Today marks a capstone moment in the MPP programme. Students must complete the Policy Challenge II, which focuses on Mineral Management and Government Capacity – the cases of Afghanistan and Guinea. The first Policy Challenge was held at the start of the programme, and immersed students into a review of issues and dilemmas faced by states and policymakers attempting to manage newly-discovered resource wealth. This second Policy Challenge sees students undertaking the roles of expert advisors charged with providing guidance to ministers for the coming year to three years.

Although the exercise is a simulation, the students are working with the real world cases of Afghanistan and Guinea. Mr Kerfalla Yansané, Minister of Mines and Minister of State for the Republic of Guinea, and Mr Mohammmad Mustapha Mastoor, Deputy Minister of Finance for Afghanistan, are here at the Blavatnik School of Government to receive the student briefings.

Students have been preparing for the event for the past few days. They were given their briefing documents last week, and spent a day learning about the issues through presentations and discussions with renowned experts in the field, including the Blavatnik School’s Prof Paul Collier, Major-General Andrew Mackay, who was commander of the British Forces in Afghanistan in 2007-8, and Mark Henstridge, Chief Economist at Oxford Policy Management.

The students have been put into small groups responsible for specific issue areas for each country, such as: State-citizen relations and the management of expectations; trust and accountability in government-corporate relations; and organization and management of the mineral sector. They have to find some answers to some quite tricky questions, like: How should the governments of Guinea and Afghanistan manage their citizens' expectations as regards their countries’ new-found mineral resource wealth? How can they engage a variety of community stakeholders (citizen groups, local leaders, businesses) in the long-term stewardship of their resources? How can the governments instill a relationship of trust with corporate partners? What kinds of new governance policies and structures need to be established?

The Policy Challenge has clearly had a significance influence on the MPP student experience.

MPP student Qingling Kong said about the exercise, "The Policy Challenge allows us to converge policy analysis expertise with practical skills to form strategies for natural resource management both in Afghanistan and Guinea. Learning from well-structured presentations on issues including communication strategy, organisation of the mineral sector, accountability in government-corporate relations, infrastructure development and revenue management is a great enjoyment for the day, as well as a challenge."

Reflecting on his experiences, MPP student Levent Tuzun said, “I have two main takeaways from the generous feedback we received from Ministers Yansané and Mastoor after our presentations. Firstly, even seemingly isolated policy issues – for example, mining policy – extend to and interact with multiple policy areas, and must therefore be tackled with a holistic mindset. Secondly, external advisors have much homework to do in order to give recommendations that are grounded in reality and the local context, increasing the likelihood of their implementation.”

Melvyn Lubega explained: "The Guinean mining project in Simandou is set to be the largest of its kind in Africa. Presenting our findings and forging solutions together with the minister at helm of this project has been humbling. Being able to contribute to current policy discussions in my home continent and engage with the senior officials leading these discussions has been a hallmark of studying at the Blavatnik School."

Nico Andrade offered this sum-up of the Policy Challenge: "After months of immersing ourselves in the challenging policy context of Afghanistan, presenting the Minister of Finance with our policy recommendations was an invaluable way to test the skills we have acquired throughout the year."

Pictured are Course Co-Convenors Prof Paul Collier and Prof Monica Toft with Ministers Yansané and Mastoor, and students.