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Blog Post
April 02, 2024
“Trade not aid” is a slogan that appeals to certain instincts on both the left and right. The idea being that rich countries can do more for economic development in poor countries by granting them market access than by sending charity. But will market access really stimulate economic growth in laggi...
Blog Post
January 19, 2023
Kenya has become a poster child for digitally driven development. Known as “Silicon Savannah,” the country has a multi-billion-dollar tech industry that routinely produces startups. Among its most prominent successes is M-Pesa. Launched in 2007, the mobile wallet service revolutionized how Kenyans t...
Blog Post
February 03, 2022
A couple weeks ago, Uganda finally ended the longest national school closure on record, reopening its public schools after nearly two full years. One might anticipate a fairly dramatic decline in learning levels. Indeed, in a very non-scientific poll of my twitter followers, the dominant view was th...
Blog Post
October 21, 2021
Dr. Joseph Atick, Executive Chairman of ID4Africa, and Alan Gelb, CGD Senior Fellow, join Gyude to discuss the evolution of ID systems across Africa, the benefits and risks of digital ID systems, and what African governments can learn from countries like India about what works and what doesn’t.
Blog Post
September 01, 2021
When schools in Sierra Leone closed last March, the government was more ready than many to respond. We designed a randomised control trial which assigned 4,399 students from 25 government primary schools to receive—in addition to the standard access to the government’s broadcast that all students re...
Blog Post
May 12, 2021
Each year over two million secondary-school students across Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and The Gambia sit coordinated tests known as the WASSCE. In a new CGD working paper, undertaken by researchers from CGD and IEPA-Ghana, we look at English and maths papers in West Africa’s leading high...