Initiatives

Active Completed

2009 Commitment to Development Index

What Is the CDI? Rich and poor countries are linked in many ways--by foreign aid, commerce, migration, the environment, and military affairs. The Commitment to Development Index (CDI) rates 22 rich countries on how much they help poor countries build prosperity, good government, and security. Each rich country gets scores in seven policy areas, which are averaged for an overall score.

Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA)

This online map and database presents the best available estimates of CO2 emissions for 50,000 power plants around the world and the identities of the 4,000 firms that own them. Power generation accounts for about one-quarter of global emissions.

Cash on Delivery (COD) Aid

COD Aid is a new approach to aid delivery under which donors pay for measurable progress on specific outcomes; for example, a country could receive $100 for each additional child who completes primary school and takes a test.

Closing the Evaluation Gap

A CGD working group studied the reasons for the paucity of good impact evaluation and then recommended solutions. One result: a new international entity, the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation or 3IE, which provides funding and technical support.

Combating Drug Resistance

The initiative seeks practical ways to prevent or contain the emergence of drug resistance in such high-burden diseases as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria through improvements in common-property management, information flows, and stepped up research and development.

Commitment to Development Award

Each year the Center for Global Development and Foreign Policy magazine present the Commitment to Development Award to honor an individual or organization from the rich world that has made a significant contribution to changing attitudes and policies towards the developing world. CGD president Nancy Birdsall and Foreign Policy magazine editor-in-chief Moisés Naím co-chair a selection panel that includes distinguished leaders of the development community.

Demographics and Development in the 21st Century

Population policy has been a radioactive topic in development circles. CGD aims to break the taboo on such discussions with a series of lectures about the importance of population issues in such areas as infrastructure, migration, and climate.

Fighting the Resource Curse through Cash Transfers

Natural resources and the unearned income they generate can stifle development by undermining the relationship between citizens and their state. This CGD initiative explores a policy option to encourage a “social contract” in resource-rich countries—direct distribution of revenues.

Forest Monitoring for Action (FORMA)

FORMA uses satellite data to generate regularly updated online maps of tropical forest clearing. Currently available for Indonesia from 2000 to the present, the maps support national forest conservation programs and international efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Girls Count: A Global Investment and Action Agenda

The agenda describes why and how to provide adolescent girls in developing countries a full and equal chance in life. It offers targeted recommendations for national and local governments, donor agencies, civil society, and the private sector.

Global Health Policy Research Network

The Global Health Policy Research Network develops original, focused research on high-priority global health policy issues.

Globalization and Inequality

Rapid growth in China and India is reducing the number of the world's poor. But the world's poorest countries, in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere, are growing slowly, and the gap between the richest and poorest countries is widening. Inequality within many countries is also increasing. In a series of papers and in her 2005 WIDER (World Institute for Development Economics Research) lecture, The World is not Flat: Inequality and Injustice in our Global Economy, CGD president Nancy Birdsall has argued that the inherent asymmetries of a global economy pose new problems that require new thinking. Among today's global problems are the international costs of state failure, the risks of climate change, cross-border corruption and sex and drug trafficking, the missing Green Revolution in Africa, and the slow pace of international action to reduce world poverty. Each of these problems points to the potential benefits of more effective and more legitimate global institutions.

HIV/AIDS Monitor

The Monitor tracks and analyzes the practices of the three major global HIV/AIDS aid initiatives: the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR); and the World Bank's Multi-Country HIV/AIDS Program (MAP).

Improving Migration Data

CGD’s Commission on International Migration Data for Development Research identified steps to improve data collection so that researchers and policymakers have the numbers they need to assess the impact of migration. CGD continues to push for implementation.

MCA Monitor

The Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), an innovative U.S. foreign assistance program established in 2004 to complement existing programs, targets a select group of poor countries with demonstrated commitment to economic growth and development, emphasizes country ownership, and focuses on accountability and measurable results. The MCA Monitor provides rigorous policy analysis and research on the operations and effectiveness of the MCA. It aims to contribute to the MCA's success by drawing lessons from relevant experiences, raising awareness, and linking it to broader work on aid effectiveness and US foreign assistance reform.

Millions Saved

From eradication of polio in Latin America to HIV prevention in Thailand, the 17 cases in this study show that large-scale success in health are indeed possible. A companion website offers a video, teacher's guide, and information about how to achieve future successes.

Preventing Odious Obligations

Currently, when an illegitimate regime contracts with foreign actors and, in essence, mortgages the country’s future, successor regimes and innocent citizens are expected to pay back that mortgage, saddling the citizens with unjust contracts from which they did not benefit and burdening the successor governments with repayment. A declaration of contract non-transferability would put creditors and investors on notice that any future contracts to a regime would not be considered binding on successor governments.

Reforming Trade Preferences

Rich countries and some emerging powers offer poorer developing countries preferential market access, but the programs are often flawed and lack coordination. The initiative aims to reform trade preference programs to expand market access for the poorest countries.

Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance

Building on the success of CGD’s MCA Monitor, this initiative offers information, dialogue, and analysis on U.S. foreign assistance reform. It aims to help elevate development and U.S. foreign assistance as a critical national interest priority.

Scott Family Liberia Fellows

The Scott Family Fellows program recruits and supports young professionals to help address the severe capacity gap existing at the sub-ministerial level in Liberia after 14 years of brutal civil war. The program is funded by a generous grant from the family of Edward W. Scott Jr.

The Future of the World Bank

CGD has an active program of research and analysis of the World Bank, the world's largest development institution and a leading source of funds, ideas, and expertise for development.

U.S. Development Strategy in Pakistan

CGD has convened the Study Group on a U.S. Development Strategy in Pakistan to draw lessons from past experiences and offer practical recommendations to U.S. policymakers on the effective deployment of foreign assistance and, more broadly, other non-aid instruments for achieving sustainable development in Pakistan.

Commission on Weak States and US National Security

In October 2003, CGD launched a bipartisan commission to outline a comprehensive U.S. strategy to address the growing threat of weak and failed states. The Commission’s report helped to shape reforms adopted by the Bush administration.

Demand Forecasting

Shortcomings in demand forecasting for essential drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics have led to unnecessarily high prices, supply shortages, and reluctance to invest in R&D for developing-country diseases. To address this challenge, CGD’s Global Health Forecasting Working Group issued recommendations for donors to make strategic investments that would improve access to information and better align forecasting incentives, ensuring that increasing donor funds for health are used effectively.

International Monetary Fund Programs and Health Spending

The Working Group on IMF-Supported Programs and Health Expenditures investigated how macroeconomic policies under IMF programs in low-income countries interacted with the management of health spending in a context of scaled-up aid. Utilizing case studies and cross-country comparisons, the working group explored the evidence on what actually happened under IMF programs on the key issues where the IMF role has been criticized. The group concluded with six recommendations for the IMF as well as lessons for other stakeholders.

Making Markets for Vaccines

A CGD Working Group produced an economic and legal framework for funds to incentivize vaccine development. The G-7 Finance Ministers endorsed the approach and five donors (Canada, Italy, Norway, UK and Russia, and the Gates Foundation) committed $1.5 billion to create an incentive for a vaccine against the strains of pneumococcus disease prevalent in low-income countries. For updates, see Advance Market Commitments for Vaccines (http://www.vaccineamc.org/), a joint effort of the GAVI Alliance and the World Bank.

Nigerian Debt Relief

Nigeria, home to one in five Africans, has been the continent's most indebted nation. CGD began working on Nigerian debt issues in early 2004 to provide analytical support to Nigeria's ongoing efforts to persuade its creditors to agree to an appropriate debt relief package. In October 2005, Nigeria and the Paris Club announced a final agreement that should lead to debt relief worth $18 billion and an overall reduction of Nigeria's debt stock by $30 billion.

Population Dynamics and Economic Development

A CGD working group reviewed what is known about how population dynamics (such as fertility, mortality, and migration) affect economic outcomes and recommended a research agenda to fill gaps in that knowledge. Subsequently, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation allocated more than $15 million for research on the topic, with an emphasis on Africa. CGD's new Demographics and Development Initiative incorporates key results in its messages.

Supporting Liberia's Reconstruction and Development

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's inauguration as the President of Liberia in January 2006 marked a watershed in that country's tumultuous history. Former CGD senior fellow Steve Radelet advised Sirleaf and senior members of her government on a variety of issues, including debt relief and donor relations.

UNAIDS Transition Working Group

As the founding executive director of UNAIDS prepared to step down at the end of 2008, CGD and the Economic Governance Programme of Oxford University convened an expert working group to develop recommendations for the incoming leadership of UNAIDS, the Programme Coordinating Board, and other stakeholders.

Zimbabwe's Crisis and Future

CGD has taken an extra interest in Zimbabwe because the country presents several unique challenges for the development community and for Africa.