MSc NGO and Development Management

Program Overview

This established course, which has been running for ten years, examines the central issues facing developing countries in today's globalised world, giving you the skills for a job in development and the wider sectors.

Our aim is to make you an informed and critical development practitioner. You will be equipped with all the practical skills that are demanded by development agencies. You will also gain insight across the wider picture, understanding how developing countries can progress and how the poor can be mobilised to escape from the poverty trap.

The course also explores how NGOs can play a key role in promoting social and economic progress and you will develop the ability to identify, design and implement programmes with a view to engaging with and enhancing the situation of the poor.

Our students and staff are a diverse group from different backgrounds and your tutors have expertise in many key development regions and countries from South Asia and Latin America to Middle East and Africa.

Program Outline

The course consists of four modules and a dissertation. The full-time MSc takes one year to complete and the part-time course is completed over two years.

You will learn about development management in the international context and the impact of globalisation. We focus on public management and the role of aid agencies and NGOs in development and encourage you to gain general conceptual, critical and evaluative skills.

Our Project and Programme Design module will give you insight into a range of approaches to development interventions, including design, implementation and management.

The course introduces design methods used by NGOs and aid agencies as well as important issues such as sustainability and alternatives to the project approach.

We will also teach you how to examine rationales for research and a range of investigative techniques. This will help you prepare for your dissertation in which you will demonstrate your ability to use theories from earlier modules alongside your own research findings.

Students on this course have varied backgrounds and experience in development and our academic team are committed to tailoring their teaching to your needs.

In addition to attending lectures and seminars, you will have access to specialist teaching staff with expertise relating to a range of different contexts and NGOs.

For example, Professor Massimo De Angelis is interested in the need to seek alternatives to current profit-driven processes because he believes they are ecologically unsustainable, while Dr Rob Ahearne 's expertise and research specialism is in East Africa.

Dr  Meera Tiwari' s regional specialism, within a multidimensional poverty lens, is South Asia, but in recent years she has extended her research to rural Ethiopia and Tanzania.

Dr  Susannah Pickering-Saqqa has extensive experience of project management and programme design and has recently undertaken research on Oxfam's UK Poverty  Programme.

Dr  Katie Wright specialises in Latin America while Dr Kathryn Kraft 's regional expertise is in the Middle East, with a focus on the faith-based organisations.

Our staff's range of contacts in NGOs and links with former students, some of whom have set up their own NGOs since graduating, will facilitate your work placement in the UK, Africa, Asia or Latin America.

"You will have access to advice from NGO and development experts even before you have decided to come to UEL," says Dr Tiwari.

"Our network of contacts in NGOs and our teaching will give you all the practical skills you need for a development role in the future."

We will assess you through a variety of ways including essays, briefing papers and report writing, collaborative and individual presentations, and unseen examination. You will be encouraged to conduct fieldwork on a particular topic of your choice for your dissertation, providing the opportunity for focused independent research.