Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Policy, in partnership with the Center for International Private Enterprise and the Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies launched the 1^st edition of the Leadership Academy for Development in Moldova (LAD). The launch event, held on February 2, 2022, was opened by Natalia Otel Belan, the Regional Director for Europe and Eurasia at the Center for International Private Enterprise.

Leadership Academy for Development has the mission to strengthen the capacity of decision-makers and business leaders in developing countries to help the public and private sectors become a constructive force for economic growth and development. The academy is an intensive online training program, based largely on case studies, encouraging participants to draw from their own experiences and to stimulate debate.

During the online portion of the program, from February 2 to May 25, 2022, the carefully selected 31 participants, members of the Moldovan Parliament and Government, policymakers, business and civil society leaders, will acquire an analytical framework necessary to promote public policies in complex settings and learn how to be successful reformers in the areas of good governance, democratic development, and the rule of law and enable the private sector to play a larger, more constructive role as a force for economic growth and development of the Republic of Moldova.

The LAD program will be led by Dr. Francis Fukuyama, the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a faculty member of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). He is also Director of Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, and a professor (by courtesy) of Political Science.

Professor of Political Science, Dr. Francis Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His most recent book, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, was published in Sept. 2018. His next book, Liberalism and Its Discontents, will be published in the spring of 2022.