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Prospects for South Sudan, the World’s Newest Nation: Ben Leo

7/12/11

Ben LeoOn Saturday the world’s newest nation exuberantly celebrated its first independence day. The Republic of South Sudan, an area the size of Texas that is home to eight million people, has finally fulfilled its long-sought goal of freedom and self-determination. Independence however, is just the beginning.

My guest this week is Ben Leo, a CGD research fellow and expert on the economic issues concerning the new nation of South Sudan and its major challenges going forward.

Hedging Against Hunger: Connie Veillette & Ben Leo

7/5/11

U.S. food aidEvery year, billions of dollars are spent on food assistance to provide lifesaving sustenance to millions of people. That’s a lot of money, and an important cause, so it was encouraging to learn last week that the United States and the G-20 are starting to seriously scrutinize food aid policy. Recent developments in Washington and Paris show a growing consensus that it’s about time to overhaul outdated approaches to feeding the hungry.

Joining me this week to discuss these developments is Connie Veillette, director of CGD’s Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Program and CGD research fellow Ben Leo. Having closely tracked U.S. and international food aid, both have concluded that reforms in financing, procurement and delivery can help ensure that food aid reaches more people who need it at lower cost.

Who Gets the Debt If Sudan Splits? Ben Leo

12/6/10

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.

Ben Leo: Who Are the Millennium Development Goal Trailblazers?

8/24/10

Ben LeoWhich countries are leading the pack on achieving the Millennium Development Goals? My guest this week is CGD research fellow Ben Leo. In a new working paper, Ben lays out an index for measuring country-level progress towards the MDGs. His paper, the first to offer comparative country-level rankings of progress towards key MDG-related indicators, finds some surprising trailblazers. Who knew that Honduras would come out on top!?

As the UN prepares for the MDG Review Summit next month, the conventional wisdom is that the global progress has been adequate—mostly because of China’s huge size and rapid poverty reduction—but that Africa lags sadly behind. Ben says that this view is overly simplistic, if not just plain wrong. Africa accounts for four of the fifteen countries ranked as “trailblazers,” on track to reach at least half of the examined MDG indicators by the 2015 target year (they are: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, and Uganda). Notwithstanding that the MDGs are wildly over ambitious given historical rates of progress (see here and here), Ben finds that low-income countries have made as much progress as middle-income countries. And some countries that we might expect to see on the trailblazer list, such as Tanzania, have performed poorly.

Free Money: How to Unlock $7.5 Billion for the World’s Poorest, with Ben Leo

6/8/10

Ben LeoWith high deficits across the developed world, aid budgets are tight and likely to remain so. However, a simple change in how the World Bank organizes its lending could free up an extra $7.5 billion for the world’s poorest countries over the next three years. My guest on this Wonkcast is Ben Leo, a research fellow here at the Center for Global Development and the author of a new working paper that sets forth this straightforward and potentially incredibly impactful proposal.

To understand how Ben’s idea would work, it’s necessary to know that the World Bank has two lending arms: the International Development Association (IDA) lends money to very poor countries at highly concessional rates; the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), borrows on international capital markets and re-lends to relatively better-off countries, at somewhat higher rates, leveraging the Bank’s AAA credit rating to offer better terms than those countries could obtain on their own. Some countries, such as India and Vietnam, are so-called “IDA blend” – they get some loans from IDA and some from the IBRD.

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