Miscellaneous
A zip code can define one’s destiny and, for many, this means a lifetime of poverty. To move people out of poverty, governments will need to make policy choices that tackle barriers to economic opportunity, while emboldening people to be agents of change in their own communities. Today, we’re in a political moment ripe for change, which makes it crucial for leaders and policymakers to work together to seize the moment. This drives the work of James Ladi Williams MPA ’18, a research analyst in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute. At an early age, Ladi became keenly aware of how breakdowns in the provision of public services made life difficult for children and families in his home city of Lagos, Nigeria. In this episode of #Changemakers, Ladi discusses how a crisis of leadership holds back progress on addressing global problems. He reflects on his time at Princeton SPIA and how the SPIA community remains a source of insight, inspiration, and support. #Changemakers is a podcast series featuring the many Princeton SPIA alumni who built up their policy toolkits at Princeton and went on to change their communities. The show is produced, hosted, and edited by B. Rose Huber, communications manager and senior writer at SPIA.