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Current as of August 31, 2020

PADM 5450. International Public and NGO Management:

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This seminar is a combined in-person and distance course, using Webpages, text chat, e-mail, and video conferencing as well as in-person discussion sessions. It will begin on 3 September 2020.

The course will be taught in-person and on-line on Tuesday and Thursday, starting on 3 September 2020 from 16:55-18:215 on-line and in Kennedy Hall 106.

John Mathiason photo

Dr. John Mathiason's background

This course is offered by John Mathiason (jrm534@cornell.edu) , Adjunct Professor at CIPA since 2012. He is also Board Chair of DeftEdge, formerly known as Associates for International Management Services, a consulting company providing advice and training to international organizations and not-for-profit institutions, including the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, the United Nations Secretariat, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification,the Office of the High Commissioner for Human rights, the International Labour Organization, the United Nations Population Fund, the AARP, Disabled People's International, the SSM Foundation of the Dominican Republic, the Ministry of Family, Youth and Children of the Government of Panama, the Equal Opportunity Commission of Hong Kong, the United Nations Development Programme in Ecuador, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and the Club of Madrid. He was lead evaluator of the Independent External Evaluation of the ILO Evaluation Function, the review of the Management and Accountability System of the United Nations Development System, the Global Program against Money-Laundering of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the results-based management system of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the mid-term evaluation of the 10-Year Strategy of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. He is the team leader for external evaluation quality assessment for UNFPA and for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. He is a member of the External Evaluation Panel of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

He was a staff member of the United Nations Secretariat for thirty years, the last ten as Deputy Director of the Division for the Advancement of Women, responsible for managing support to negotiations leading up to the Fourth World Conference on Women including involvement of NGO's. He has taught and written extensively on international governance issues, including governing the Internet (as part of the Internet Governance Project), effective management of international arms control verification regimes and results-based management in international organizations. He supervised an evaluation of the results of the UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID). He has been the lead consultant or member for three United Nations expert group meetings, on promoting empowerment of people in 2012, on empowerment and ICT in 2013 on Rethinking and Strengthening Social Development in the Contemporary World: Progress in Advancing Social Development and Lessons Learned in 2014.

He is co-author of Elimination ofWeapons of Mass Destruction: Prospects for Effective International Verification, published by Palgrave in March 2005 and author of Invisible Governance: International Secretariats in Global Politics ( Kumarian Press, 2007). His book entitled Internet Governance: A New Frontier for International Institutions for the Routledge series on international institutions was published in August 2008. He was the first editor-in-chief of the Journal of International Organizations Studies where he prepared a special edition on management of climate change. He drafts the chapter on the General Assembly for Oxford University Press' Annual Review of United Nations Affairs. He has a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Synopsis of the Course

The new international order evolving in the Twenty-First Century involves governments, international organizations and non-governmental organizations. It includes a vibrant and growing international public sector that is taking on an increasing number of management and regulatory functions. Government management has been studied for centuries, that of international organizations very little and of international non-governmental organizations not at all. The management of these organizations is becoming a key issue as the international public sector grows. Management is increasingly "results-based" where organizations are expected to plan strategically, program tactically and monitor and evaluate outcomes leading to the achievement of concrete objectives.

The course focuses on how international public and non-governmental organizations strategically plan and manage five key functions: regime creation, norm enforcement, peace, security and humanitarian assistance, development assistance and internal management. The course is the first of a two course sequence on results-based management in international public and NGO organizations. The second course is PADM 5345, Evaluation of International Programs and Projects which focuses on verifying that programs have achieved their intended results.

Regime creation involves processes of multilateral negotiation to reach systematic agreements to deal with specific issues in which non-governmental organizations play an increasing role. Norm enforcement includes the use of such tools as reporting, observation, dispute resolution and good offices to implement the norms included in regimes, where the role of non-governmental organizations like Amnesty international are central. Peace, security and humanitarian assistance are services provided when Nation-States are unable or unwilling to provide them and international organizations, public and NGO take over the job. Development is seen as international public investment and regulation to support national development efforts and internal management is the function of keeping international organizations effective.

Topics include the nature of global governance and the role of non-governmental organizations. How management of international public and NGO management differs from national and private management and principles of multilateral negotiation and the role of NGOs. For regime creation processes case studies include the global climate change regime, including environmental NGOs and the verification regime for elimination of weapons of mass destruction, and the role of the peace movement. Norm enforcement case studies include human rights, with an emphasis on women's human rights and the role of Amnesty International and the women's movement and on the WIPO domain name dispute resolution process and the role of the Internet Society and others. Case studies of mobilization of information include international policy analysis through the World Development Report of the World Bank and The World Survey on the Role of Women in Development, including the role of NGOs. In addition to a paper analyzing the management of an international public or non-governmental organization, the course includes a simulation based on creating a new international organization for the verifictionof the Climate Change Convention that will provide skills in strategic planning and budgeting using results-based management tools.

 

 

 

 



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