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My guest this week is Oeindrila Dube, a postdoctoral fellow here at the Center for Global Development and an assistant professor of politics and economics at New York University. She is the author, along with Suresh Naidu, of a new paper that examines the relationships between U.S. military aid to Colombia and paramilitary violence and electoral participation in that country. Her paper reaches the unsettling conclusion that U.S. military assistance dollars may in fact be responsible for raising the levels of political violence.

This week on the Global Prosperity Wonkcast, I'm joined by Nandini Oomman, director of the Center's HIV/AIDS Monitor. Our conversation focuses on the new 5-year strategy laid out earlier this month by Ambassador Eric Goosby, the new U.S. global AIDS coordinator and head of PEPFAR (the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief).

Nandini praises the evidence-based framework PEPFAR has laid out and its move towards much greater openness and transparency. She stresses that the challenge ahead will be in designing concrete plans that implement the strategy effectively and measure its impacts.

Forest clearing in developing countries is an enormous contributor to global warming, accounting for about 15% of annual greenhouse gas emissions. The Bali Action Plan seeks ways to reward countries for reducing these emissions – an agenda known as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). Effective implementation of REDD is an intense topic of discussion in the negotiations leading up to Copenhagen. Many observers envision financial flows in the billions of dollars per year, and substantial pilot efforts are already being sponsored by UN-REDD, the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), and the Norwegian International Climate and Forest Initiative.

This week, my guest on the Global Prosperity Wonkcast is senior fellow David Wheeler, the lead researcher for CGD’s work on climate and development. Last week, David and his team released a new tool called Forest Monitoring for Action (FORMA). A major advance in the remote monitoring of forests, FORMA makes available rapid, high-resolution monitoring of ongoing deforestation in tropical areas to anybody with an Internet connection.

On Friday, November 6, 2009, the Center for Global Development hosted the Washington launch and discussion of this important report, with President Zedillo presenting the key recommendations. A panel discussion, moderated by CGD vice president Lawrence MacDonald, followed with CGD president Nancy Birdsall, Foreign Policy editor-in-chief Moisés Naím, and Arvind Subramanian, joint senior fellow with CGD and Peterson Institute.

In CGD’s first Global Prosperity Wonkcast I interview senior fellow Todd Moss on his innovative proposal for managing Ghana’s anticipated $1 billion per year oil windfall: money to the people. Subscribe to the podcast if you have iTunes; read Moss’s executive memo to Ghana’s President John Atta Mills, or get the full story in Saving Ghana from Its Oil: The Case for Direct Cash Distribution.

In 2008, the United States finished 17th in the Index. Did it do any better in 2009? How did the other wealthy countries fare? To find out, and to understand the data behind the rankings, watch the Webinar that took place on Oct. 20.  The Webinar includes an overview of the Index and the 2009 results from CGD research fellow David Roodman. CGD senior fellow Steve Radelet, a former deputy assistant secretary of Treasury for Africa, the Middle East and Asia, will discuss the implications of the Index results for the ongoing debate over reforming U.S. development policy.

On Tuesday, September 29, 2009 Center for Global Development hosted a launch event for their newest book, Growing Pains in Latin America: An Economic Growth Framework as Applied to Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Peru.