Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
It’s back to business in the aid industry with the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF4) behind us, although the impact of the Forum and its communiqué, the Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation, will likely continue to be debated for some time.
This is a joint post with Nancy Birdsall and Bill Savedoff.
During a panel discussion we hosted at the World Bank and IMF annual meetings in Istanbul last month on mutual accountability and outcomes in aid, Max Lawson from Oxfam, in referring to COD Aid, said that CGD appears to have more effective publicity strategies and reach than the European Commission. While we do have a (small but) stellar communications team, our ideas spread far primarily because other organizations are seriously engaged in exploring and debating new ideas like the ones we have proposed (otherwise our tiny team would be sleepless, to say the least!).
One case in point is the recent COD Aid briefing paper issued by the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) – a large international development organization based in the UK which raises about 75% of its funds from individual supporters.
We at CGD warmly welcome president-elect Barack Obama's appointments of Timothy Geithner as Secretary of Treasury and Lawrence Summers to head the National Economic Council. Both are members of the CGD Board of Directors. This is no coincidence.
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