CGD Policy Blogs

This is a joint post with Sarah Rose.

It's not your father's USAID. That's the big message in USAID's first progress report on how the agency, under Administrator Rajiv Shah's leadership, is trying to be smarter about where and how it delivers aid around the world. There's a lot to like in the report: better evaluation, more developing-country partners, mobile technology and an end to some programs. This is all good news for revamping USAID, but our enthusiasm is tempered by the constraints USAID can’t fix alone. 

My (low) expectations for the 2013 State of the Union address were happily exceeded when President Obama delivered an ambitious speech that spanned a myriad of US and foreign policy topics.  Admittedly, most of his remarks on development were cleverly disguised as domestic issues.  But the 100+ wonks gathered at CGD’s annual State of the Union Bingo event weren't fooled, as mentions of climate change, immigration and trade set ink daubers in motion and prompted victorious shouts o

This week, eight polio vaccination workers in Sindh and Peshawar have been killed in Pakistan during a three day anti-polio drive (see here). Last week in Afghanistan, two polio vaccinators were also killed. Suspicions of CIA involvement in the campaign have been identified as causes of the attacks. “Our teams are getting attacked, and we are having a hard time hiring health workers because they are worried about being called a spy,” said the Head of Medicine in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province earlier this summer.

President Barack Obama's re-election gives him four more years to carry out his US global development policy vision. While no one expects the lame duck session to produce mighty development policy, my colleagues and I have a few ideas explained in short videos that could  help President Obama and his development team get a running start on his second term.