Funding to match up to $5 million raised from other donors
The Center for Global Development (CGD) has received a $10 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support policy research on global health and poverty issues. The grant includes a commitment to match up to $5 million raised by CGD from other donors over the next five years.
The grant is the second largest gift to the Washington-based non-profit after a founding gift from board chairman Edward W. Scott, Jr., a former senior U.S. government official and successful technology entrepreneur, that launched the Center in 2001.
CGD is an independent, non-partisan research and policy organization that works to improve the policies and practices of the U.S. and other rich countries to reduce global poverty and inequality.
CGD president Nancy Birdsall said she was grateful for the grant, as well as for the Gates Foundation's active involvement with the Center's work. "The Gates Foundation is a major player in global health and development, not only because of its money but also because of the staff's openness to new ideas and their intellectual rigor. I am delighted that the Gates Foundation is among the Center's partners."
CGD has 40 staff, including about 25 researchers. Examples of recent accomplishments include:
• CGD analysis played a critical role in helping Nigeria to secure a debt relief deal that eliminated $36 billion in debt.
• CGD experts helped design a legal framework to create an advance market commitment for the purchase of vaccines against diseases that annually kill millions of people in the developing world. The proposal, which has been endorsed by the G-8 group of leading industrialized nations, is designed to provide a commercial incentive for private firms to invest in research and development of new vaccines.
• The Center recently published its annual Commitment to Development Index, which ranks the development policies and practices of 21 wealthy countries. CGD also monitors bilateral aid programs such as the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corp., which is tracked through the MCA Monitor.
• CGD's Evaluation Gap working group has proposed the creation of a new, independent international body to promote rigorous, outcome-oriented evaluations of programs that provide health, education and other social services in developing countries.
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