Poverty, Infrastructure and Climate

Lack of access to physical infrastructure such as roads, water supply and electricity is a key element of how 'poverty' is often defined. At the same time, the causal pathways that link infrastructure and economic development are not well understood, and are likely being re-shaped by a changing climate. Students in this course will contribute to a new initiative on poverty, infrastructure and climate change by (1) reviewing and synthesizing literature from relevant scholarly communities, (2) co-creating a conceptual causal model of the ways in which infrastructure (particularly roads and water assets) contributes to poverty alleviation, and (3) contributing to the design of applied research effort on these topics in sub-Saharan Africa. Students who opt for the 3-unit enrollment will have an additional supervised project that could take the form of a review paper, research proposal, or analysis of secondary data. There are no formal pre-requisites for the class; students from all schools and departments are welcome. Enrollment requires permission of the instructors. Interested students are invited to submit an application at https://tiny.cc/EPIC-Stanford.