It was a potentially awkward moment handled with aplomb. Takehiko Nakao, a senior Japanese finance ministry official and the sole candidate to become the next president of the Asian Development Bank, was addressing a conference today at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies on G-20 post-crisis policy reforms.
Morris, a newly arrived CGD visiting policy fellow, was previously the deputy assistant secretary for development finance and debt at the U.S. Treasury Department, where he led US engagement with the multilateral development banks.
Andy Sumner has stirred the pot on the future of foreign aid with his recent study on who and where the world’s poor really are. That has given new energy to the recent round of analyses by development economists on who and where the world’s middle class members are and why they matter too, including for the poor.
This is a joint post with Molly Kinder.
As Pakistan struggles to cope with the worst flooding in the country’s history, international donors have contributed upwards of $800 million to humanitarian relief efforts. (See here for the UK’s Guardian newspaper’s ongoing tracking of individual donor pledges to Pakistan’s floods.) The full cost of rebuilding Pakistan’s flooded regions is still being calculated, and will no doubt be staggering. The Asian Development Bank has already pledged $2 billion to the recovery and reconstruction efforts and the World Bank another $900 million. Most other international donors have yet to announce their contributions to the mammoth rebuilding effort that is to come.
As background, this post lays out how much the United States and other international bilateral and multilateral donors were already giving to Pakistan, before the floods. These aid figures were compiled earlier this year, and do not take into consideration any reprogramming or redirection of funds towards flood relief and recovery. As donors adjust their assistance plans, we will continue to track the numbers, and will update our “Aid to Pakistan by the Numbers” page. Check back for more! You’ll find raw data for all of the charts in this post here.
This is a joint post with Wren Elhai.
It is little wonder the Obama Administration has prioritized Pakistan’s energy sector in its $1.5 billion aid program this year. Pakistan is gripped by a very serious energy crisis. Daily black-outs in major Pakistan cities sometimes exceed 12 hours. Businesses are suffering, jobs have disappeared, and quality of life has plummeted. Frustrated Pakistanis are taking to the streets, and the political turmoil threatens to further destabilize the country and weaken the (already fragile) central government. Pakistani citizens and policymakers have turned to the United States for help. The United States sees an opportunity both to improve its public image, shore up a friendly government, and remove a key bottleneck to economic growth. Ultimately, fixing the Pakistani energy sector would go a long way towards stabilizing a critical state and benefiting U.S. national security interests.
However, the ever-present danger in jumping into a crisis situation with wallet in hand is that the desire to make progress quickly can overshadow the need to fix the longer-term problems that caused this crisis and, if not dealt with, will cause others in the future.