Equitable Development: The Path to an All-In Pittsburgh

Now is Pittsburgh's moment for equitable development, and its leaders must commit to implementing the recommendations in this report and ensuring everyone is a part of the new Pittsburgh. As this report illustrates, there are viable strategies that leaders in government, business, community development, and philanthropy can undertake to address racial inequities and put all residents on track to reaching their potential, starting with baking equity in to its new development projects and reaching across its institutional landscape and entrepreneurial ecosystem. Just as Pittsburgh has embraced its identity as a tech-forward region, it should—and can—be a frontrunner on equitable development

Health Equity The Path to Inclusive Prosperity in Buffalo

With billions in public and private investments in the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus and Governor Cuomo’s historic “Buffalo Billion” investment in economic development, the city of Buffalo is poised for resurgence. Yet persistent racial inequities in health, wealth, and economic opportunity inhibit the city’s growth. Without a change in course, these inequities will take a heavy toll on the city as immigrants and communities of color grow as a share of its population and workforce. Equity—just and fair inclusion—is the key to sustainable economic recovery and growth in the Queen City. To build a Buffalo economy that works for all, city and regional leaders must commit to putting all residents on the path to good health and economic security, through protections and policies that enable existing residents to stay in the city and connect to jobs and opportunities, and ensure that they benefit from new development

Achieving a Greater Buffalo

This policy report argues that improving the quality of life for residents of all backgrounds living in Buffalo’s urban neighborhoods should be a central objective of any economic revitalization plan for the region. In the process of strengthening housing and employment opportunities in the urban core, Buffalo should strive to become a premiere destination for innovators, artists, and entrepreneurs seeking a low-cost, culturally vibrant place in which to live and work. The priorities outlined below are drawn from successful revitalization strategies employed by cities such as Minneapolis, MN, Portland, OR and Toronto, ON. These and other regions have been revitalized not by constructing commercial waterfront attractions, or by envisioning Disney-esque developments to attract tourists, or even by heavily subsidizing corporations to site temporary operations in their respective regions, but by concerted and coordinated efforts to stabilize neighborhoods, improve schools, strengthen immigrant communities, cultivate and protect natural resources, address the crisis of inner-city unemployment, elevate the arts, support small business development, create integrated transportation networks, and break down barriers separating wealthy suburban populations from poor urban communities

The shared work of learning: lifting educational achievement through collaboration

This report argues that leaving the momentum of educational improvement to the status quo will result in widening inequality and stagnation in Australia. Key findings: Overall, student performance in Australia is not improving. But some schools in Australia, serving highly disadvantaged students and families, are successfully using collaboration to support student achievement. Common features of the practices in these diverse schools can be applied to strategies for wider, systemic change. This research examines how the schools and their partners use: Professional collaboration to support, sustain, evaluate and refine professional learning, and to access expertise, data and relevant practice. Local collaboration with other schools, universities, employers and community organisations to provide structure and resources for student achievement. Collaboration with students, parents and local community to build trust and social capital. Collaboration – the sharing of effort, knowledge and resources in the pursuit of shared goals – is created through a wide range of flexible, trust-based relationships. The high impact schools featured in this research: actively seek connections and resources that create value for students; develop ‘local learning systems’ to translate connections and resources into concrete actions; and apply a consistent rationale, focused on student learning, to choose and prioritise collaborative projects and relationships

Fusing Arts, Culture and Social Change: High Impact Strategies for Philanthropy

Examines the role of the arts in engaging, educating, and building communities and addressing social, economic, environmental, and other injustices. Calls on arts grantmakers to focus more resources on supporting social change in underserved communities

The promise and peril of paralegal aid

Strengthening the rule of law and promoting access to justice in developing countries have been longstanding international policy objectives. However, the standard policy tools, such as technical assistance and material aid, are routinely criticized for failing to achieve their objectives. The rare exception is paralegal aid, which is almost universally lauded by policymakers and scholars as effective in promoting the rule of law and access to justice. This belief, however, rests on a very limited empirical foundation regarding what paralegal programs accomplish and under what theory they operate. This paper critically examines the conventional wisdom surrounding paralegal initiatives through case studies of two successful paralegal programs in post-conflict Timor-Leste that are broadly representative of the type of initiatives commonly implemented in developing countries. These programs did improve access to justice services, bolster choice between dispute resolution forums, and increase local knowledge of progressive norms on human rights and women’s rights. Yet, as this article shows, even successful programs can expect to achieve only incremental gains in promoting the rule of law because advances largely depend on alignment with the priorities of powerful state and non-state actors, donors, program implementers, and paralegals themselves. To date, the literature has not acknowledged these limitations. This article addresses this gap by demonstrating that paralegal aid faces multiple challenges that mean paralegals cannot necessarily transcend or modify deep seated norms and power structures. These issues include principal agent-problems due to the extensive delegation required, internal limitations resulting from paralegals’ limited authority and independence, and external constraints from state and non-state justice actors. Paralegal programs also face program design, implementation, and sustainability challenges. Consequently, scholars, practitioners, and policymakers need to adopt a more balanced view of paralegal aid