April 28, 2020
How Do Development Agencies Support Climate Action?
This blog undertakes an initial analysis to map the ways that development agencies are integrating climate objectives into their development programs.
Views from the Center
June 14, 2017
Development's Hopes and Dilemmas in the Country at the Center of the World: Papua New Guinea
In a recent trip to the center of the world, I found myself confronting the big development questions in a low-income country with reasonably propitious circumstances. Papua New Guinea (PNG) is larger, richer, and growing faster than I had thought. It will go to the polls this very month to elect a new government. It is also facing all the dilemmas faced by most low-income countries since the 1950s—political fragmentation, resource curses, income inequality, and poor health. Have we learned anything to help it meet those challenges?
January 23, 2017
Postcard from Davos
The world’s elite—plus a few ringers like me—gathered last week in the small Swiss village of Davos to discuss the state of the world at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Although not formally on the agenda, the issue of tropical forests infiltrated a number of discussions. But first, a quick recap of the meeting’s big themes that provided the broader context.
January 6, 2011
Ten Zero-Cost Ideas for Development Progress in 2011
A new year calls for a development policy wish list. My wish list is about what the rich and powerful global actors– mostly but not solely in the United States – can do to improve lives among the poor and vulnerable around the world in the coming year.
November 24, 2009
Senator Kerry Nudges World Bank on Governance, Gender, and Climate Issues
U.S. Sen. John Kerry's recent speech at the World Bank hit all the right notes—and may have set World Bank management back on its heels a bit. Sen. Kerry expressed frank views, especially on increasing the voice of developing countries in Bank governance and on the Bank's role in addressing climate change.
October 29, 2009
Zedillo Commission Offers G-20 a Blueprint for Fixing the World Bank (But will Zoellick be Gorbachev or Brezhnev?)
Last week, the World Bank released the long-awaited report of a high-level commission headed by former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo. The report, which had been requested by World Bank president Robert Zoellick, offers a comprehensive blueprint for modernizing the World Bank to deal with the challenges of the 21st Century.
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