I was drawn to the field of public policy whilst interning as a researcher in Singapore.

Each
day at work, I saw how the legal regime, social context, and economic imperatives intersected to
create various life outcomes for citizens. Yet, the equilibria that these 3 forces reached were not
always optimal, requiring professionals to intercede with authorities to improve the situation for
clients. At times they succeeded, and at other times did not. However, I was still observing these
interactions in a relatively affluent, small country, which has in recent years moved towards
enhancing its social safety net. It got me wondering about the situation in countries that lacked the
resources Singapore had.

This brought me to the topic of international aid and development assistance. Much has been
written about novel approaches to designing aid programs to be more cost-effective. However, there
is a need to augment the economic soundness of such programs with greater sensitivity to local
social and cultural contexts. Beyond merely increasing the funding available to aid organizations,
these interventions need to be carefully packaged in ways that are acceptable and meaningful to the
communities being served. This forms the core of my research interest: How can the design of aid
programs be designed to be better situated in the local environments they operate in?

My primary intention for graduate study is to acquire strong quantitative analytical skills to
evaluate the economic soundness of policy interventions through GraSPP’s MPP. It would
complement my previous training in diverse humanities disciplines such as history, sociology,
anthropology, philosophy, and others. Across my undergraduate career, I acquired significant
research experience in a variety of policy domains, ranging from legal sentencing in courts, to drug
development and approval mechanisms, public health interventions for infectious diseases, and
others. I am also fluent in four Asian languages. Integrating these quantitative and qualitative
analytical skills in the EPFD stream would empower to make informed critiques about existing
policy interventions in the domain of poverty alleviation in the developing world (particularly Asian
nations); and help to design alternatives that are more effective and better adapted to the needs of
specific underprivileged communities.

I aim to draw on GraSPP’s location, to acquire a uniquely Asian perspective on

development economics and public policy. Japan remains a major donor to development assistance
projects in Asia, and I believe that studying in Tokyo, at the source of these aid outflows, would be
a very insightful experience. It is also a strategic imperative for Japan as it navigates its new role in
the global order amidst the rise of China; and many of the recipients of this aid, whether in funding
or technology transfers, are rising economies. I am keen to understand how their rise will change
the practice of development policy work globally. Further, I hope to capitalize on opportunities for
interdisciplinary learning and research between across the fields of law, political science and
economics on the Hongo Campus.

My long-term aspirations would be to pursue doctoral studies after the MPP/IP, and to
eventually work as a “pracademic.” I envision a career at the intersection of cutting-edge academic
research into policy design, and the translation of these novel ideas into tangible projects for
poverty alleviation, as a practitioner in Asia. COVID-19 has both intensified the need for aid in
developing countries, and created new challenges in carrying out aid work. While most developed
economies have responded by increasing their reliance on technological solutions and moving
towards remote work, this is not suitable for nations that lack the necessary infrastructure; it is
difficult to perform aid work at a distance. The pandemic has also highlighted the need for swift
responses, which large institutions like governments may not be able to execute. Hence, I am
particularly interested in designing systems of intervention that rely on more flexible models, such
as smaller non-government organizations or social entrepreneurship, which may be more nimble
than large state apparatuses. There is also the pressing need to close the technological divide
between nations and prevent the exacerbation of existing global economic inequalities. I thus intend
to integrate my previous training in computer science into my future career in the dual roles of
academic and practitioner to make impactful contributions to these efforts.

I strongly believe that the combination of skills and aspirations I bring to the GraSPP
community makes me a strong candidate for the MPP/IP. The rigorous training in the social
sciences that GraSPP offers, coupled with my existing training in the humanities and computer
science, would shape me into a versatile policy practitioner to confront the challenges of the post-
pandemic world. One who is not only able to design cost-effective programs, but to also ensure that
they suit the communities they are built for, while constantly re-evaluating and redesigning them for
changing contexts.