Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
One of the biggest hopes people expressed about Jim Kim’s nomination to become president of the World Bank was that he would bring a fresh perspective, focused on achieving results, rather than reinforce the institution’s bureaucratic machinery. Unfortunately, President Kim’s recent remarks at the Center for Foreign Relations suggest that bureaucratic inertia is winning.
This is a joint post with Kaci Farrell.
During a House Financial Services subcommittee hearing on the global financial crisis and Nigeria’s financial reforms, CGD vice president for programs and senior fellow Todd Moss said Nigeria’s economic and political stability are inextricably linked to each other and to U.S. national interests. He urged members to support the African Development Bank and the World Bank and proposed a new idea: Nigeria should consider using oil revenues to finance cash transfers to citizens in the Niger Delta.
Perhaps predictably, media coverage of the G-20 Seoul Summit focused on the currency wars, and assessments of impact of the meeting were decidedly mixed (though, interestingly, more negative in the United States than in the big emerging markets). But global imbalances were hardly the only item on the agenda. Three summit documents have the potential to become more important with the passage of time, especially if the development community seizes upon them as opportunities to press the big economies for pro-development policies and spreads the word.
A few month's ago, Ruth Levine recommended that I read Steve Berkman’s book “The World Bank and the Gods of Lending” and yesterday I had the chance to listen over the phone while he gave an informal talk about it at the Center for Global Development.
Congress should focus U.S. foreign assistance on human and economic development to buttress vulnerable societies against the inevitable impacts of climate change, CGD senior fellow David Wheeler told members of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment at a congressional hearing last week.
In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade last week, CGD president Nancy Birdsall argued that support for the G-20 commitments to increase lending resources at the IMF is a critical part of ensuring U.S. recovery from the economic crisis and global prosperity and security. She was, however, confronted with a host of concerns about whether multilateral lending would go to governments like Iran, Sudan, and Syria, and with one member of Congress’s view that he “is a citizen of the United States, not the world.”
The U.S. Congress today passed its omnibus appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2009, H.R. 1105. Missing in action: the U.S. contribution to the World Bank's so-called Clean Technology Fund (CTF), which has repeatedly come under fire from CGD's David Wheeler and others for including coal-fired power plants among those potentially eligible for CTF support.
The U.S. Congress launched a new bipartisan Caucus for Congressional-World Bank Dialogue at a packed event on Capitol Hill July 16. The caucus, co-chaired by Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Betty McCollum (D-MN), provides a forum for members of Congress to engage the World Bank, parliamentarians and policy experts on poverty reduction, global development and trade.
The House Financial Services Committee will consider new legislation this week that would contribute $400 million in FY2009 to a multilateral Clean Technology Fund (CTF), administered by the World Bank, to promote low-carbon energy production in developing countries. Scheduled for mark-up on Tuesday, H.R.
Controversy over the World Bank's proposed design for a multibillion dollar Clean Technology Fund (CTF) reached a House subcommittee last week. When the hearing ended, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), the chairman of the subcommittee, voiced support for CGD senior fellow David Wheeler's scenario for a successful fund. Wheeler had urged that the CTF be redesigned to rapidly drive down the price of zero-emissions renewable power so that it becomes cheaper than electricity from coal and other fossil fuels -- thereby helping to avert a climate disaster.
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