Pulling Up the Ladder (A Development Critique of Changes in UK Migration Policy)
11/30/10
This post is originally appeared on Owen Abroad: Thoughts from Owen in Africa.
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CGD Policy Blogs
Should Natural Disaster Victims Be Offered Safe Haven and Opportunity Abroad?
10/27/10
(Kaci Farrell contributed to this post and preparations for the roundtable)
Last week, I hosted a roundtable here at CGD to discuss how the United States and other rich countries might better provide safe haven and opportunity to potential migrants from developing countries that are in acute need—particularly the victims of natural disasters.
This question has been at the forefront of my mind since the earthquake ravaged Haiti on January 12.
Is Your Citizenship Worth $1 Million? An Alternative to Obama’s Proposal on Immigration
7/2/10
President Obama spoke yesterday on overhauling U.S. immigration. He went straight to the thorniest issue, what to do about the millions of unauthorized migrants already here. Obama wants a third path between the extremes of blanket amnesty and mass deportation.
That compromise approach, he goes on to sketch, would be a combination of sending troops to the border, cracking down on employers, and obliging unauthorized immigrants to:
Migration Is a Spectacularly Good Investment for Most: New Study from Bangladesh
5/21/10
Do the costs of international migration outweigh its benefits for the poor? Many people I talk with suspect that migration should be regulated on development grounds—because it might bring large social costs, as well as private costs that the migrant is too poorly informed to account for.
A good first step is to measure the private benefits, because that gives us an idea of how large those other costs would have to be in order for international migration to be a net harm.
Can You Text me Money Now? Using Mobile Phones for Cash Transfers
5/18/10
In the wake of the Haitian earthquake, major wireless carriers used text messages to speed up and simplify donation processes, allowing thousands of people to send financial support via their mobile phones. Within two days, USD$2 million was raised for Haitian relief efforts. Will mobile phones serve as a new paradigm for providing aid in developing countries?
Evolutionary Rule Changes Won’t Necessarily Doom a “Charter City”: An Analogy With the Dynamic Rules of “Open-Source Chess”
5/9/10
On Monday March 15, Paul Romer gave an impassioned presentation here of his proposal that donor countries add a new tool to their toolkit for helping the world’s poorest – the establishment of “charter cities”. As you can learn in more detail here, such cities are conceived as contracts between three parties: a poor country which provides the land, one or more rich countries which establish the rules and norms and invest in the infrastruc
A New Kind of Degree for Development Professionals
5/4/10
Get ready for a new kind of training in development. We are about to see massive expansion of a new graduate degree—Master’s in Development Practice (MDP)—all over the world. Today the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced a grant of $5.6 million in support for the creation of such programs at ten universities, doubling the worldwide number of these programs.
The United States Can Give Better Aid to Haiti
4/6/10
This commentary also appeared on The Huffington Post and Global Post
Last week at a United Nations conference, donors pledged more than $10 billion to finance reconstruction and development investments in Haiti. The United States promised a hefty $1.15 billion.
But pledging money is the easy part. The United States, the lead donor and friend with the greatest interest in Haiti's future development, can do much more, in two ways: its own aid programs can be more effective; and it can take steps beyond aid that are far more critical to long-run prosperity for Haiti's people.
Sunday’s Immigration Marchers and Development
3/23/10
The spotlight in Washington on Sunday was on health care reform. But something else big happened here that day: Tens of thousands marched on the National Mall to ask for reform of U.S.
Why a Careful Evaluation of the Millennium Villages Is Not Optional
3/18/10
Millennium Villages Project (MVP) is a new, large, experimental intervention to promote economic development in 13 clusters of small and very poor villages across Africa. It has been driven forward by Jeffrey Sachs, one of the world’s foremost economists, and today is a joint effort of Columbia University, Millennium Promise, and the United Nations.