Ideas to Action:

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CGD's weekly Global Prosperity Wonkcast, event videos, whiteboard talks, slides, and more.

Turning the Tide Through Better Prevention: Mead Over on the AIDS Transition

5/25/10

Mead OverEven as the cost of treating HIV/AIDS has fallen dramatically, the number of people newly infected has remained high. What can be done to reverse this trend and finally defeat this disease? This week on the Wonkcast, I’m joined by Mead Over, a senior fellow here at the Center for Global Development and perhaps the world’s leading expert on the economics of HIV/AIDS. He has recently published two major essays, which introduce the concept of the “AIDS transition”—the point in time where the number of people living with the disease begins to fall. He argues persuasively that to reach this point, international donors must greatly strengthen incentives for effective prevention.

“We should be very proud of the accomplishment in bringing down the numbers of AIDS deaths,” says Mead. “But the number of new infections… has not fallen enough. And so the result is we have a new take-off in the numbers of people living with AIDS.” Since 1997, he says, the number of HIV-infected people has increased by 50%, rising from around 22 million in 1997 to 33 million today.

A Report Card for the African Development Bank: Todd Moss

5/18/10

Todd MossWhen Donald Kaberuka became president of the African Development Bank five years ago, he faced daunting tasks, including defining a mission for an institution that many dismissed as irrelevant.

My guest on this week’s show is Todd Moss, vice president and senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. Todd directed a working group that, in 2006, issued six recommendations, three each for bank management and the bank’s shareholder countries. Now, Todd has issued a report card that grades the bank and its shareholders on each of the recommendations.

Todd starts by explaining the basics of how the African Development Bank works. Like other multilateral development banks (notably the World Bank), it uses capital and promises of support by shareholder countries to raise and lend money for development projects, partly at concessional interest rates. During the 2008-09 financial crisis, the AfDB accelerated disbursements to African countries to cushion the impact of the crisis, at the request of the world’s leading donor countries.

Interviews with African HIV/AIDS Researchers

5/8/10

The Center for Global Development's HIV/AIDS Monitor staff works with local researchers in three African countries -- Mozambique, Uganda and Zambia - to jointly plan the key research questions and

Video from the XVII International AIDS Conference

5/8/10

As part of the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, the Center for Global Development addressed these issues in a two-part panel discussion on How are HIV/AIDS donors interacting with

The Economics of Child Soldiering: Chris Blattman

5/4/10

nameThis week, I'm joined on the Global Prosperity Wonkcast by Chris Blattman, assistant professor of political science and economics at Yale University and a non-resident fellow here at the Center for Global Development. Much of Chris' research tries to understand what happens after child soldiers return home, with the goal of designing programs that can better reintegrate former combatants into society. He also explores the logic that explains why guerrilla armies in many conflicts use child soldiers in the first place.

Chris has studied extensively the case of the Lord's Resistance Army, a Uganda guerrilla group responsible for some 60-70,000 abductions. Outsiders often despair over the large number of these former child soldiers, calling them a "ticking time bomb".

"That's a very pessimistic view, and it's the dominant view," Chris tells me. "And from what we can see, it's simply not true."

Liliana Rojas-Suarez on U.S. Financial Reform (CNN en Espanol)

5/3/10

CGD senior fellow Liliana Rojas-Suarez discussed the main differences and hot button issues regarding the proposals of Democratic and Republican Senators on the Financial Regulatory Reform. Four major areas of debate were identified: the consumer protection agency, financial derivates, the roles and limitations of the banks, and the rescue fund.

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