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CGD's weekly Global Prosperity Wonkcast, event videos, whiteboard talks, slides, and more.

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.

How to Help the World’s Least Developed Countries: UNCTAD’s Deb Bhattacharya

7/20/10

Deb BhattacharyaThere 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."

Bringing Medicines to Market: Tom Bollyky on Clinical Trials for Neglected Diseases

7/13/10

Tom BollykyFueled by charitable giving, more and more medical research is focusing on treating and curing thus-far neglected diseases. Is the regulatory framework ready? My guest this week is Tom Bollyky, a visiting fellow here at the Center for Global Development. Tom is a lawyer by training, and is currently working on the important legal and regulatory issues surrounding clinical trials for medicines to treat neglected diseases.

For those unfamiliar with the scale of the problem, Tom gives a quick introduction to what neglected diseases are. Common diseases like malaria and tuberculosis and less common diseases like dengue fever and hookworm together afflict more than one billion people worldwide. Yet, because they’re not big problems in high income countries, very little research has gone towards finding cures for them.

Satish Chand on the Challenges of Small Island States

7/6/10

Especially during the hot summer months, some of us might daydream about packing up and relocating to a small tropical island somewhere in the Pacific. From a development perspective, however, small island states face unique challenges—most obviously from rising sea levels, but also from the economic dynamics created by their small size and isolation. My guest this week is Satish Chand, a visiting fellow here at the Center for Global Development and a native of Fiji. On this week’s Wonkcast, we discuss a range of issues that affect small island nations, as well as Satish’s research on the effects of migration on human capital in Fiji.

Surprisingly, Satish tells me that nations surrounded by ocean share many of the problems of small landlocked countries. “Being landlocked impedes trade and communication just as much as being out there in the ocean,” Satish explains. Small populations and limited available land also make it difficult for these states to take advantage of economies of scale in providing basic services to their citizens.

How the G-8 and G-20 Fared on Development: Liliana Rojas-Suarez & Sarah Jane Staats

6/28/10

Sarah Jane Staats and Liliana Rojas-SuarezLeaders of the world’s largest and richest countries met over the weekend in Ontario, Canada. What did they accomplish? This week on the Wonkcast, I’m joined by two guests: CGD Senior Fellow Liliana Rojas-Suarez and Director of Policy Outreach Sarah Jane Staats. We examine the statements released by the two groups—looking specifically at what they have to say about several key policy areas for global development.

Listen to the Wonkcast to hear our conversation. Among other topics, we discuss:

  • What President Obama’s G8 announcement on his administration’s development strategy means for the U.S. aid reform agenda.
  • The significance of the G20’s release of a set of principles for financial inclusion.
  • How the headline issues of financial stability and regulation might affect emerging countries.
  • What was said (and wasn’t said) in Toronto on expanding trade, especially for the world’s least developed countries.
  • What role an announced G20 Working Group on development might play in the run-up to the next G20 summit this fall in Seoul, South Korea.

The Gulf Gusher & Africa’s Offshore Oil Boom: Todd Moss and Vijaya Ramachandran

6/22/10

Todd Moss & Vij RamachandranAs the BP well in the Gulf of Mexico continues to spew thousands of barrels of oil each day, media attention has been focused on the toll on nearby economies and ecosystems and on the U.S. political response. On this edition of the Global Prosperity Wonkcast, we look beyond the Gulf of Mexico to explore what implications America’s biggest environmental disaster might hold for the new offshore oil boom getting underway in Africa.

My guests are Vijaya Ramachandran and Todd Moss, both senior fellows here at the Center for Global Development.

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.

Jenny Aker: Mobile Phones for Development—Hope vs. Hype

6/1/10

Jenny AkerAre mobile phones revolutionizing development in Africa, or have they been over-hyped? My guest this week, Jenny Aker, says the truth is a little of both. Jenny is an assistant professor at Tufts University’s Fletcher School and a non-resident fellow here at the Center for Global Development. Her research interests include the impact of communication technologies in poor countries, especially Africa.

Mobile phone use has spread across Africa at a stunning pace. The percentage of Africans who could access a mobile phone leapt from only 10% in 1999 to more than 60% by 2008—far outstripping improvements in other infrastructure (roads, clean water, or indeed landline telephones). In a new CGD working paper, to be published later this summer in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Jenny and her co-author Isaac Mbiti describe four main ways phones have been applied to the problems of the poor. In the Wonkcast, we discuss these four applications:

Turning the Tide Through Better Prevention: Mead Over on the AIDS Transition

5/25/10

Mead OverEven as the cost of treating HIV/AIDS has fallen dramatically, the number of people newly infected has remained high. What can be done to reverse this trend and finally defeat this disease? This week on the Wonkcast, I’m joined by Mead Over, a senior fellow here at the Center for Global Development and perhaps the world’s leading expert on the economics of HIV/AIDS. He has recently published two major essays, which introduce the concept of the “AIDS transition”—the point in time where the number of people living with the disease begins to fall. He argues persuasively that to reach this point, international donors must greatly strengthen incentives for effective prevention.

“We should be very proud of the accomplishment in bringing down the numbers of AIDS deaths,” says Mead. “But the number of new infections… has not fallen enough. And so the result is we have a new take-off in the numbers of people living with AIDS.” Since 1997, he says, the number of HIV-infected people has increased by 50%, rising from around 22 million in 1997 to 33 million today.

A Report Card for the African Development Bank: Todd Moss

5/18/10

Todd MossWhen Donald Kaberuka became president of the African Development Bank five years ago, he faced daunting tasks, including defining a mission for an institution that many dismissed as irrelevant.

My guest on this week’s show is Todd Moss, vice president and senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. Todd directed a working group that, in 2006, issued six recommendations, three each for bank management and the bank’s shareholder countries. Now, Todd has issued a report card that grades the bank and its shareholders on each of the recommendations.

Todd starts by explaining the basics of how the African Development Bank works. Like other multilateral development banks (notably the World Bank), it uses capital and promises of support by shareholder countries to raise and lend money for development projects, partly at concessional interest rates. During the 2008-09 financial crisis, the AfDB accelerated disbursements to African countries to cushion the impact of the crisis, at the request of the world’s leading donor countries.

The Economics of Child Soldiering: Chris Blattman

5/4/10

nameThis week, I'm joined on the Global Prosperity Wonkcast by Chris Blattman, assistant professor of political science and economics at Yale University and a non-resident fellow here at the Center for Global Development. Much of Chris' research tries to understand what happens after child soldiers return home, with the goal of designing programs that can better reintegrate former combatants into society. He also explores the logic that explains why guerrilla armies in many conflicts use child soldiers in the first place.

Chris has studied extensively the case of the Lord's Resistance Army, a Uganda guerrilla group responsible for some 60-70,000 abductions. Outsiders often despair over the large number of these former child soldiers, calling them a "ticking time bomb".

"That's a very pessimistic view, and it's the dominant view," Chris tells me. "And from what we can see, it's simply not true."

Paul Romer’s Bold New Idea for Charter Cities

4/26/10

Paul RomerThe planet's population will swell by two to three billion people over the next few decades. Where will all those people live? My guest on this week's Global Prosperity Wonkcast has a bold new idea. Paul Romer is a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, a non-resident fellow here at the Center for Global Development, and one of the world’s leading growth economists. He is proposing brand new cities—he calls them ‘charter cities’—built from the ground up with sound rules designed to promote swift development.

The two ideas at the heart of Paul's proposal are, first, that good rules are fundamental to development and, second, that new cities might be able to draw their rules, people, and land from different sources. He argues that inadequate property rights, legal systems, and other types of rules hold back development in poor countries. If the residents of a poor country could choose to live in a new city, governed by the rules of a well-functioning country, they might benefit enormously. If good rules are in place, Paul says, where that city is located doesn’t matter much.

Fighting Corruption in Nigeria: Nuhu Ribadu

4/19/10

Nuhu RibaduCan a few brave souls make a difference in the fight against corruption? My guest on the Global Prosperity Wonkcast this week is Nuhu Ribadu, the former head of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission or EFCC and a visiting fellow here at the Center for Global Development. Nuhu is working on a manuscript that tells the story of his four years (2003-2007) at the helm of the EFCC during which he won more than 275 convictions and recovered an astonishing $5 billion in stolen assets.

Nuhu explains the circumstances that led Nigeria to create the EFCC, starting with the 1999 democratic elections, the first in 16 years. The new president, Olusegun Obasanjo, had campaigned on an anti-corruption platform. The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks provided an additional push, heightening international awareness of the illicit financial flows that enable terrorist networks and political corruption alike. As a result, in late 2001 Nigeria found itself on an international blacklist of countries that enable money laundering, a list maintained by the independent Financial Action Task Force. It took nearly two years for Nigerian officials to realize they were on this black list and take action to get off of it. When they finally acted, they created the EFCC, a new office charged with cracking down on money laundering.

Nick Kristof on Story Telling and Development

4/13/10

How can people who care about international development interest the public? Last month, CGD hosted award-winning New York Times columnist Nick Kristof, one of the world’s most powerful voices on issues ranging from women’s rights to global health to genocide. In this special edition of the Global Prosperity Wonkcast, I’ve put together excerpts of Nick’s remarks and the question and answer session that followed. For those of us who were in the room, it was a valuable glimpse into how Nick thinks about his work and his audience.

Connecting Citizens: Twaweza’s Rakesh Rajani on Public Accountability in East Africa

3/30/10

Rakesh RajaniHas technology boosted the ability of citizens in African countries to influence their governments? This week, I'm joined by Rakesh Rajani, founder and head of Twaweza, an initiative that promotes transparency and accountability in Tanzania and other countries in East Africa. His organization has made good use of both new and old technologies—cellphones, TV, and radio broadcasts—to expand the ability of citizens to access government information and hold their leaders accountable.

Rakesh tells me that cellphone use has exploded in the last decade in Tanzania, rising from perhaps 200,000 users to over 14 million today. Except for the most remote areas of the country, he says, just about everyone can access a mobile phone. That new connectivity, Rakesh explains, has opened new channels for reducing corruption in government.

Following the Money: Owen Barder On Why Aid Transparency Matters

3/23/10

Owen BarderMy guest this week is Owen Barder, a visiting fellow here at the Center for the Global Development and the director of the AidInfo project at Development Initiatives, a UK-based NGO. Owen's current work focuses on improving the transparency of the international aid system—making it easier to know where and how aid is being spent.

Owen explains that more easily available aid data would benefit a number of audiences. Researchers and policymakers need the data to study what aid interventions work best. Developed country taxpayers have a right to information on how government is spending their money. Developing country governments need information on donor spending in order to budget their own resources effectively. However, according to Owen, the most important audience for aid data are the citizens of developing countries-the intended beneficiaries of the spending.

"They need to hold their government to account, they need to hold service delivery organizations to account," he says. "And to do that, they need to know what services they should be expecting, what money is being allocated, what's being spent, so they can make sure they're getting the services they need."

Market Access for the Poor: Kimberly Ann Elliott on Trade Preference Reform

3/16/10

Kimberly Ann ElliottThis week, I’m joined on the Global Prosperity Wonkcast by Kimberly Ann Elliott, a senior fellow here at the Center for Global Development. Kim’s research focuses on ways in which rich country trade policy affects the developing world. She currently chairs CGD’s working group on Global Trade Preference Reform.

Trade preferences are a way for countries to offer access to their markets to poor countries, in spite of other import tariffs or quotas that might otherwise apply. Kim tells me that most countries, including a growing number of advanced developing countries, have some form of trade preference program. However, she says, not all of them benefit developing countries very much.

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