Research Topics

The Center for Global Development focuses on the development policies of rich countries as they relate to the developing world. We also extend our focus beyond rich-world capitals to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of these policies in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe-Russia, and Latin America.

Much of the discussion on development is about foreign aid. Quality of aid, however, is every bit as important as quantity. CGD senior fellow The Center conducts research to analyze of current foreign development assistance programs and proposals for innovation in aid delivery.

CGD examines the impacts of financial regulations on capital account volatility, as well as mechanisms to further domestic financial deepening in emerging markets to prevent instability and enable growth. The Center’s research also deals with approaches to crisis resolution and the potential of foreign direct investment to promote growth.

CGD research on debt relief is shaping the debate with concrete proposals for accelerated debt relief, including recent work on restructuring Nigerian debt, mobilizing IMF gold to finance debt relief, and replacing loans with grants to allow poor countries to break out of the poverty trap.

From climate change, to sustainable development, to natural disasters like the 2004 tsunami, environmental factors have a significant impact on the fortunes of rich and poor countries alike. CGD research looks at the economic, political, and security implications of these environmental factors, and offers pragmatic policy solutions to meet these challenges.

The Center has committed itself to improving our understanding of the relationship between development and economic growth. Though growth is a necessary condition for development, not all growth benefits the poor. Non-resident fellow Peter Timmer leads CGD research which explores strategies for ensuring that economic growth is “pro-poor,” and that agencies such as the Millennium Challenge Account encourage growth that benefits all economic sectors.

Recognizing that education is a lynchpin of development - and the focus of much development assistance - the Center for Global Development investigates promising new approaches for rich countries to help improve education outcomes in developing countries. A focus of research by Senior Fellow Maureen Lewis, Nancy Birdsall, and others is the beneficial effects that educating girls can have on health and social development, as well as economic growth.

CGD recognizes that strong institutions that set the context for effective governance are key to generating development, and our research in this area focuses on how rich world policies can be better targeted towards strengthening governance systems in developing countries, through avenues of intervention such as foreign aid and trade policy.

CGD research examines ways the IFI’s - the IMF, World Bank, Multilateral Development Banks (MDB’s), and other large development agencies - can become more responsive to the needs of developing countries, can better understand the impact of their work, and can ensure that growth better reaches the country’s poor.

Financial services—savings, credit, insurance, money transfer—are vital yet intangible economic infrastructure. On an individual scale, financial services help people manage some of life’s great challenges: investing in education, softening the financial trauma of illness and death, attaining ownership of a safe home. On a macro scale, they channel investment and diversify away risk.

The role of agriculture in promoting pro-poor growth is attracting renewed attention. CGD’s work focuses on how rich countries' agricultural policies and practices impact poor people in the developing world.

CGD research on fragile states focuses on understanding the process of transition from immediate post-conflict assistance to longer-term development assistance.

The globalization of markets can and has brought mutual benefits to both the rich and the poor. Yet there is contention over how these benefits are divided, and there is an increasing recognition that global markets require good global politics. CGD believes that good global politics are critical to the battle against global poverty and unrealized human development, and to a more just and fair as well as a more stable and prosperous global economy. CGD President Nancy Birdsall leads the center's work on the politics and economics of globalization.

CGD work on global health aims to improve the effectiveness of policies and actions of donors (bilateral aid agencies, philanthropic foundations, and multilateral organizations) and to enhance the coordination between these public agents and the private sector.

People have always migrated to improve their lives. Today, movements from developing countries to other parts of the world are of intense interest to many policymakers. While most of the rich world migration debate focuses on how migrants affect the places they arrive in, CGD conducts rigorous, independent research to examine the effects on migrants and their places of origin. CGD research fellow Michael Clemens leads this research.

The Center is committed to reducing inequality: the enormous – and growing – gaps between the richest and poorest countries. CGD work in areas including global public health, aid effectiveness, foreign direct investment, trade, migration, and other areas, contribute to reducing poverty and inequality.

This page highlights CGD research on private investment, innovations in development finance, and privatization. It also includes work analyzing programs designed to encourage entrepreneurship and policies that affect the quantity and quality of capital flows to low-income countries.

Finding ways to reduce the poverty that afflicts more than half the world’s people is a core part of CGD’s mission. But understanding the causes, and cures, for poverty alone is not enough. It would only be a partial victory if poor countries succeeded in improving their living standards, only to fall farther behind the world’s wealthiest nations. The Center is therefore committed to reducing inequality: the enormous – and growing – gaps between the richest and poorest countries. CGD work in areas including global public health, aid effectiveness, foreign direct investment, trade, migration, and other areas, contributes to reducing poverty and inequality.

CGD trade research focuses on how rich country trade policies could be more supportive of poverty reduction and economic growth in developing economies. We also work to rebuild a foundation for broad support of open trade policies in key developed and emerging markets.

Data is critical to the work done by the Center. On this page you will find data compiled by CGD experts for their research, as well links to other sources of development data.