April 30, 2009
After 100 Days, What About Development?
President Obama has generally gotten high marks for his performance after 100 days in office. But the development community has to be disappointed. Why?
Views from the Center
April 16, 2009
Liberia Cuts its Debt with $1.2 Billion Buy-Back at 97 Percent Discount
In a huge step forward, this week Liberia slashed its foreign debt by buying back $1.2 billion in commercial debt -- about one-quarter of its foreign debt -- from its private foreign creditors, including banks, hedge funds, and other “distressed debt” investment funds.
April 8, 2009
Innovations in Aid: Beginning with an End to ODA?
This is a joint posting with Ayah Mahgoub
To all those concerned about the future of foreign aid, please take the opportunity to read the works included in CGD’s new Innovations in Aid mini-series. The first paper in this series “The End of ODA” is by Jean-Michel Severino and Olivier Ray, and though it was started before the current global financial crisis reached its height, it is more relevant today than ever before. In this paper Severino and Ray describe shifts in the objectives of ODA (official development assistance) over time, and conclude that it is time to reform the concept and rename it “Global Policy Finance”.
April 3, 2009
Is China’s $40 Billion to IMF the Key to a Deal on Governance?
Our colleague Arvind Subramanian argues in a Peterson Institute blog post that the biggest achievement of the London Summit may have been just the agreement that the G-20 would meet again. Here’s why I find the Summit cup half-full not as he suggests half-empty.
April 2, 2009
G-20 Pledge $1 Trillion for Developing Country Crisis Response
Leaders from more than 20 major nations announced Thursday (see the Communiqué) that they would make available an additional $1 trillion through the International Monetary Fund and other institutions to help developing countries cope with the global economic crisis.
April 2, 2009
Will G-20 Back Anti-Protectionist Pledges with Action This Time?
The outcome of today’s G20 summit has become even more critical for developing countries as the World Bank revised the 2009 forecast for GDP growth in the developing world to 2.1 percent down from 5.8 percent in 2008. But a draft copy of the G20 communiqué published by the Financial Times could go farther in its commitment to help the world’s most vulnerable countries.
April 1, 2009
Welcome Kemal Dervis to Think Tank Row!
Let me speak for the development wing of the Massachusetts Avenue Think Tank Row community in rejoicing at the arrival among us of Kemal Dervis, as vice president and director of the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings, our friends and neighbors across the street.
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