Christine Lagarde: Back to Rio, the Road to a Sustainable Economic Future (Event Video)
6/13/12
Twenty years after the original summit, world leaders will reconvene in Rio for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. Ahead of the Rio+20, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde will focus on key challenges to be addressed by the international community in Rio. World leaders are faced with an economic crisis, an environmental crisis, and sometimes a social crisis that cannot be treated separately. The IMF has an important role to play in exploring how macroeconomic and especially fiscal instruments can be used to address these urgent problems. The institution has also highlighted that social and environmental problems really do matter for economic performance, and are themselves affected by macroeconomic performance.
Given a small budget, would it make sense to vaccinate 10 children against childhood diseases, or one woman to prevent transmission of HIV to her unborn child? In today’s global health arena where resources are limited and demands are growing, policy makers constantly face such budgetary dilemmas with little expert guidance. 
Partnership for Growth (PFG) is a new model for the United States to engage with a select group of countries to accelerate and sustain broad-based economic growth. It involves rigorous joint analysis of constraints to growth, the development of joint action plans to address these constraints, and high-level mutual accountability for implementation. One of PFG’s objectives is to engage not just aid but also a range of available tools to unlock new investment. CGD is pleased to host Gayle Smith to present on PFG. Todd Moss will then moderate a conversation with representatives from the U.S. agencies involved in the partnership as well as representatives from the first set of PFG countries, El Salvador, Ghana, Philippines, and Tanzania. 
Senior Fellow Liliana Rojas-Suarez discusses the recent increased weakness of European banks. She argues that the crisis will exacerbate unless the European Central Bank (ECB) fully exercises its role as lender of last resort in the near future. Timid injections of liquidity will not do the job. In her view, however, Germany's political apparatus is not ready to support the ECB crucial role. At his point, the most likely scenario is a breakdown of the Eurozone and full-blown banking crises in a number of countries in the area.
The misadventures of the North seem to go hand-in-hand with a boom in emerging markets, particularly in Latin America. Spain is looking down a cliff and France threatens to get rid of the Teutonic fiscal belt, increasing angst and uncertainty in the North. In contrast, Latin American economies are trying but failing to prevent sizable currency appreciation, and a surge of credit flows. Given this scenario, is Latin America hopelessly, and counterproductively, fighting a bonanza that is here to stay, given that the North is mired in stubborn recession; or is the fight a worthy quest, necessary in order to prevent a painful replay of a boom-bust cycle? In this latter regard, what policies would be most effective under current conditions? Are macroprudential regulations helpful instruments to keep these economies on track? Does Basel III offer a reliable guide for regulators, or is it in need of major overhaul?
On May 22nd, members of the Latin American Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee (CLAAF), convened at CGD to discuss some of the most pressing fiscal and monetary issues affecting Latin American economies. The result of the committee’s two-and-a-half-day-long discussion was a four page 
Worldwide, about 1.3 billion people lack access to electricity, while 2.7 billion lack access to clean cooking fuels. Meeting their needs is central to reducing poverty but relying on existing technologies would make runaway climate change unavoidable. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is leading a “Sustainable Energy for All” initiative that is built on his vision for deploying renewable energy, increasing energy efficiency, and achieving universal energy access during the next two decades. Can the Rio+20 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro this June help to foster a global consensus for action? What could the United States do to spur progress? The Secretary General and other distinguished speakers provide a thoughtful discussion of one of the world’s most pressing development issues. 
John Githongo, an advocate for transparency and good governance, is well-known for his work as the anti-corruption czar in Kenya, where in 2003 he uncovered a $1 billion scheme involving some of the country’s top ministers. His probing incited a backlash that forced him to flee the country for fear of his life, taking up a fellowship at Oxford where he released a report documenting government graft. Since then, Githongo has devoted his efforts to eliminating corruption and injustice in Kenya and across Africa. His lecture focuses on what outsiders—the high-income countries and emerging powers—can do to help foster democracy and poverty reduction in the developing world.