Senior fellow Todd Moss investigates how the aftershocks of the global economic downturn are affecting Africa. African countries that take the right steps to mitigate the pain will be poised to benefit from the eventual recovery; those that don't will be left behind.
This paper evaluates an intervention aimed at improving road safety in Kenya, in which long-distance minibus passengers were encouraged to speak up and admonish their driver when they felt their safety was being compromised. Evocative messages designed to empower passengers were placed in a random sample of more than 1,000 minibuses. Comprehensive insurance claims data suggest the stickers reduced accidents by between one-half and two-thirds, and driver and passenger surveys indicate that passenger heckling contributed to this reduction.
This paper reviews several decades of scholarship on civil war and assesses the full effects of civil war on economic growth worldwide to chart a path forward for scholars and policymakers alike.
In this paper, witha foreword by senior fellow Vijaya Ramachandran, Benjamin Eifert of UC-Berkeley investigates the effects of regulatory reform by drawing on years of data across 90 countries. He discusses the characteristics of countries that choose to reform and the results of these reforms. The paper it contains valuable insights for policymakers and institutions focused on regulatory reform in weak states.
Senior fellow Todd Moss delineates three recommendations for the Obama administration to help restore democracy to Zimbabwe.
The goal of this course is to familiarize the student with approaches to the study of war and terror: economic, historical, analytical, formal theoretical, and statistical. Most of all, the course is designed to get students to think critically about traditional explanations and approaches. The focus of the course will be on civil war and the use of violence and terror in civil wars. 'Conventional' terrorism is covered as well, albeit less so.
When can a donor leave a post-conflict state confident that the country will not relapse into violence? The answer, according to a new CGD working paper by Satish Chand and his co-author: not for a very long time. In the cases of Liberia, Mozambique, the Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste, considered here, the authors argue, the best-case scenario for successful exit ranges from 15 to 27 years. An extended donor presence, says Chand, is necessary for the creation, sustenance, and maturation of institutions that will hold the state together when donors leave.
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Over the past two decades tens of thousands of children were forcibly recruited or abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. What happens to these former child soldiers when they return to civilian life? This new working paper by CGD post-doctoral fellow Chris Blattman shows that the popular perception of former child soldiers as social misfits and possible threats to society is generally contrary to the facts. His research shows that the experience of forced recruitment generally leads to greater political participation, more than doubling the likelihood that a young person will become a community leader.
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The recent creation of AFRICOM, a U.S. military command for Africa, is but one manifestation of the Pentagon's growing role in development. One-in-five dollars that the U.S. spends on development assistance is now handled by the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Pentagon share of U.S. development spending has increased three-fold in the past five years, to some $5.5 billion annually. In a new CGD working paper, research fellow Stewart Patrick and program associate Kaysie Brown find that while the vast bulk of Pentagon development aid is for Iraq and Afghanistan, the department is also increasingly involved in new initiatives that civilian agencies could undertake. They warn that DoD's growing role in foreign assistance could undermine a broader U.S. approach to development support, and they offer specific recommendations for restoring a more appropriate balance.
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Sierra Leone, where a brutal decade-long civil war finally ended in 2002, has just held remarkably fair, peaceful and well-organized elections. CGD visiting fellow Carol Lancaster, a former deputy administrator of USAID, was there as an election observer. In a new CGD Essay, she reflects on what democracy means in a country with a mere 35 percent literacy rate, a 70 percent unemployment rate, and life expectancy of only 40 years. She writes that progress will depend upon the new government's ability to tackle corruption, rebuild infrastructure and encourage investment. It will also require the emergence of a domestic constituency with the knowledge, power and commitment to hold new leaders accountable.
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The Bush administration has declared that fragile states are a threat to international security and an obstacle to global development. But Washington is struggling with how to respond to this challenge effectively. In this new CGD Essay, research fellow Stewart Patrick suggests ways that the U.S. can improve its performance in conflict prevention, crisis response, and post-conflict state-building. Among the recommendations: establish criteria for determining when and where to engage and improve civil-military planning and coordination.
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Fragile states--countries defined by poverty, weak governance and often violent conflict--represent a major development challenge for today's global aid community and a significant threat to global security. This CGD Brief offers recommendations for how donors can best engage weak countries, including by experimenting with pooled funding arrangements, developing unified national strategies and by evaluating the impact of their interventions.
Experience shows that outside efforts to help reform or reconstruct fragile states must simultaneously address issues of security, governance, and economic growth. Greater than the Sum of Its Parts? looks at how seven governments—the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, and Sweden—are seeking to integrate their approach to fragile states. The authors find that "whole of government" approaches remain a work in progress and provide recommendations for how donors can best engage weak countries, including by experimenting with pooled funding arrangements, developing unified national strategies and by evaluating the impact of their interventions.
This CGD working group report offers five practical recommendations for strengthening the International Development Association (IDA)--the World Bank's soft-loan facility for the world's poorest countries--as donors begin replenishment talks that will shape IDA's course from mid-2008 through mid-2011. Among the recommendations: affirm IDA's central role in the international aid system; focus on core tasks; don't hold IDA hostage to broader geopolitical issues; get serious about finding ways to help fragile states; and sharpen incentives for performance.Learn more
President Bush's FY2008 budget request provides a first glimpse into how the administration's new foreign assistance framework and transformational diplomacy agenda translate into who gets how much for what. In this CGD essay, authors Samuel Bazzi, Sheila Herrling and Stewart Patrick, show that the U.S. continues to devote a tiny fraction of national wealth to alleviate poverty and promote growth in the developing world. They recommend reform of U.S. development assistance include: a comprehensive national strategy for global development; a hard look at the top recipients; impact evaluation; a cabinet-level development agency; and rewriting the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. Learn more
Does aid to Africa undermine the emergence of a robust African middle class? If so, what can be done about it? In this new working paper, CGD president Nancy Birdsall argues that high and unpredictable aid flows could be making life harder for Africa's small and medium-sized businesses by, for example, inflating wages and making governments less reliant on domestic revenue—and hence less accountable to taxpayers. She urges that donors systematically monitor such impacts in aid-dependent countries and suggests ways that aid could help to bolster Africa's crucial but fragile middle-income groups. Learn more
Bill Easterly calls Moss's new introduction to Africa "compulsively readable and accessible" and "a masterpiece of clear thinking." Each chapter is organized around three fundamental questions: Where are we now? How did we get to this point? What are the current debates?
The colonial legacy of artificial borders is often seen as an important cause of problems for developing countries. In this paper CGD non-resident fellow William Easterly and his co-authors quantify this effect. They find that countries with straight borders that divide ethnic groups--lines on maps--tend to be less successful economically and politically than countries with less arbitrary borders.Learn more