About CGD
The Center for Global Development works to reduce global poverty and inequality through rigorous research and active engagement with the policy community to make the world a more prosperous, just, and safe place for us all. A nimble, independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit think tank, CGD combines world-class research with policy analysis and innovative communications to turn ideas into action.
What We Do
CGD conducts research and analysis on a wide range of topics related to how rich country policies impact people in the developing world. These include:
Research and analysis that is related to proposals for specific, practical improvements in rich country policies is organized into initiatives.
Our Commitment to Development Index, conceived in partnership with Foreign Policy Magazine, quantifies the full range of rich country policies that have an impact on poor people in developing countries. The Index’s annual rankings have become a tool for discussions not only of aid, debt and trade, but of environmental, security, and immigration policies.
Since its founding in 2001, CGD has earned a reputation as a "think and do" tank, where independent research is channeled into practical policy proposals that help to shape decisions in Washington and other rich country capitals.
The Center's research and analysis have contributed to a growing recognition of the need for deeper and faster debt relief, and for more and better quality development assistance. Our trade policy research captured the world’s attention, with the oft-cited finding that liberalization could liberate from poverty 500 million people.
We have put on the global agenda proposals to use the market to develop a malaria vaccine; to allow more temporary labor migration; to sell IMF gold to write down poor countries’ debt; to give the World Bank a strong mandate for addressing global warming; and to create a club for independent evaluation of development investments.
Some proposals have already been taken up and are making a difference. Others remind us of how much more remains to be done.
Where We Came From
CGD was founded in November 2001 by Edward W. Scott, Jr., C. Fred Bergsten and Nancy Birdsall. A technology entrepreneur, philanthropist, and former senior U.S. government official, Ed provided the vision and a significant financial commitment that made the creation of the Center possible. Fred, the director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, lent his formidable reputation in academic and policy circles as well as providing the fledgling Center with a roof and logistical support within the Peterson Institute for its initial months of operation. Nancy, a former head of the World Bank research department and executive vice president of the Inter-American Development Bank, became CGD’s first president. Her intellectual leadership and the rare combination of being both hard-headed and soft-hearted about development attracted a cadre of researchers and other professionals who are deeply dedicated to CGD’s mission.
CGD’s three founders perceived a growing need for independent research to generate practical, creative solutions to the challenges that global interdependence poses to the developing countries, starting with debt. Delivering on Debt Relief: From IMF Gold to a New Aid Architecture (CGD, 2004), by Birdsall and John Williamson, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute, was the Center’s first book.