The Biggest Idea in Development that No One Really Tried (video)
12/16/09
In this TED Talk-style presentation, CGD research fellow Michael Clemens exhibits his new research on the benefits of global migration.
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CGD's weekly Global Prosperity Wonkcast, event videos, whiteboard talks, slides, and more.
AIDS and Aid: Rethinking PEPFAR (Podcast)
12/14/09
This week on the Global Prosperity Wonkcast, I'm joined by Nandini Oomman, director of the Center's HIV/AIDS Monitor. Our conversation focuses on the new 5-year strategy laid out earlier this month by Ambassador Eric Goosby, the new U.S. global AIDS coordinator and head of PEPFAR (the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief).
Nandini praises the evidence-based framework PEPFAR has laid out and its move towards much greater openness and transparency. She stresses that the challenge ahead will be in designing concrete plans that implement the strategy effectively and measure its impacts.
Too Early to Lower the Guard: How Will Latin America Fare If Macroeconomic Imbalances in Industrial Countries Intensify? (Event audio)
12/10/09
Latin America’s response to the global financial crisis has been remarkably strong. Effective use of fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policies allowed Latin America to fare better than other parts of the world and better than the region itself during previous global economic crises. But macroeconomic disequilibria in high-income countries—especially rising fiscal deficits and sovereign debt in the United States and parts of Europe—run the risk of becoming unsustainable.
Financing Forest Conservation to Combat Global Warming: Keys to Success at Copenhagen (Event audio)
12/10/09
Forest clearing in developing countries is an enormous contributor to global warming, accounting for about 15% of annual greenhouse gas emissions. The Bali Action Plan seeks ways to reward countries for reducing these emissions – an agenda known as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). Effective implementation of REDD is an intense topic of discussion in the negotiations leading up to Copenhagen. Many observers envision financial flows in the billions of dollars per year, and substantial pilot efforts are already being sponsored by UN-REDD, the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), and the Norwegian International Climate and Forest Initiative.
It’s One Climate Policy World Out There -- Almost
12/8/09
As climate talks get underway in Copenhagen, the specifics of an agreement to slow global warming and adapt to its effects are far from settled. My guest on this week's Wonkcast, Jan von der Goltz, has spent the last few weeks surveying views in the global development community about what these specifics should be.
Jan is the author, along with CGD president Nancy Birdsall, of a new CGD paper It’s One Climate Policy World Out There--Almost that presents the results of a recently completed CGD survey. The online survey, which Nancy and Jan launched in mid-November, collected the views of nearly 500 respondents, hailing from 88 countries, who mostly work on international development issues.