• Geniyat Issin is creating greater transparency and accountability in Kazakhstan’s financial sector.
• Svetlana Cotelea is decentralizing cancer treatment to better reach rural patients in Moldova.
• Artak Aleksanyan is advancing independent, investigative journalism in Armenia.
These three are just a few examples of the nearly 5,000 leaders across Eurasia who successfully completed the Muskie Fellowship Program [6] over the last twenty years. Many alumni are now high-ranking diplomats and healthcare reformers, anti-corruption activists and education advocates, business leaders and well-known journalists. In their diverse career paths, these thousands of alumni embody U.S. Senator Edmund S. Muskie’s legacy of public service, making key contributions in sectors vital to their countries’ economic and democratic growth.
IREX compiled some of their interesting stories and highlighted the impact of the Program in a special 20th anniversary collection.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1992, the United States Congress established the Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program [6]. For twenty years, the Muskie Program has aimed to promote mutual understanding, build democracy, and foster the transition to market economies in Eurasia through intensive academic study and professional training.