Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
It is easy to critique humanitarian organizations for inefficiencies and other flaws in their coordination functions. But deeper examination of issues such as media exposure and incentives to coordinate makes it clearer that, given their current funding model, their actions may be rational institutional behavior.
Governments, impact investors, and philanthropists are increasingly looking for innovative ways to address tricky development challenges. USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures (DIV)—which celebrated its 10-year anniversary last year—was set up to do just that.
In a paper and blog, Charles Kenny discusses the idea of the declining marginal utility of income and its potential use in allocation decisions.
As development agencies transition from their immediate COVID-19 response towards a medium-term strategy, their leaders see a clear need to rethink some key aspects of their underlying business models. The Development Leaders Conference brought together heads of bilateral development agencies and senior management from selected multilateral institutions.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson ruffled aid advocates’ feathers a few months ago by folding the nation’s well-regarded, cabinet-ranking international development department (DfID) into its foreign affairs ministry.
In the build up to the 2020 Development Leaders Conference, the organizers outline the key themes that will be discussed and give an overview of development cooperation in the era of COVID-19.
The UK is about to merge development and diplomacy in a single department: the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about that, but CGD colleagues have pointed out some opportunities as well. One area where combining the talents of DFID and Foreign Office staff could be turned into a positive sum is in the area of global public goods.
A new ICAI report issued this week suggests that large parts of UK aid spending on research and development remain hampered by a design that favors British researcher interests over urgent research topics and capacity prioritized by the world’s poorest countries. The next few months are a perfect opportunity to fix that problem, because the two most problematic funds are up for renewal.
The CDI measures the policy effort of countries—relative to their size—in how they support development in other countries. How did your country rank?
China’s policy commitment to development ranks 35th of the 40 countries in the CDI. Some of the results may seem counterintuitive: Most people know that China provides major levels of finance to Africa, and that it’s a big producer of greenhouse gases. However, after we take account of country size to enable comparisons between countries, our index ranks China last on development finance but well above the US and in the top ten on limiting greenhouse gas emissions.
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