Independent research for global prosperity
Lawrence MacDonald, CGD vice president for communications and policy outreach, interviews a CGD expert in this weekly Podcast. The blog offers a short text summary.
It’s that time of year again. In just a few weeks, CGD will release the 2012 results of its annual Commitment to Development Index (CDI) – a product that measures the extent to which wealthy nations are supporting poorer countries’ development efforts in seven policy areas: aid, trade, investment, migration, environment, security, and technology.
Despite an unprecedented increase in US civilian assistance to Pakistan, more money has led to more problems in achieving long-term development goals in the fractious and fragile state. My guests on this week’s Wonkcast are Milan Vaishnav and Danny Cutherell, co-authors of a recent report written jointly with CGD president Nancy Birdsall. The new report--More Money, More Problems: A 2012 Assessment of the US Approach to Development in Pakistan--assigns letter grades to US government efforts in ten areas and provides recommendations for more effectiveengagement in Pakistan.
After an unprecedented competition, with three official nominees, the World Bank announced on Monday that the board had selected Jim Yong Kim, the Korean-born U.S. nominee, as the next president of the World Bank. My guest on this week’s Wonkcast is CGD president Nancy Birdsall, who discusses why it matters who leads the bank and sets out key challenges for the incoming president.
Why the World Bank and its President Matter
Following Robert Zoellick’s announcement that he will step down from the World Bank presidency at the end of June, the World Bank board has called for member countries to submit nominations for his successor, with a fast-approaching deadline of March 23rd. The board has said it will then narrow the nominations to a short list of three, with the goal of naming a new president before the World Bank/IMF spring meetings in April.
The debate over U.S. foreign assistance in Pakistan has grown hotter lately, with Stanford political scientist Stephen Krasner arguing in Foreign Affairs that the United States should get tough by threatening to halt aid to Pakistan to force the country into cooperating better on security matters. CGD president Nancy Birdsall responded with an article in Foreign Policy. Drawing on the recommendations of a 2011 CGD study group report, Beyond Bullets and Bombs: Fixing the U.S. Approach to Development in Pakistan, she argued that U.S. development assistance should be focused on helping to create a stable, prosperous Pakistan—goals that are in America’s own best interest and would be ill-served by trying to use the aid as a bargaining chip.
U.S. - Pakistan relations, troubled in the best of times, have been unusually rocky of late. A recent cover story in The Atlantic dubbed Pakistan the “Ally from Hell.” CGD’s Study Group on the U.S. Development Strategy in Pakistan argues that the strong U.S. interest in a stable, prosperous Pakistan makes savvy U.S. support for development there more important than ever. In this week’s wonkcast, post-doctoral research fellow Milan Vaishnav and policy analyst Danny Cutherell discuss the recent upsets in U.S.-Pakistan relations and offer practical suggestions, drawn from the CGD Study Group’s report and a recent open letter from CGD president Nancy Birdsall to deputy secretary of state Thomas Nides, which focuses on U.S. support for private sector growth in Pakistan.
The sudden resignation of Dominique Strauss-Kahn has sparked a global debate over the selection of the next head of the International Monetary Fund. French finance minister Christine Legarde, Europe’s nominee, has launched a round-the-world tour to promote her candidacy. Meanwhile, Agustin Carstins, the governor of the Bank of Mexico and the lone challenger so far to Europe’s renewed claim to lead the IMF, is seeking backing from European debtor nations and others by calling for greater flexibility in IMF bailout programs.
Against this background, CGD is pushing ahead with a survey on the selection process, qualifications and candidates for the IMF top job. I asked CGD president Nancy Birdsall, who has been arguing for a more open, merit-based selection process without regard for nationality, to join me on the show to share her views on the IMF leadership selection battle and the initial results from our survey.
Why are we providing some $1.5 billion per year in development assistance to a country that couldn’t be bothered to find bin Laden? Now that Osama is dead, what the heck are we still doing in Pakistan?
On this special edition of the Global Prosperity Wonkcast I asked these provocative questions of Nancy Birdsall, president of the Center for Global Development.
The United States has committed $1.5 billion per year over five years in an effort to support development in Pakistan, a fragile, nuclear-armed state of almost 190 million people that is in the frontline of the struggle against Islamic extremism. So, how’s that working out?
A little over a year ago, I invited Nancy Birdsall, founding president of the Center for Global Development, to join me on the Wonkcast to talk about her big new idea, Cash on Delivery Aid (COD Aid), an innovative approach to the delivery of foreign assistance. COD Aid has since gained a lot of traction, so I invited Nancy back to update us on recent developments, including a planned pilot program in Ethiopia.
