Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
With rigorous economic research and practical policy solutions, we focus on the issues and institutions that are critical to global development. Explore our core themes and topics to learn more about our work.
In timely and incisive analysis, our experts parse the latest development news and devise practical solutions to new and emerging challenges. Our events convene the top thinkers and doers in global development.
CGD works to reduce global poverty and improve lives through innovative economic research that drives better policy and practice by the world’s top decision makers.
CGD experts offer ideas and analysis to improve international development policy. Also check out our Global Health blog and US Development Policy blog.
I’m thrilled that the 2nd edition of African Development: Making Sense of the Issues and Actors is out this week. Thanks to Chris Blattman at Yale, Callisto Madavo at Georgetown, and others who have used it in their courses, demand for the first 2007 edition was high enough that the terrific Lynne Rienner asked me to do an update.
As Congress looks for cost savings, a logical first step would be to compare the various investments the USG makes to figure out what gets taxpayers the highest returns. One debate is bilateral versus multilateral, and the administration has signaled a preference toward the latter wherever possible (this is debatable, but an argument for another day).
Andy Sumner and I recently wrote about the fact that the number of low income countries in the world is rapidly shrinking –which is great news because it suggests poor countries are getting richer. But how much does graduating to ‘middle income’ mean? Here’s how the original income classification came about, according to the World Bank’s website:
My Foreign Policy column this week suggests that in the Twenty-First Century, famines can only occur with the active engagement of local leadership – taking away food from producers and/or denying access to agencies delivering emergency relief. In Somalia, the leadership that is denying access is al-Shabab – the group in control of the areas of the country where famine has already begun.
I wrote here three years ago, during the last food price crisis, that corn-based ethanol subsidies were economically inefficient, environmentally unfriendly, and inequitable. So I listened with great interest yesterday to an NPR story on the likelihood that the ethanol subsidy will be eliminated as part of a budget deal.
This is a joint post with Caroline Decker.
With the expansion of cell coverage and mobile banking, millions of poor and rural people can now access financial services. But as financial institutions reach new populations, it is becoming clear that there are other issues keeping people from formal banking, such as the need for identification. Thankfully, there seems to be an easy solution. Just as mobile phones have helped overcome the issue of proximity for banking, biometrics could do the same for identification.
My column for Foreign Policy this week has a theme that will ring familiar to anyone who has been around global poverty advocacy for the last few years. It puts a price tag on ending poverty. My price is $100 billion, based on just handing over enough money to everyone worldwide living on less than $1.25 a day to bring them up to that level. The World Bank’s Shanta Devarajan was kind enough to comment on the article:
Progress toward an international agreement to cut CO2 emissions has been stymied by disputes about burden-sharing between rich and poor countries. Many participants assume that poor countries will only begin to reduce emissions after an agreement is signed. This conflict has been shaped by the view that clean energy development is an expensive game that only the rich countries have been playing. Another view is that developing countries should only join the game if rich countries provide compensation, or when technological advances in the rich countries make clean energy competit
"Why Think Tanks Hate Women" was the inflammatory subject line on Foreign Policy's email newsletter this morning. The misleading packaging aside, the relevant FP article by Micah Zenko contained some interesting numbers.
There was a lot of justified hand-wringing and tough talk too in the media and in think tank and NGO-land about the unseemly use by Europe of its unwarranted voting weight at the IMF to push the election of Christine Lagarde. The appointment this week of Zhu Min, a former deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, as the one of two IMF
Commentary Menu