News & Announcements

Dr. Ian Bremmer, expert in political risk and founder of the Eurasia Group, gave a seminar sponsored by the the Future of Diplomacy Project on Thursday, November 9 at the Harvard Kennedy School, titled “Managing Risk in an Unstable World."

By 2099 the nature of democratic politics could change in costly ways for politicians because of climate change, according to Nick Obradovich, research fellow with Harvard Kennedy School’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy program. Leveraging a century’s worth of political science research, he predicts in an article in Springer’s journal Climatic Change that voters’ disgruntlement about the societal effects of climatic extremes and weather-related disasters they experience will translate into more frequent turnover of political parties elected in and out of office, and will keep politicians of especially warmer, poorer countries more on their toes than is currently the case.

The Right Honourable Douglas Alexander offered his views on European security in a discussion moderated by FDP Executive Director Cathryn Cluver.

As part of the India and South Asia Program’s annual speaker series, Ambassador MaleehaLodhi, the Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the United Nations discussed her country’s regional agenda.

In this installment of “Inside the Middle East: Q&A,” Dr. Abbas Al-Mejren, Kuwait Foundation Visiting Scholar at the Middle East Initiative and Professor of Economics at Kuwait University, discusses economic development plans in Kuwait and Gulf Cooperation Council countries, including poverty alleviation and rationalizing subsidies.

Washington Post Opinion Writer and Senior Fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project, David Ignatius, delivered an address entitled “Covering the Obama Administration in the Fog of Foreign Policy” and led a breakfast seminar with experts, students, and fellows on September 18. He explored current trends in the Middle East, critical factors at play in the negotiations with Iran, the West’s relationship with Russia and positive developments in the US-China relationship.

Following Hurricane Katrina, the Belfer Center's Broadmoor Project was developed by then Belfer Center Senior Fellow Doug Ahlers to work with the Broadmoor neighborhood to rebuild the devastated community. Highly successful, Broadmoor is now a model of recovery, almost 90 percent rebuilt, with a new charter school, library, and community center. (See Broadmoor Project.)

With Ahlers vision and leadership, the Broadmoor Project has also helped other disaster-struck communities. Here, Ahlers describes how the Broadmoor model is currently assisting in the recovery of three Chilean communities nearly destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami of 2010. The genesis of the Recupera Chile initiative is described below.

We Shall Not Be Moved, released in August 2012, is an account of how five New Orleans neighborhoods rebuilt in the years following Hurricane Katrina. Focusing on recovery efforts in the hard-hit neighborhoods of Broadmoor, Hollygrove, Lakeview, the Lower Ninth Ward, and Village de l'Est, author Tom Wooten, a research fellow with the Belfer Center's Broadmoor Project, tells the story of this rebirth through the eyes, voices, and experiences of residents who refused to give up in the wake of one of the country’s worst disasters.

Five years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, one stand-out recovery success story is the neighborhood of Broadmoor and its unique collaboration with Harvard Kennedy School through the Belfer Center's "Broadmoor Project." While the determined community continues its renewal today, Broadmoor has become a model of disaster recovery efforts for other neighborhoods, cities, and even countries.