Multimedia

Impact Investing—seeking positive social and financial returns—is generating tremendous interest in the financial and foundation communities as a new, more effective way to achieve development. Can it really change the development dynamic for the good, and can impact investments really fight poverty while they generate returns for well-heeled investors? In a new CGD report, More than Money: Impact Investing for Development, John Simon, former OPIC Executive Vice President and US Ambassador to the African Union, and coauthor Julia Barmeier explore the potential and pitfalls of impact investment. The event will include a discussion of their recommendations for practitioners, development finance institutions, and regulators.

A 2011 referendum in Southern Sudan will determine the sub-nation’s independence – and it’s just one month away. Ahead of the South’s possible secession, Sudanese leaders are scrambling to find solutions to a host of questions, a critical one being: What should be done with Sudan’s crushing $35 billion external debt burden? I’m joined on this Wonkcast by Ben Leo, a research fellow here at the Center for Global Development, who has just published a CGD working paper which outlines potential scenarios for post-referendum debt division between the Khartoum government in the north and an independent Southern Sudan. On the Wonkcast, Ben explains how debt complicates the landscape for splitting Sudan and outlines a range of possible approaches to a viable solution.

What does the new makeup of Congress mean for global development looking forward? My guest this week is Sarah Jane Staats, director of policy outreach here at the Center for Global Development. Sarah Jane is responsible for engaging the development policy community—especially senior staff in the U.S. Congress, the administration and policy experts in leading development advocacy NGOs—in the Center’s research and other programs.

In this Wonkcast, Sarah Jane starts by explaining that, “the first big takeaway with the elections is that they were really not about foreign policy.” Because domestic issues drove the rhetoric of the candidates this election cycle, even the foreign policy positions of some freshman Congressmen are still unknown. Thirty nine of the sixty new House Republicans align themselves with the Tea Party, a group with no clear foreign policy agenda, much less a unified view about whether and how to engage developing countries.

On Monday, November 1, 2010 the Center for Global Development was pleased to host, along with the Institute of Medicine, What’s on the Agenda? Assessing the UN Summit on Non-communicable Diseases, featuring presentations by Rachel Nugent, Deputy Director of Global Health, CGD and Derek Yach, Senior Vice President of Global Health Policy, PepsiCo. Ambassador Richard Bernal, Alternate Executive Director, Inter-American Development Bank provided the opening remarks and served as moderator. Discussants included James Hospedales, Senior Advisor, Prevention & Control of Chronic Diseases, Pan-American Health Organization, Julian Schweitzer, Principal, Results for Development Institute and Peter Lamptey, President of Public Health Programs, Family Health International.

As if Pakistan needed more troubles, this summer’s catastrophic flooding stretched the capacity of that country’s civilian government to the breaking point. How can the United States act to shore up a key ally and put a strategically critical country back on the path towards development and stability? My guest this week is Molly Kinder, a senior policy analyst here at the Center for Global Development. Together with CGD president Nancy Birdsall, she spearheads the Center’s initiative that looks specifically at U.S. development policy in Pakistan and recommends how it might be more effective. Wren Elhai, who oversees the production of the Wonkcast and helps me by drafting these posts, also contributes to our Pakistan initiative, as a writer and analyst.

QuODA is an assessment of the Quality of Official Development Assistance provided by 23 countries and more than 150 aid agencies. It uses 30 indicators in four dimension that reflect the international consensus of what constitutes high-quality aid: Maximizing efficiency, Fostering institutions, Reducing Burden, Transparency and Learning

A short film tells the story of Khalifa, a nurse in Ghana who contracted typhoid. She takes one drug and then another—each more expensive than the last—but still she isn’t well. The film uses expert interviews and animation to explain why drug resistance threatens us all—and what we can do about it.

After months of study, work, negotiation and anticipation, the Obama administration has announced its development policy. What’s new here and what are the chances of implementation? To find out, I chatted with Connie Veillette, who has recently joined the Center for Global Development as director of our Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance program. Connie comes to us from Capitol Hill, where she spent many years with the Congressional Research Service and worked most recently as a senior professional staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee minority staff, specializing in U.S. foreign assistance and USAID.