Commentary

In an earlier blog post, we argued that rationalizing tax expenditures (TEs)—comprising exemptions, deductions, and reduced rates providing preferential tax treatments for specific groups of individuals, regions, or sectors—is critical to enhancing the capacity of low- and low-middle income countri...

Medical doctors regularly warn their patients about unhealthy foods and behaviors. But who is going to warn the public about unhealthy public policies and government spending? The quick answer is that other doctors (the kind with PhDs not MDs), along with qualified policy analysts of all kinds, can...

Grazing livestock—especially cattle—are responsible for about 5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, measured by their warming effect over 100 years, but ranchers won’t invest in methane-reducing innovations without external incentives. An Advance Market Commitment could fix this market failu...

The Trump administration’s actions related to development policy are rooted in the “America First” doctrine. Their approach is not in line with internationally agreed objectives but narrowly aligned with perceived national interests. We take a step back to examine the underlying principles that appe...

Last week the government’s Evaluation Task Force published a new Evaluation Registry, putting together all UK government evaluations onto a single searchable website. We found that while aid-spending agencies make up only 1.3 percent of UK government spending, they are the subject of 12.5 percent of...

Takahiro Tsuda and Atsushi Mimura from the Japanese Ministry of Finance join Javier Guzman to examine current funding mechanisms for pandemic preparedness and response, explore Japan's role in driving global efforts (and insights gained), and discuss potential pathways to strengthen PPR financing.

We know that global finance for climate adaptation and resilience falls far short of estimated needs. But what do we know about how these funds are currently spent? Not very much. That’s the wrong answer when every dollar has to count.