Human Capital Initiative Receives $500,000 Grant
The Human Capital Initiative (HCI) at the Global Development Policy (GDP) Center, an affiliated center of the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, has received a three-year grant for its new Program on Women’s Empowerment Research (POWER) from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The $500,000 grant will allow Pardee School Professors Mahesh Karra and Rachel Brule, along with Patricia Cortes from the Questrom School of Business, to undertake interdisciplinary research on multiple dimensions of women empowerment. They will also engage the wider policy-making community with their findings to create a broader and more lasting impact.
The goal of POWER is to support rigorous, evidence-based research that investigates the causes and consequences of women’s empowerment on human well-being. The program grant will support long-term data collection, new fieldwork, and local collaboration on a range of topics from women’s reproductive health to behavioral decision-making to women’s access to safe transport. The larger goal of the program is to look critically at three core issues within the larger narrative of women’s empowerment, including human capital (health & education), mobility and access, and sustainable economic empowerment.
Mahesh Karra is an Assistant Professor of Global Development Policy at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and core faculty of the Global Development Policy Center’s Human Capital Initiative. His academic and research interests are broadly in development economics, health economics, quantitative methods, and applied demography. His research utilizes experimental and non-experimental methods to investigate the relationships between population, health, and economic development in low- and middle-income countries.
Rachel Brule is an Assistant Professor of Global Development Policy at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and core faculty of the Global Development Policy Center’s Human Capital Initiative. Her research interests are broadly in comparative politics, international development, political economy, and gender, with a geographical focus on South Asia.
The GDP Center is a university-wide research center with a mission to advance policy-oriented research for financial stability, human well-being, and environmental sustainability.