Sarah Dickerson, David Bohl, Barry Hughes, Mohammod Irfan, Jonathan Moyer, Kanishka Naryan, Alex Porter, Andrew Scott, and José Solórzano. 2019.

"Central America and the Carribean Regional Education Report." Invited Research Paper for USAID, Central America Mission. Developed in collaboration with Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, University of Denver, Denver, CO.

This publication was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development under task order AID-OAA-M-12-00020. It was prepared by Sarah Dickerson, David Bohl, Barry Hughes, Mohammod Irfan, Jonathan Moyer, Kanishka Naryan, Alex Porter, Andrew Scott, and José Solórzano of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures.

Alex Porter, David Bohl, Sarah Dickerson, Barry Hughes, Mohammod Irfan, Jonathan Moyer, Kanishka Naryan, Andrew Scott, and José Solórzano. 2019.

"The Future of Guatemalan Education." Invited Research Paper for USAID, Central America Mission. Developed in collaboration with Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, University of Denver, Denver, CO.

This publication was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development under task order AID-OAA-M-12-00020. It was prepared by Alex Porter, David Bohl, Sarah Dickerson, Barry Hughes, Mohammod Irfan, Jonathan Moyer, Kanishka Naryan, Andrew Scott, and José Solórzano of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures.

Alex Porter, David Bohl, Sarah Dickerson, Barry Hughes, Mohammod Irfan, Jonathan Moyer, Kanishka Naryan, Andrew Scott, and José Solórzano. 2019.

"The Future of Honduran Education." Invited Research Paper for USAID, Central America Mission. Developed in collaboration with Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, University of Denver, Denver, CO.

This publication was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development under task order AID-OAA-M-12-00020. It was prepared by Alex Porter, David Bohl, Sarah Dickerson, Barry Hughes, Mohammod Irfan, Jonathan Moyer, Kanishka Naryan, Andrew Scott, and José Solórzano of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures.

van der Lingen, D., Sibusiso N., Rafa, M., and Camp, H. (2015). "Educating Cape 2040: Building Blocks of Future Prosperity."

FuturesCape Policy Brief 2 of 2015. Western Cape Government Policy and Strategy Chief Directorate and Strategic Initiatives Chief Directorate in collaboration with the African Futures Project. Western Cape Government, Cape Town, South Africa.

This brief explores potential development paths for Western Cape education through 2040. The Base Case forecast envisions steady improvements in the retention of learners across all grades and levels of education, but the relatively slow pace of improvement threatens to leave yet another generation of learners without a complete, high-quality education. To address this, the authors identify two policy options: an expansion of the Early Childhood Development initiative, and the introduction of specialised supplementary teacher training courses.

From March 11 through 13, 300 researchers, policy-makers, foundation representatives, and business leaders from 41 countries convened at the University of Denver and the Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs for Scenarios Forum 2019, a meeting on scenarios for climate and societal futures hosted by the Korbel School’s Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures and the International Committee on New Integrated Climate change assessment Scenarios (ICONICS). Scenarios outlined by Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) and Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) formed the backbone of the discussion, but this interdisciplinary meeting brought together communities using those scenarios and others as basis for research and policy-making related to the future of our planet.

The goal of the meeting was threefold: to bring people together from different disciplines and communities using or developing scenarios; to take stock of how well the current scenarios are working; and to facilitate a link between the research and assessment communities that both use the scenarios, albeit to different ends, in their work. In addition to plenary sessions and dinners that brought all participants together, the Forum offered a series of discussions on topics ranging from governance to geoengineering to the state of the oceans, all presenting research related to the scenarios.

Professor Brian O’Neill, Director of Research at the Pardee Center and Chair of the Forum’s steering committee, says the meeting was particularly successful in uniting people from different disciplines who might never have otherwise connected, laying the groundwork for future collaboration. “There was a small existing community already, but this meeting really accelerated its growth and brought many new people together who don’t often mix.”

And he was encouraged by the cohesiveness of the meeting, despite the wide range of topics: “People found pretty much every presentation that they went to very interesting. But we also encouraged sessions to devote a lot of time to discussion, and to discuss not just the topic at hand but its relation to the themes of the meeting, which were the scenarios being used, whether they were working well, and what needed to be done to improve them.”

What’s next, he says, is synthesizing the feedback from the meeting and adjusting scenarios so that they better fulfill research needs. “We need to make the scenarios more suitable to looking at questions that go beyond climate change to other development challenges,” he says. What’s also clear is that this meeting will continue to happen at regular intervals, in various locations around the world, as more parties use the scenarios to answer big questions about the future impact of climate change.

The Scenarios Forum is an excellent example of DU’s leadership in research that connects academia with decision-makers on the ground, said Corinne Lengsfeld, Vice Provost of Research and Graduate Education, at the opening plenary session. “Over the last five years, we’ve nearly doubled research volume [at DU], and that research collaborates directly with the community,” she said.

And it goes to the broader Korbel mission, too: “Korbel excels at bringing together interdisciplinary approaches to solving the world’s complicated problems, both quantitative and qualitative,” said Acting Dean Pardis Mahdavi. “We’re asking, what does a school of international affairs look like in the 21st century? The Scenarios Forum is an example of that.”

In August 2018, Director Jonathan Moyer, Research Consultant Alex Porter, Research Associate II Andrew Scott, and Lead Systems Developer Jose Solorzano visited Guatemala and Honduras in support of the Pardee Center’s ongoing work in partnership with USAID Latin America and the Caribbean Office of Regional Sustainable Development (LAC/RSD) and Mathematica Policy Research. These research efforts seek to understand and explore trends in education systems, societal violence, labor market dynamics, and migration in Central America and the Caribbean.

Rafa, Mickey, Elizabeth Bremer, and Jonathan Moyer. 2018.

“The Future of Survival through Primary Education in Southwest Uganda”. Invited Policy Brief for USAID. Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs, University of Denver. Denver, CO.

Director Jonathan Moyer, Research Consultant Alex Porter, Research Associate II Andrew Scott, and Lead Systems Developer Jose Solorzano visited Guatemala and Honduras in support of the Pardee Center’s ongoing work in partnership with USAID Latin America and the Caribbean Office of Regional Sustainable Development (LAC/RSD) and Mathematica Policy Research. These research efforts seek to understand and explore trends in education systems, societal violence, labor market dynamics, and migration in Central America and the Caribbean.

Research Associate David Bohl spent three days (April 3-5) in Maputo, Mozambique, alongside our partners at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), to meet with representatives from Irish Aid. While in Mozambique, he and other researchers from the ISS also with met with USAID, the Canadian Embassy, and the Mozambique Ministry of Economy and Finance. The purpose of these meetings was to evaluate available data for use in country-level trend analysis, particularly those related to agriculture. These data will be used to update the International Futures (IFs) Current Path forecasts, which will be included in a report that explores long-term development trends and alternative scenarios in Mozambique.

David then traveled from Maputo to Pretoria, South Africa to attend the ISS launch of two development trends reports prepared for USAID: one focused specifically on South Africa and another that explores major trends and alternative scenarios related to governance, health, education, infrastructure and agriculture across 14 countries in the Southern Africa region. The launch event on April 6 was attended by representatives of various embassies, former diplomats, and USAID officials.

In October 2016, Pardee Center staff traveled to Addis Ababa for a week-long planning session and scenarios workshop to support USAID's Country Development Cooperation Strategy process in Ethiopia. Director Jonathan Moyer and Research Associate Andrew Scott joined our partners from the Institute for Security Studies and other members of the Ethiopian development community for a scenario-planning workshop with the USAID Futures Team.

The Pardee Center and ISS are preparing a trends report, using the International Futures (Ifs) model, exploring Ethiopia’s development trajectory to 2030. Ethiopia faces large human capital challenges related to low education levels, undernutrition, and lack of access to clean water and sanitation facilities. Ethiopia's ability to respond to these challenges over medium term will increase because of declining foreign aid as a share of total GDP, coupled with high informal economic activity and a low tax base.

The workshop and meetings served as a foundation to discuss the current development situation in Ethiopia and begin to think about different future scenarios around Ethiopia's development trajectory.

USAID