Press Release of 16 June 2009

Ms. Imke Harbers, alumni of the 40th course of the 1985/86 Postgraduate Training Programme of the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) has been awarded the renowned Rudolf Wildenmann Prize of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). She wins the Prize for her paper "Decentralization as a condition of Party System Nationalization: Evidence from Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe".

The German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik congratulates Ms. Harbers to this great success. During her 11-week research trip to Ecuador – as part of her DIE-Postgrad Training Programme – Ms. Harbers studied the political fragmentation, decentralization and development cooperation in the Latin American context and thus laid the basis for her later research.

Since 1965 the Institute’s Postgraduate Training Programme is concentrated on courses dedicated to development-related themes and issues bound up with shaping the process of globalisation as well as with improving trainee communicative and social skills. The cornerstone of the Training Programme – field research carried out by small interdisciplinary groups in a developing country – serves to provide trainees with an opportunity to gain practical experience with what they have learned by participating in concrete consulting-oriented research projects. Once they have completed the Training Programme, the graduates find career opportunities with development organisations at home and abroad.