Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
Last month, the UK government announced its commitment to “hold the largest review of the UK’s foreign, defence, security and development policy since the end of the Cold War,” with the review adopting an integrated, whole-of-government perspective.
Today, we published the Commitment to Development Index (CDI) 2018, which ranks 27 of the world’s richest countries on how well their policies help the more than five billion people living in poorer countries. European countries dominate this year’s CDI, occupying the top 12 positions in the Index and with Sweden claiming the #1 spot. Here, we look at what these countries are doing particularly well in the past year to support the world’s poor, and where European leaders can still learn from others.
I thought I would take a look to see if the recently released National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2030 report had anything of interest to say on development-related issues.
In a remarkable document released Monday, National Security and the Threat of Global Climate Change, eleven retired U.S. generals and admirals devote their considerable prestige and credibility to making the case that global warming is not merely a threat to the survival of polar bears but a grave and growing threat to U.S. national security.
In U.S. jurisprudence, the standard for conviction in a criminal proceeding is "beyond a reasonable doubt" -- at least 90% certain, in the conventional understanding. The prevailing standard in civil proceedings is the "preponderance of evidence" -- more likely true than not -- which implies greater than 50% likelihood.
**This post is co-authored with CGD senior fellow David Wheeler
Today's Washington Post column by David Ignatius finally inches popular understanding in the U.S. a bit further in the right direction on why climate change could be so costly to human society. It isn't just the direct costs of seawalls and more destructive hurricanes that climate change will bring. It's the risk that institutional arrangements to deal with those costs will not be resilient and will collapse under the resulting pressure--so that, as Chinua Achebe suggested about post-colonial West Africa, things do literally "fall apart".
From D.C. to Dhaka, scores of people gathered around live broadcasts of President Bush to play CGD State of the Union bingo and watch the president’s first address to a new Democratic majority in Congress. The rules are simple: listen for key policy terms in Bush’s address and be the first to mark your bingo card. The point: U.S.
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