CGD's weekly Global Prosperity Wonkcast, event videos, whiteboard talks, slides, and more.
Our Wonkcast this week covers two separate topics and two international figures recently in the news. First, Muhammad Yunus is considered the father of microfinance as the founder of Grameen Bank. Why then has he been removed from his post? What does it mean for the future of Grameen? Following up, we discuss another Nobel peace prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, and the future of Burmese debt.
IMF managing director Christine Lagarde startled IFI watchers last week by warning at a CGD-hosted speech that the world faces “a triple crisis—an economic crisis, an environmental crisis and, increasing, a social crisis.”
Lagarde’s remarks, which I report on at greater length here, would not have been newsworthy coming from the head of an international environmental NGO or even the head of the World Bank, but from the head of the IMF, a citadel of economic orthodoxy, they surprised and delighted many in the development community, especially those alarmed by the looming development impacts of runaway climate change.
Center for Global Development Senior Fellow David Roodman talks about his latest book‘Due Diligence, An Impertinent Inquiry into Microfinance’.
David discusses the evidence surrounding the effects of microfinance on the lives of the world’s poor and its implications on aid donors, within the context of his book’s key findings. David then goes on to speak about what he himself has learned about the roles of different kinds of evidence, along with the unusual way in which he used open blogs to guide and inform the writing of his book.
My guest on this week’s Wonkcast is David Roodman, senior fellow and author of the long-awaited book, Due Diligence: An Impertinent Inquiry into Microfinance. After more than three years of unprecedented investigation into the movement, David was able to cut through the hype and come to understand the capabilities and limitations of microfinance in ending poverty.
David explains that while the microfinance movement has built thriving industries that deliver valuable services to millions of poor people, he hopes his book will help the industry shift away from its traditional emphasis on credit to other services focused on savings, insurance, and new technology.
How well did the 22 rich countries that belong to the OECD Development Committee (OECD-DAC) perform in terms of supporting development in 2011? In this week’s Wonkcast, my guest David Roodman, architect of the Commitment to Development Index (CDI), explains some surprising results of the newly released 2011 CDI. While the United States climbed the charts due to a controversial increase in internationally mandated military intervention in Afghanistan, other countries such as Spain and Ireland fell in the rankings because of slower immigration from developing countries.
I also ask David about CGD’s new research data disclosure policy, and its potential to help him improve the Index. As a result of this policy, which David initiated, and the World Bank’s decision to offer free access to its World Development Indicators, full CDI data and “do files” are now available on-line. David encourages students and researchers to poke at it—he is modestly confident that somebody will find some bugs. To read full show summary of the Wonkcast go to www.cgdev.org/wonkcast.
Mohammed Yunus has been forced by a Bangladesh court to step down as the head of the Grameen Bank, leaving the world to wonder what will become of the institution that helped inspire the microfinance revolution. On this week’s Wonkcast, we consider the rise and uncertain future of microcredit, not so long ago the darling of development experts and activists alike, and discuss whether or not the arc of Yunus’s remarkable life serves as an apt metaphor for the microfinance movement.
My guest is CGD senior fellow David Roodman, who has been tracking the Yunus trial since it began as part of his Microfinance Open Book Blog. The book in public on the blog, Due Diligence: An Impertinent Inquiry into Microfinance, is nearing completion and will be published before the end of the year.
A crisis is unfolding in India's microcredit sector that-- beyond its immediate effects on borrowers and lenders-- will greatly affect the future of financial services for the poor. I'm joined by David Roodman, senior fellow here at the Center for Global Development and author of the forthcoming book Due Diligence: A Guide to Microfinance (which he has shared step by step on his Open Book Blog). David recently traveled to Andhra Pradesh, the epicenter of the crisis. On the Wonkcast, he leads me through the story of the explosive growth of Indian microcredit-- and its sudden fall from grace.
In Benchmarking America, our second Global Prosperity Wonkcast, I ask CDI architect David Roodman to tell us why Sweden ranks first, why the United States gets such a mediocre score, and why Japan and Korea once again fall at the bottom of the list.
In this telephone press conference, CGD research fellow David Roodman teases out the some trends from the 2008 Commitment to Development Index.