus on less politically charged areas.

The group's goals encompass its three basic missions: researching, advising and teaching.

When a client hires the group, HIID sends staff members to the nation under study for an extended period, typically upwards of two years, during which time the researchers become intimately familiar with the country's economy, infrastructure, educational systems, health facilities, environmental state or any of dozens of potential areas of study.

Meanwhile, experts in HIID's offices at the Kennedy School of Government, with the help of agents in the field, do additional research and coordinate activities.

As it compiles results, HIID prepares reports, advises governments, trains foreign experts and teaches about its findings and experiences in Harvard's schools.

Three Goals

According to Sachs, the three missions of HIID--researching, advising and teaching--are all fundamentally interrelated. In order to do one well, HIID has to do all three, he says.

"It is important in teaching to be involved, to understand what is going on, and in order to give advice, you must be on the cutting edge of research and scholarship. We see all of these things as being closely linked," Sachs says.

Mike Romer, an HIID associate who has been working on development issues including macroeconomics, trade and industrialization since 1970, says having multiple missions all over the world gives HIID staffers greater perspective on the intricacies of growth.

"Having an international economic perspective is very helpful to developing countries and the experience of working directly with these nations is very useful at Harvard," Romer says.

Since Sachs became director of HIID, the group's mission of research has replaced the former top priority of service in the field, Romer adds.

No one is entirely sure how the new focus will work in practice, Romer says, but the theory behind the change is that a more scholarly perspective will give HIID's workers more authority as advisors and teachers.

On the Job

The most valuable thing HIID has to offer its clients is the experience of its staff, Romer says. HIID associates have extensive academic and practical experience in specialized areas of international development, enabling them to give their clients the best possible advice.

About half of HIID's tenured staff has been working at the institute for more than 20 years, Romer says, and very few have been working there for under seven or eight years.

All tenured staff members have doctorates in areas of social science and most have worked before as political advisors.

"Experience is most of what we do," Romer says.

HIID's approach to on-site research is designed to help staff members apply past experience to work as advisors in specialized situations, Romer says. HIID staff members spend a great deal of time traveling to and living in the countries they study, typically spending at least two years there.

"You have to know enough about the country you're working in to apply your knowledge correctly," Romer says.

Most often, work is done in the capital cities of the nations, but researchers also spend time in the countryside finding out how policies directly affect the citizens.

"You get the greatest leverage in the capital, but if you don't know what is going on in the countryside, you may exert your efforts in the wrong direction," Romer says.

Through their field research, HIID staff members gain a great deal of experience in a specific country and use what they learn there to formulate general theories which guide their work in other states, Sachs says.

"Nations want to know what other governments are doing so they can share experience," Sachs says.

On-going Projects

While some HIID initiatives are short-term research or advising projects, some of their most successful efforts have been the products of long-term associations with developing nations or with specific international problems, Sachs says.

HIID's greatest long-term success story comes from its efforts in Indonesia, Romer says. The institute has been working in the Pacific Rim nation since the 1960s and has seen a dramatic turnaround in Indonesia's economic infrastructure.

HIID has helped Indonesia with agricultural and urban development, small loans for businesses, tax reform, education and public health initiatives. Staff members have served as consultants to the Indonesian government, working closely with key policy-makers, Romer says.

According to Sachs, the results have been impressive. Among developing nations, Indonesia is among those with the greatest reduction of poverty and fastest growing literacy and education rates. At least partially as a result of HIID's work, the nation has seen an increase in life expectancy, massive internal market reform and sweeping changes to its tax code.

HIID also often works internationally on specific cross-border issues such as environmental cleanup and preservation. Theodore Panayotou, an 11-year veteran of HIID who specializes in economic and environmental issues, says he has recently been working to coordinate carbon gas emission policies between the United States and certain South American countries.

Also, Panayotou says he has researched methods of balancing the development of recently democratized Eastern European nations against communism's legacy of massive environmental devastation.

Maintaining a broad international perspective is key in such environmental initiatives because the problems involved tend to affect the entire globe and involve disparate and complex regulations from the many nations involved, he says.

Global Results

Possibly as difficult as giving good advice is getting governments to follow it, Sachs says.

With some of its projects, including its Indonesian study, HIID has enjoyed the long-term support of the government and has helped to promote renewal in the nation. In other places, however, shifting politics, often exacerbated by short-term economic difficulties, haa meant that much of HIID's advice goes unheeded, Romer says.

Romer worked in Kenya for many years when he first came to HIID, helping the African nation make important economic reforms in order to stabilize its economy.

While the changes helped Kenya appear more attractive to foreign investors, netting it more foreign aid than it would have received otherwise, political changes precipitated by short-term difficulties caused the aid to be spent unwisely, Romer says.

"It's a continual theme," Romer says. "You always look at the long-term, but you must be cognizant of the short term because it can destroy the long-term."

Panayotou says balancing short-and long-term success is of vital importance in environmental cleanup efforts. In the nations in which the greatest harm to the environment has been done, it is often not economically feasible to repair all of the damage immediately.

He adds that it is also important for currently abusive nations to be given material incentives to help encourage their transition to new, environmentally friendly regulations.

For example, Panayotou said he has worked out plans to provide compensation for those who have made their living through the deforestation of South American rain forests so that they will be more likely to honor new environmental laws.

The Politics of Growth

Beyond the difficulty of convincing governments to apply the suggestions of its advisors, HIID's position occasionally becomes insecure with the political upheaval that often occurs in developing nations, Sachs says.

The biggest enemy to reform is most often the election year. Sachs says, for example, that much of HIID's work in Russia is jeopardized by the upcoming elections in that country.

"Sometimes we are forced to leave and once in a while we are thrown out [of a country]," Sachs says. "We just try to choose our projects carefully."

But by virtue of its financial dependence on outside clients, HIID cannot be in a place where it is not wanted for long, Sachs says.

In defense of HIID's decision to work in Burma, Sachs adds that the acceptance of the Burmese mission was made only after careful deliberation and accepted on the condition that the think-tank would not interact in any way with the Burmese military government.

As a matter of long-standing policy, HIID will not work with governments which are guilty of human rights violations, such as the one now in power in Burma, though it will work in nations where human rights violations occur, Sachs says.

"On analysis and research we will go anywhere," Sachs said. "We will not advise governments with violations of human rights. I want Harvard students and the Burmese community here to know that we are on the same side."