On Journalism and Global Development--Nicholas Kristof
5/14/13
My guest on the Wonkcast this week is New York Times columnist and two-t
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Mohammed Yunus Forced Out –Whither Microcredit? David Roodman
5/24/11
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.
The New Bottom Billion: Andy Sumner
2/28/11
Paul Collier’s 2007 book, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It, changed the way we think about poverty and development. Collier argued that the majority of the 5-billion people in the "developing world" live in countries with sustained high growth rates and would eventually escape from poverty. The rest—the bottom billion—live in 58 small, poor, often land-locked countries that are growing very slowly or not at all. These countries, stuck in poverty traps, should be the focus of foreign aid, Collier argued.
Andy Sumner, a visiting fellow at CGD and research fellow at the Institute for Development Studies at Sussex University, is boldly challenging that view with more recent data and a new frame of reference that tell a surprisingly different story: three out of four of the world’s poorest people, Andy asserts, live in middle-income countries with impressive growth rates but may nonetheless are trapped in extreme poverty. Andy joins me on this week’s Wonkcast to discuss his work on this “new” bottom billion.
Evaluating the Millennium Villages: Michael Clemens and Gabriel Demombynes
10/12/10
In development, it's good to try new, innovative ideas-- but even better to know whether or not they work. My guests this week are Michael Clemens, senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, and Gabriel Demombynes, a senior economist at the World Bank, based in Nairobi, Kenya. They have written a new paper in which they argue that one very high profile development program, the Millennium Villages Project, isn’t being evaluated in a way that would provide clear evidence of its impacts. They propose a better way to evaluate the project.
What’s Not to Like About the Millennium Development Goals?
9/18/10
Leaders from around the world meet in New York City next week to review progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, a list of development targets set in 2000, after a decade of UN conferences and summits, for achievement by 2015. Ahead of the MDG Summit, I spoke with Michael Clemens and Todd Moss, senior fellows at the Center for Global Development and outspoken critics of the design and implementation of the MDGs. On the Global Prosperity Wonkcast, we discuss where Todd and Michael think that the MDG effort went wrong, and how it could be better going forward.
How to Help the World’s Least Developed Countries: UNCTAD’s Deb Bhattacharya
7/20/10
There are 49 countries in the world that the United Nations classifies as Least Developed Countries (LDCs). How does a country wind up on the list, and how is the international community working to help these countries develop? My guest this week is Debapriya Bhattacharya, currently a Special Advisor to the Secretary General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), focusing on issues related to Least Developed Countries.
Deb begins by explaining how the official Least Developed Country list is defined. There are three criteria for inclusion, he explains. Obviously, poverty, as measured in per capita income, is one of them. A second is what Deb calls “human assets,” expressed in education and health indicators. And the third is a measure of economic vulnerability to natural or manmade disasters."Haiti is a classic example of how vulnerable these economies are,” Deb explains. “You get hit not only by man-made disasters, but also by natural exogenous shocks."
David Roodman on Microfinance and a Year of Blogging
3/1/10
My guest on this week’s show is David Roodman, a research fellow here at CGD who has spent the past year writing a book on microfinance. He has shared this experience online through his open book blog, posting chapter drafts, analyzing ongoing research in the field, and soliciting comments and suggestions. I ask David why he decided to write his book in such a public way, and what he’s learned over the last year.
David replies that when it comes to policy research, people write books for four reasons. “One is to help you think through a complicated process… Another is to provide a basis for shorter spin-off pieces… Another is to signal that you’re an expert about something. And then the last is, oh yeah, to write something for people to read.” David says blogging about the book-writing process has helped him to partially accomplish the first three goals even before the book is complete. It has also, somewhat unexpectedly he says, changed his writing style, something he discussed recently on the blog.
Six Lessons for Disaster Relief in Haiti
1/26/10
I'm joined this week by John Simon, a visiting fellow here at the Center for Global Development. Before coming to the Center, John served in a range of influential positions, from U.S. Ambassador to the African Union to Executive Vice President of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. During the George W. Bush administration, he was a member of the National Security Council, serving as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Relief, Stabilization, and Development.
That last role placed him at the center of the American response to natural disasters including the 2005 South Asia earthquake and Hurricane Stan. On the Wonkcast, he shares some of the lessons he learned through those experiences, expanding on a blog post he wrote last week (a post I highly recommend reading!).