CGD chairman Edward W. Scott Jr. and board member Belinda Stronach recently visited Liberia, where Scott has sponsored a group of young professionals, the Scott Family Liberia Fellows, who serve as special assistants to the country’s top officials. In an interview ahead of Liberian Independence Day, Scott shares his impressions of the country’s potential and the many challenges to be faced in recovering from more than a decade of civil war, and he urges the U.S. and official donors to step up their support.

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In our continuing effort to expand the community of people interested in rich-world development policy CGD has launched two new services. The first, the Development Matters Meetup, merges our popular evening Meetups and the Development Matters event series and will focus on books, movies, and other popular culture treatments of development. CGD events manager Heather Haines, who curates the series, reports on the first Development Matters Meetup, which featured a new documentary film, The Neo African Americans. The second service is a weekly summary of news and commentary about rich-world policies and practices that affect poor people in developing countries. CGD media assistant Ben Edwards compiles the material and posts it each Friday to CGD’s Views from the Center blog.

Learn more and read other recent postings on Views from the Center