In the fourth quarter of 2021, South Africa's unemployment rate rose to 35%, the highest since 2008. Though some of the job losses could be attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic, the country had already been experiencing high unemployment due to a slow growing economy. The news was worse for the country's youth. Of the 20.6 million people aged 15 to 34 years, 44.7% were neither employed nor in an education or a training program. South Africa's 2030 National Development Plan called for the creation of 11 million jobs between 2010 and 2030. This meant adding 600,000 jobs per year, but the country's economy had only produced 250,000 jobs per year, on average, between 2010 and 2020. In South Africa, young, first-time, job-seekers faced multiple hurdles to finding employment. Youth often lacked job-readiness skills-the behavioral and personal readiness to find and keep a job-and had low formal educational attainment, causing employers to be wary of hiring. In addi-tion, the country's minimum wage was a high proportion of average occupational salaries, providing further disincentives for employers to hire inexperienced workers. Also, workers in South Africa enjoyed significant legal protections to prevent unfair terminations, so employers risked incurring high costs associated with retaining workers later found to be unsuitable. Employers often tried to lower their risk by recruiting over-qualified or over-educated workers, which entrenched exclusion. During its first ten years, Harambee worked to match youth to jobs. The organization analyzed a job to define the specific competencies required, recruited excluded young people and tested them to determine if they possessed those competencies and if so, effected a match. If they did not have the competencies, defined the gap and determine the fastest, most efficient way to train them and move them into the job. This approach led to the organization's initial success but by 2016, its leaders recognized that it was imperative

IDinsight, an evaluation company founded by graduates of the Harvard Kennedy School, designs and conducts evaluations that best suit the needs of clients across the developing world, offering timely and rigorous evidence to help decision making. In 2014, USAID approached IDinsight to conduct an evaluation of an affordable solar lantern developed by another social organization, d.light. IDinsight would have to assess whether d.light's innovation was worth subsidizing and scaling in other parts of Africa and the world. This case describes the decisions and challenges IDinsight faced when conducting the evaluation and presents the results of the evaluation for students to consider. This case includes a 10:45 min. video where Neil Buddy Shah, CEO and Co-Founder of IDinsight, describes the company's approach to evaluating anti-poverty programs in developing countries. Shah also explains what evaluation design was ultimately chosen, why, and what the results of the evaluation were. Segments from the video can be used as a way to reveal this information as part of the class discussion.

In 2013, Educate Girls (an Indian nonprofit working to increase the number of girls enrolled and learning in school), partnered with Instiglio, a startup specializing in financial instruments for social programs in developing countries to create the first Development Impact Bond-a financial instrument similar to a Social Impact Bond. UBS Optimus, a Swiss foundation, agreed to act as the investor and the London-based Children's Investment Fund Foundation would reimburse UBS Optimus' initial investment and pay returns if Educate Girls met or exceeded a set of predetermined goals. Instiglio would broker the deal and IDinsight, a new evaluation organization would conduct the evaluation. Agreeing on the evaluation design, however, proved challenging. An evaluation was vital to the DIB because success payments hinged on its findings, but Educate Girls was concerned that the investors and evaluators were not considering the realities of program implementation when proposing complex evaluation methods. Whereas, the investors and evaluators were not interested in backing a DIB where the impact findings could be open to question. This case places students in the decision room with the DIB parties and asks them to grapple with the tradeoffs social organizations and evaluators often have to face. The 8-minute video supplement can be used toward the end of the class discussion to reveal to students how the parties resolved their differences and signed on to the DIB.

This 9-page version of Seizing the Moment primarily differs from the original in omitting a 4-page section that describes the early, confusing stages of Myanmar's democratization process. This leadership case is set in the spring of 2016 and gives students the chance to grapple with the difficult challenges confronting Myanmar's opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, after a rapid turn of fortune took her, over a period of six years, from longtime prisoner of conscience to civilian head of state in Myanmar. The case describes the nature of Suu KyI's political role in Myanmar during her many years of house arrest and then shows how that role shifted in the years following her release. With freedom and an increase in formal power came new dilemmas, for example, whether to take an oath to a problematic Constitution, how to manage her star power vis-à-vis Myanmar President Thein Sein, and how to address intercommunal violence between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, an unpopular ethnic minority in Rakhine state. (See HKS case Fallen Idol? Aung San Suu Kyi & the Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis (2139.0) for a more detailed treatment of this last issue, which devolved into a desperate humanitarian catastrophe in August and September of 2017. Another two-part HKS case, Icon of Hope A/B (1685.0, 1686.0), focuses on Suu Kyi's early adult life and transformation from an expatriate living a quiet life in Oxford, England to an opposition leader and icon for democracy and human rights.)

In 2010, Martha Johnson, new Administrator of the General Services Agency (GSA), advanced the Zero Environmental Footprint (ZEF) initiative-a sustainability initiative to render GSA's activities environmentally neutral, agency-wide. She and her leadership team initiated a high-profile renovation project-dubbed the Extreme Challenge-at the agency's headquarters-one which sought to consolidate all GSA employee office space in the Washington, D.C. region into a single federal building. Doing so would require nothing short of a major organizational change effort within GSA, one which, if successful, could potentially serve as a model for other U.S. federal agencies looking to transform the way in which government employees organized themselves within modern office spaces. A year later, the agency approached a crucial moment in its evolution as a number of key leadership and organizational change questions needed to be answered: Could GSA execute on the vision put forth by Johnson's senior leadership team? Were the steps taken to date the right ones in setting the tone and preparing the agency for success? And what additional steps or strategies would need to be undertaken to ensure that the $5.5 billion investment in the Extreme Challenge would succeed, even as GSA pursued a longer-term vision of net zero impact through ZEF? The 13-min. video supplement includes 5 short segments exploring various aspects of the ZEF initiative. In it, Martha Johnson and her team describe their vision for the new office space and the challenges involved in changing the organizational culture at GSA. The videos also include footage of the old headquarters and examples of the new workspaces, as well some of the visual aids being used to increase staff engagement.

This case, about creating a startup with a social mission, is designed to help students think through the strategic alignment of public value, legitimacy/support, and operational capacity in a simple context. Together with an in-class video "reveal," the case package follows the thinking of two Masters of Public Policy graduates as they create TurboVote, a nonprofit service designed to increase voter turnout by sending subscribers reminders and helping them register and vote by mail. The case shows that-despite a straightforward business idea-the young founders had to address consequential choices. The written case includes background information about the voter turnout problem and ends with the TurboVote leaders contemplating the basics of a business plan-in particular, the options and implications of different financing models. The case package includes a set of three short videos. "Meet the Founders" (5:37 min) provides a brief introduction to the two protagonists. Students will want to read the case and watch this video before class. The other two videos (4:45 min and 4:09 min, respectively) are designed to be played by the instructor partway through class. The first reveals how the founders approached some key strategic choices. In the second, they reflect on their decisions, particularly in terms of funding, and talk briefly about their hoped-for path forward. The instructor may play these videos separately or together, and follow them up with further discussion.

Due to proposed long-term cuts in the United States Department of Defense (DOD) budget, the DOD prioritized improving efficiencies, reducing overhead, and eliminating redundancies within its many commands. Accordingly, the Commander of Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC), the support command responsible for equipping the Air Force to keep it ready for war, assembled a small team, led by AFMC's Vice Commander, Lieutenant General Janet Wolfenbarger, to examine their options. Her team proposed to reorganize the command to align with the Secretary of Defense's efficiency mandate. Even so, Wolfenbarger anticipated opposition to the plan since it called for the elimination of seven of twelve AFMC centers-a move that would require support from the AFMC leadership, the Air Force, the DOD and Congress. Wolfenbarger knew she would need to draw on her lifetime of military leadership experience to accomplish her mission of successfully reorganizing AFMC. This case illustrates how a leader's life experiences shape their values and principles and how those personal and professional values can influence a leadership and management challenge. The case is accompanied by a two-part video supplement featuring an in-depth interview with General Janet Wolfenbarger. Part 1 (9:35 min.) focuses on the values that shaped Gen. Wolfenbarger's career early on, culminating when she became the first woman to achieve the rank of four-star general in the U.S. Air Force. Part 2 (15:47 min.) includes six short segments where Gen. Wolfenbarger talks about the specific leadership and implementation strategies she used to bring about the reorganization of the Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC), and shares insights about challenges and lessons learned.

The bulk of the case consists of background material, explaining why the Bush Administration favored the negotiation of such a pact, though it reversed 30 years of US foreign policy with respect to nuclear weapons proliferation. It summarizes several important topics, crucial to understanding the issues involved in the negotiation of the joint statement: the history of US-Indian relations, India's history with respect to nuclear weapons, and issues in the international nuclear non-proliferation agreements. It gives an example of the kind of word-smithing Burns and Saran would have to engage in, to complete the joint statement. And it explains, in brief, five areas of particular difficulty that the two diplomats would have to address in some fashion. A brief sequel describes an 11th hour crisis in the negotiation and its resolution, provides the text of the final joint agreement, and very briefly summarizes the final outcome of the three-year negotiation that followed. Case Number 2023.0 A 12.5-minute video short, featuring U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, Nicholas Burns and Indian Foreign Secretary, Shyam Saran, two of the protagonists of the early negotiations that resulted in the India-U.S. Joint Statement of July 2005, provide a behind-the-scenes look at the process that led to that groundbreaking agreement. From the initial distrust between the U.S. and India to the way in which compromises were found to address the two countries' seemingly irreconcilable priorities, Burns and Saran vividly recall the many tense moments and intricate wordsmithing that characterized the meetings and the down-to-the-wire conclusion of the first round of negotiations.

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This negotiations case describes the approach, over time, of Santa Clara, a small Pueblo Indian tribe in New Mexico, to recover a piece of land tribal leaders viewed as integral to their ancestral homeland. Unlike many negotiations cases, which concern the strategizing of two or more powerful players, this case describes the evolving strategy of a small, marginal player, striving mightily for a seat at a negotiating table dominated by several powerful interests. Initially taking a rights-based line of attack, the Santa Clara Pueblo eventually adopted a more strategic approach, seeking to understand the perspective of the U.S. Forest Service, the New Mexico Congressional delegation, and other important stakeholders, and to frame its arguments in a way the agency representatives and politicians would find most compelling. The case ends partway through the final, detailed negotiation between Santa Clara and the U.S. Forest Service, when a tense standoff arose. At this juncture, Santa Clara faced a difficult choice-whether to accept a partial win, to walk away, or to fight for more and perhaps risk losing all. A brief sequel describes what Santa Clara did, what the U.S. Forest Service did, and the resolution ultimately embraced by both sides. Case number 2021.0

Set in the fall of 2012, this leadership case gives students the chance to grapple with the difficult challenges confronting Myanmar's opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, after a rapid turn of fortune that took her, over a period of 14 months, from longtime prisoner of conscience to opposition leader in Parliament, openly discussed as the possible future president of Myanmar. The case describes Suu Kyi's political role in Myanmar during her many years of house arrest and in the two years following her release.

In October 2010, the beating of a 30-year-old bonded laborer-his punishment for staying home sick from work-in India's northwestern state of Rajasthan triggered a movement to end the practice of bonded labor in the area. A holdover from feudal times, bonded labor was outlawed in India in 1976, but was still prevalent in some pockets of rural India. Entrenched power systems protected the practice, with the lower castes most affected. In this case, the bonded workers were members of an indigenous tribe called the Sahariyas. The case explores the negotiating strategy used by Sahariya village activist Gyarsi Bai and her allies to fight a powerful landowning community and a local government administration unresponsive to appeals from the poor. It describes how Bai built coalitions with larger activist groups and worked with them to gain media visibility and secure support at the state and national levels. These alliances pressured village authorities to make changes. Two years later, bonded labor continued to exist in the area, but a growing number of laborers had sought and received official freedom. In addition, a set of modest options-a local grain bank, village-run system of microcredit, and an expanded government work guarantee-gave bonded laborers viable alternatives to the debt trap of the past. The case also shows how larger activist groups were effective at finding strategies that enabled the Sahariyas to be agents for their own change.

""Cracking Oyster (A)" is the first part of a two part case set, "Cracking Oyster (A) and (B)," intended for a two-class sequence, but the (A) case may also be taught on its own. It is accompanied by a brief, two-part video companion piece with a total length of six-and-a-half minutes. The (A) case introduces Shashi Verma (MPP '97) in 2006, soon after he has received a plum appointment: Director of Fares and Ticketing for London's super agency, Transport for London. The centerpiece of the agency's ticketing operation was the "Oyster Card," developed and managed under the terms of a 1998-2015 PFI (Private Finance Initiative) contract called "Prestige." Thus, in pursuing his goals for TfL ticketing-a reduction of costs, expanded service, and adoption of convenient, lower cost technologies-he knows he will have to negotiate with the contractor, a consortium called TranSys, governed by its two leading partners, Cubic Transportation Systems, a San Diego based company specializing in automated fare collection equipment and service, and EDS, one of the world's largest information technology service providers. Though the Oyster system-reliable and popular-was widely regarded a smash success, Verma soon learns that within TfL, the Prestige Contract is the source of much frustration. The case details the perceived shortcomings of the contract: a cumbersome process for negotiating variations, excessive costs, inadequate performance requirements, and poor incentives for the contractor to collaborate with TfL on new innovations. While the contract does, technically, allow TfL the opportunity to opt out early, TfL appears to have little practical ability to do so, as intellectual property for the complex system resides with the contractors. "Cracking Oyster (A)" ends with Verma facing a broadly-framed dilemma: what to do about Prestige? Case Number 1984.0 "

The case opens in 2007, when the Washington, D.C. public school system was failing. Parents, politicians, labor unions and activists all agreed that reform was necessary due to abysmal student test scores, attendance records and safety concerns. But stakeholders disagreed sharply on how to achieve their shared goal of providing a good education to the city's children. Reformers wanted to close failing schools, parents wanted to choose where their children attended school, and the teachers' union wanted more compensation for teachers. Michelle Rhee, a former teacher and "outsider," was hired by Mayor Adrian Fenty to institute sweeping and speedy reforms. As Chancellor, Rhee came under fire by teachers and their union, parents and the public for her swift move to close underperforming schools and, controversially, to fire teachers rated as "ineffective" by IMPACT, a value-added evaluation system designed to isolate each teacher's unique contribution to their student's educational achievement based on student test scores. The case discusses the steps Rhee took to reform the D.C. public schools and the support and opposition she encountered along the way, culminating with her November 2010 resignation. Case number 1958

The case opens in 2007, when the Washington, D.C. public school system was failing. Parents, politicians, labor unions and activists all agreed that reform was necessary due to abysmal student test scores, attendance records and safety concerns. But stakeholders disagreed sharply on how to achieve their shared goal of providing a good education to the city's children. Reformers wanted to close failing schools, parents wanted to choose where their children attended school, and the teachers' union wanted more compensation for teachers. Michelle Rhee, a former teacher and "outsider," was hired by Mayor Adrian Fenty to institute sweeping and speedy reforms. As Chancellor, Rhee came under fire by teachers and their union, parents and the public for her swift move to close underperforming schools and, controversially, to fire teachers rated as "ineffective" by IMPACT, a value-added evaluation system designed to isolate each teacher's unique contribution to their student's educational achievement based on student test scores. The case discusses the steps Rhee took to reform the D.C. public schools and the support and opposition she encountered along the way, culminating with her November 2010 resignation. HKS Case Number 1957.0.

This case describes the task that confronted Coast Guard Captain Suzanne Englebert, the staff point-person who led an initiative to develop new regulations intended to improve the security of the nation's ports from terrorist attacks, in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. It is intended for use in a strategic management class. Students are challenged to weigh an array of political, practical, legal, and technical considerations in assessing Englebert's approach. The case provides students with the background information they need to discuss the challenges inherent in tightening port security, including: basic information about the economic import of maritime trade, the range of conditions at US ports, the nature of international shipping and regulation, the particular problems posed by containerized shipping, and the kinds of terrorist attack foreseen by security experts. This case also describes several initiatives, undertaken in parallel, to improve port security immediately after 9/11, including immediate protocol shifts in the international ports, and bilateral negotiations with the largest ports outside the United States. The case introduces Englebert and describes her role in the Coast Guard's simultaneous efforts to work with US legislators to create a domestic port security law and with international partners in the International Maritime Organization to create a worldwide port security regime. The case ends with Englebert facing her next herculean task: to turn the mandates of the new federal law into specific, concrete regulations in just a few months' time. The case was designed as a companion piece to a dvd, case number: 1946.9. Case number 1946.0

This case poses the question: given what was known at the time of its adoption, in February 2009, was the federal Health information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act good public policy? The HITECH Act, included in President Barack Obama's federal stimulus bill, was intended to introduce major incentives to encourage the spread of heath information technology throughout the U.S. health system. The case is ideal for a policy analysis class. The case assumes no special knowledge of the health care system or information technology, and provides students with several categories of background information: * The central criticisms of the US health system, and why health IT proponents thought health IT was an essential ingredient in solving these problems. * Evidence that use of health IT in the United States lagged behind (1) the health care systems of other industrialized nations and (2) the use of IT in other information-heavy US industries. * The reasons health care providers were not, on their own, investing in health IT at the level advocated by proponents. * Mixed evidence as to the advantages of health IT for US health care providers that had already adopted it. * The history of federal action (administrative and legislative) on health IT as of February 2009 and arguments, pro and con, for a more aggressive federal role. * A summary of the HITECH Act as proposed by the Obama Administration. The case equips students to stand in the shoes of Congressional decision-makers (or their advisers) in February 2009, and argue why they might either support or oppose this piece of legislation. The case may be used on its own. It may also be used as the first part of a two-case unit with HKS Case 1938.0, "B. Inciting a Computer Revolution in Health Care: Implementing the Health Information Technology Act." HKS Case Number 1937.0.

This case, ideal for strategic leadership classes, poses the question: given the ambitious goals of the 2009 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act and the hurdles to its successful implementation, how should incoming National Coordinator for Health Information Technology David Blumenthal proceed? The case describes Blumenthal's resources, most notably: *$27 billion in Medicare and Medicaid incentives to hospitals, physicians, and other eligible providers who invested in ""certified"" electronic health systems *$2 billion in other funds to address specific obstacles to widespread acquisition of health IT systems. *Broad regulatory authority to define ""meaningful use"" and set certification criteria. It also describes Blumenthal's major challenge: to persuade thousands of hospitals and hundreds of thousands of doctors that health IT systems were worth the time and trouble it would take to buy them and integrate them into daily clinical practice. Small, cash-strapped community hospitals and individual practitioners constituted a particular concern. Finally, it describes the nature of Blumenthal's regulatory task: to define meaningful use quickly and to strike the right balance. Define meaningful use too strictly, and large numbers of health care providers might turn down the proffered incentives. Define it too loosely, and the expensive federal initiative would deliver little more than the market would have produced anyway. The case may be used on its own. It may also be used as the second part of a two-case unit with HKS Case 1937.0. This case includes an 8:00 min. video where David Blumenthal talks about challenges he faced, in particular when dealing with individual practitioners who didn't have the bandwidth to adopt electronic health records. Blumenthal explains the arguments he used to persuade them, and reflects more broadly on the timing and stages of this transition to "get information flowing in the healthcare system.

In 2005, the Parliament of India enacted the Right to Information Act, a law giving citizens of India access to central, state, and local government records. Under the law's provisions, citizens have the ability to request information regarding official acts from any public authority. Officials who refuse or delay requests are held responsible through fines or disciplinary action. Many individuals and organizations were involved in the lengthy and difficult process of getting this legislation enacted. This case focuses on one of these individuals, Aruna Roy, regarded by many observers as having played a key role in empowering citizens to exercise the democratic right to make their government transparent and accountable. It traces her background and the challenges she faced in developing her commitment to improving the lives of the poor and socially marginalized. HKS Case Number 1929.0

The Wraparound Milwaukee program was created in 1995 by Milwaukee County, Wisconsin and provides services and treatment to severely emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children and youth. The program utilizes the "wraparound philosophy" to provide the children and youth it serves with a highly individualized, community and strength-based approach to care. The delivery of services are facilitated by a Care Coordinator who works with the family to choose the right services from Wraparound Milwaukee's network of individual providers and community based organizations. The program's funding is pooled from several state and county agencies. Wraparound Milwaukee's innovative approach to care has brought considerable savings to the county $3,878 per month per child for Wraparound Milwaukee versus $8,000- $10,000 per month per child that the county paid for residential placement. Wraparound Milwaukee has seen positive outcomes in the youth it serves after disenrollment in terms of clinical health indicators as well as other indicators. HKS Case Number 1927.0