Please join the State Department’s Learning Agenda launch, hosted by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.    

The Learning Agenda is an unprecedented effort by the Department to institutionalize evidence-based learning and implement the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 (“Evidence Act”).  The Evidence Act requires federal agencies to develop a “learning agenda” – a systematic plan to answer a set of policy-relevant questions critical to achieving the agency’s strategic objectives.  It will guide the Department’s efforts over the next four years across eight questions to increase the impact of U.S. foreign policy and bolster the Secretary of State’s modernization efforts. The event will feature a keynote address followed by a panel of foreign policy and evidence-building experts for a thoughtful discussion on addressing Learning Agenda Questions 1 and 2:   

1. How can the State Department improve the effectiveness of its diplomatic interventions to better advance foreign policy objectives?   

2. How can the Department improve the effectiveness and sustainability of its foreign assistance efforts? 

Keynote Speaker: Ambassador Victoria Nuland, Under Secretary for Political Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.   

Panel to include: 

• Barbara Bodine, Director and Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy of the Georgetown University Institute for the Study of Diplomacy  
• David Connolly, Director of Learning, Evaluation and Research at the U.S. Institute of Peace
• Eric Rosenbach, Co-Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School 
• Douglas Pitkin, Director of the Bureau of Budget & Planning (BP) at the U.S. Department of State (Closing Remarks)
• Dafna Rand, Director of the Office of Foreign Assistance (F) at the U.S. Department of State  (moderator)

Please join the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and German Council on Foreign Relations’ (DGAP) launch event for the release of the joint report entitled, “Stronger Together: A Strategy for Revitalizing Transatlantic Power,” with Daniela Schwarzer, Director of the German Council on Foreign Relations, Victoria Nuland, Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, and Nicholas Burns, Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations at Harvard Kennedy School.

This publication is the culmination of a year-long project that convened a strategy group of experts and former government officials from the United States and Europe to discuss the crisis in the transatlantic relationship and propose a strategy to revive and strengthen it.  

The project’s report and eight individual action plans argue that after years of mistrust, recrimination and division, the bridge across the Atlantic should be “built back better.” But the U.S. and Europe cannot simply rebuild the ties of a previous era if we are to succeed in meeting today’s challenges. The transatlantic relationship must be rebuilt and reimagined. Our institutions must be strengthened. As the U.S. embraces its allies again, Europe too must rethink its approach to some fundamental issues. 

The task is urgent. The world needs a more powerful and purposeful transatlantic alliance to drive a new global agenda.   

Please use this link to register for the Zoom meeting. 

Join us for a conversation with Ambassador Victoria Nuland, Senior Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and Ambassador Philippe Etienne, Ambassador of France to the United States and diplomatic adviser to the President of the French Republic.

This event will be moderated by Nicholas Burns, Faculty Chair, Future of Diplomacy Project and the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship.