USAID awards $3 million to Georgia State for joint master’s program with Indonesian university

Indonesia's next generation of fiscal policy experts will earn dual master's degrees in applied economics at Georgia State University and Gadjah Mada University in the province of Yogyakarta on Java Island. Georgia State was awarded $3 million by the United States Agency for International Development-Indonesia toward the program, which will begin this year.

As many as 30 staff members of the Fiscal Policy Office at the Ministry of Finance of Indonesia - the country's fiscal policy think tank - will earn dual masters of science degrees under the cost-sharing agreement in a program developed by Georgia State's Andrew Young School of Policy Studies' International Studies program.

Prior to their arrival in Atlanta, Indonesian students will attend a rigorous one-year English language-intensive master's program at Gadjah Mada designed by the Andrew Young School in conjunction with one of its alumna, Artidiatun Adji. Adji directs the graduate program in economics and business at Gadjah Mada and she will lead the new program.

"Our school has been involved in Indonesia since its 1999 transition to democracy, and involved in its fiscal reforms since it decentralized its government in 2001," says Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, International Studies program director and a Regents Professor in the Andrew Young School at Georgia State.

Andrew Young School Dean W. Bartley Hildreth said, "This program highlights the global reach of the Andrew Young School and the draw of its world-class faculty. Our experience confirms that these partnerships advance a new group of leaders into roles that help build the policy infrastructure in their own country."

In 2002, the Andrew Young School started its first USAID-funded Indonesian masters program, awarding degrees in applied economics to 55 Indonesian students, including civil servants. They returned to work in Indonesia, building the country's fiscal capacity and enhancing its economic performance.

Seven remained at Georgia State to earn doctoral degrees in economics, including Adji. Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Indonesia's Minister of Finance, was an Andrew Young School visiting scholar in 2002.

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