Nancy Birdsall was featured in a Guardian article on Cash on Delivery Aid
From the Article
There are few people as influential in development policy at the moment as Nancy Birdsall. Many of the UK government's key policies have her fingerprints on them as the UK development secretary, Andrew Mitchell, has acknowledged. Indeed, such is her influence that various commentators have referred to the Birdsall effect; once she picks up an idea, it has a curious way of finding its way into policy on one side or the other of the Atlantic.
"Cash on delivery", for example, was an idea she has passionately advocated and which has been picked up by Mitchell; the basic concept being that aid should be tied to clearcut results agreed at the outset, such as numbers of children vaccinated or educated.
Birdsall and I have had some disagreements, so when she was in London last week for an initiative linking western and developing world thinktanks, it was a good chance to hear her defend her ideas.