Multimedia

This video includes highlights from the Center for Global Development's trade preference report launch, Open Markets for the Poorest Countries: Trade Preferences That Work. Working group chair and CGD senior fellow Kimberly Elliott presented the reports recommendations, and CGD president Nancy Birdsall moderated a panel discussion with working group members William Lane and Gawain Kripke on how trade policies can better support development objectives.

At the March 23, 2010 launch of their new book, Cash on Delivery: A new approach to foreign aid with an application to primary schooling, authors Nancy Birdsall, President, Center for Global Development; William Savedoff, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development; and Ayah Mahgoub, Program Coordinator to the President, Center for Global Development, presented an approach that links aid directly to outcomes in ways that promote accountability and strengthen local institutions. Cash on Delivery builds on existing initiatives that strive to disburse aid against results, but it takes the idea further by linking payments more directly to a single specific outcome; giving the recipient country full authority to achieve progress however it sees fit and without interference of any kind from donors; and assuring that the recipient country's progress is transparent and visible to its own citizens.

In this video, CGD visiting fellow April Harding describes the private sector's success in supporting health initiatives in developing countries. Harding provides an example of maternal care in India where government vouchers for private doctors provided the additional human resources to lower rates of maternal mortality.

Harding lead a CGD working group to identify how the private sector could support the health goals of the public sector. The working group recommended that donors create a private sector advisory facility that would provide on-demand support to policymakers in developing countries. So far, five donors have agreed to support this facility.

In a major policy speech hosted by CGD, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton declared international development a central pillar of U.S. foreign policy, together with diplomacy and defense. She hailed Raj Shah, recently confirmed as administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, and said she intends to rebuild USAID into, “the premier development agency in the world.”

In her speech, Clinton said that, especially in tough economic times, the American people have the right to ask why the United States spends tax dollars to help developing countries. Development overseas is critical to U.S. security and prosperity, she said, and development professionals must do a better job of measuring and communicating the impacts of their work.

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.

On September 10, 2009 CGD president Nancy Birdsall gave a keynote speech titled "The Crisis Next Time: U.S. Leadership at the Pittsburgh G-20 and Beyond." Tim Adams, managing director of The Lindsey Group and former Under Secretary for International Affairs at Treasury, and Francis Fukuyama, director of the International Development Program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University, served as discussants. CGD's vice president of communications and policy outreach, Lawrence MacDonald, moderated the discussion.

Listen to CGD president Nancy Birdsall's speech urging the United States to exercise leadership at the upcoming G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh

CGD vice president, communications and policy outreach Lawrence MacDonald interviews CGD visiting fellow Tom Bollyky on the legal and ethical issues that arise during the discovery, development, and delivery of essential medical technologies to the developing world.