I had the great honor to testify today on US responses to Zimbabwe’s election crisis in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs. Kudos to Chairman Chris Coons (D-DE) and Ranking Member Jeff Flake (R-AZ) for bringing attention to a country that is facing a watershed moment, yet few others in Washington seem to be paying much mind.
This is a joint post with Owen Barder.
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Winston Churchill, November 1942
The agenda for action to tackle illicit financial flows has passed an important threshold. While the G-8 meeting which concluded today did not agree everything that had been hoped, there was tangible progress in two out of the three main areas:
The UK Ministry of Justice has released interim results for the Peterborough Prison Social Impact Bond: reconviction of former prisoners in the pilot has been reduced by 6% over two years, compared to a national increase of 16% over the same period.
There are many, many problems with the House farm bill being debated this week but there are two amendments that would make significant improvements. The first (#55 in this list) is a version of the Royce-Bass Food Aid Reform Act that would provide authorization to untie up to 45 percent of the emergency food aid budget and allow the US Agency for International Development to provide assistance in whatever form—food purchased in the US or locally, vouchers, or cash transfers—would help the most people the quickest.
This is a joint post with Stephanie Majerowicz.
When we share the Oil-to-Cash idea with people who are hearing about it for the very first time, the typical response is almost always viscerally negative. (If you aren’t familiar with Oil-to-Cash, here’s the web page and a 4-min jellybeans video.) They usually say “That won’t work because of X” or “Sure, that works in Alaska, but my country Y is very different” or “No, the money would be much better spent on Z”. Often, by the second or third time we talk with people about citizen dividends, however, they start to come around. In a few cases, we’ve even had former skeptics pitching us ideas of how it could work better.
As Zimbabwe heads into elections late this summer (spoiler alert: Mugabe will “win”), the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs is holding a hearing titled Examining Prospects for Democratic Reform and Economic Recovery in Zimbabwe, Tuesday June 18 at 10 am.
CGD’s Todd Moss, along with Dewa Mahvinga from Human Rights Watch and Mark Schneider from International Crisis Group are testifying, as are Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Yamamoto and Assistant Administrator for Africa of USAID Earl Gast on the government panel.
This is a joint post with Kate McQueston.
CGD has been following Advanced Market Commitment (AMC) for vaccines for a while now: from its groundwork in the CGD report Making Markets for Vaccines, to its launch and the delivery of its first vaccines in 2010 (GAVI also offers a nice timeline of events here). This innovative financing mechanism aims to increase investment in vaccines for use in lower-middle income countries (LMIC)by guaranteeing a market for appropriate health products and services, reducing unpredictability or volatility that can discourage private investment, and increasing competition and innovation between companies and organizations (read more here).
House hearing: better food aid or flags on the bag?
Twelve years of US development trends, one info-graphic (though maybe USAID Forward arrow should be flipped?).
This is a joint post with Jenny Ottenhoff.
Thank you to everyone who participated in our recent twitter chat on how the Global Fund and its partners can get more health for their money. The chat picked up on themes from our draft report “More Health for the Money”, which is available for public comment until July 12.
Followers of this blog should hopefully by now know all about Oil-to-Cash, our initiative to encourage a country facing the dilemmas of an oil or gas boom to consider distributing a portion of the proceeds directly to citizens. For the 4-minute summary, see my jellybeans video here.