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Welcome to the Center for Global Development's Press Center!
The Center for Global Development’s communications team is standing by to assist reporters on deadline. Our experts can provide analysis, commentary, data, and unique expertise on the global development and economic issues that are driving the news cycle. You can search for experts by their area of expertise here. To arrange an interview or to be added to our press list, please contact Sean Bartlett, Communications Director, by phone or email at +1202.416.4040 and sbartlett@cgdev.org.
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CGD in the News
March 30, 2020
Article
From the article:
“…The Chinese government is authoritarian, which helps explain its crackdown on embarrassing information from the start. But another important reason, experts say, is that China wants to be perceived as a stable world power. That’s hard to accomplish when new diseases keep originating in the country, like SARS did in 2003. To safeguard its global prestige, then, Xi and his underlings worked to keep news of the brewing crisis under wraps.
‘There were definitely public image reasons why China did what it did,’ Amanda Glassman, a health expert at the Center for Global Development, told me.
But while China may have been the first country to prioritize politics over public health in this pandemic, it wouldn’t be the last. Spain, and particularly Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, had a tough choice to make. It was only in January that he formed a minority left-wing government, giving him a tenuous hold on power and making him one of the nation’s most historically weak leaders. Any move that might anger the population, especially his left-wing base, could see him lose control…”
March 30, 2020
Article
From the article:
“It's something we've heard again and again from health authorities in the coronavirus pandemic. Wash your hands. Frequently. With soap and water. For at least 20 seconds. That's an effective way to eliminate viral particles on your hands.
But for the 2.2 billion people in the world who lack safe drinking water — mostly in low- and middle-income countries — that advice will be difficult to heed. In these places, water is scarce for a number of reasons. It could be due to drought or climate change. Or local water supplies could be contaminated. Or the nearest source of water may be far away from home.
Aid groups and public health officials are doing all they can to help people in these communities overcome the obstacles and wash up. Washing your hands, they say, is a small action that can make a huge difference in the coronavirus pandemic.
‘Hand-washing is one important tool to check and control spread,’ says Amanda Glassman, executive vice president at the think tank Center for Global Development — along with other known interventions such as testing, isolating the sick and social distancing…”
March 30, 2020
Article
From the article:
“…There is no shortage of analogies for how to think about these components of the long-term response: It’s a Marshall Plan, an Apollo mission and a New Deal all rolled into one. However this is framed, it needs to happen fast for the sake of both the economy and the public’s health. ‘The half measures we’re taking now are doing real harm to people’s livelihoods without doing as much as they could to slow the virus,’ says Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development.
It will be difficult to explain these past few weeks to future generations — how terror and complacency sat so close together, how despite years of warnings from global experts and weeks of signaling from Asia and Europe, America’s leaders failed to prepare for the inevitable, and how even as sickness and death surpassed the capacity of hospitals and funeral homes, they did not act decisively…”
March 29, 2020
Article
From the article:
“…Six weeks ago, the Center for Global Development warned that the U.S. should get ready to rapidly scale-up medical supply manufacturing. Minnesota’s 3M Co. was already ramping up, but only in the past week have many others followed.
A frenzied push to increase domestic production is too little and too late, said Prashant Yadav, a visiting fellow at the center.
Trump on Friday announced that he was using his power under the Defense Production Act to order General Motors to begin manufacturing ventilators — work that had already been underway, AP reported.
Yadav said that in addition to more supplies, states and hospitals need a better way to allocate medical supplies to the places they’re needed most.
‘The real challenge is not having a clear dashboard-like function that can help match demand and supply. Just infusing more cash doesn’t create that,’ he said Friday…”
March 28, 2020
Article
From the article:
“Larry Summers knows a thing or two about economic emergencies. As US treasury secretary under President Clinton in the 1990s, he led the country’s response to financial crises arising in Mexico, Brazil, Russia, and Asia. And as economic adviser to President Obama, he helped formulate the government’s response to the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
Now a professor and president emeritus at Harvard University, Summers advises businesses and chairs the board of the Center for Global Development, a think tank focused on economic inequity. He also launched the Commission on Investing in Health, an initiative aimed at promoting awareness of the economic significance of global health issues.
As the US struggles to cope with the human and economic cost of the coronavirus pandemic, Summers offers words of advice and caution for President Trump and his team. He spoke with WIRED senior writer Will Knight from isolation at his home in New England. This transcript has been condensed and edited….”
March 27, 2020
Article
From the article:
“…China’s government, banks and companies lent some $143 billion to Africa between 2000 and 2017, according to Johns Hopkins University, and African governments have raised over $55 billion on international debt markets in the past two years, the culmination of a decade-long spree of Eurobond issues.
Throw in debt held by other banks, commodity traders and even so-called vulture funds, and Africa’s creditor landscape has become far more complex.
That means debt relief frameworks of the past may fail to ease the pressure on government finances unless private lenders are flexible, bondholders consider waiving repayments or interest and China works closely with Western institutions that have often criticized its lending practices, experts say.’
The complicated structure makes it harder, undoubtedly. But let’s do what we can,’ Masood Ahmed, president of the Center for Global Development in Washington, told Reuters.
A former IMF and World Bank official, Ahmed oversaw the development of the HIPC initiative and thinks those institutions need to secure a debt moratorium under the direction of the Group of 20 (G20) major economies…”
March 26, 2020
Article
Read more here:
“Know this: Ceaseless social distancing is not the only way to end this outbreak. And President Trump paints a false choice between saving lives and saving the economy. We can find a balance. It’s just that the current orders of social distancing would need to be replaced by a comprehensive, extremely ambitious plan.
Epidemiologists have been telling me about what it would take to end social distancing safely while fighting the spread of Covid-19. It isn’t easy. It will require an immense amount of leadership, coordination, and more sacrifice. It would take a sort of moon-shot-level effort. But the tactics they outline aren’t unfamiliar. They’re textbook epidemiology — they just need to be scaled up to a level never really seen before.
‘We really do need a Manhattan Project effort to get this stuff in place in really a two-or three-month period,’ Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, says.
We need social distancing across the country, and we need to keep it in place for some weeks, if not months, to buy time. If social distancing works, is enacted broadly, and is kept up, the number of new infections could decrease. It would give us a pause in the action, to potentially move on from social distancing to a more targeted pandemic strategy. Right now is the time to get plans ready, so when that pause comes, we can make things right…”
March 26, 2020
Article
From the article:
“…W-GDP launched in February 2019 with the goal of reaching 50 million women by 2025 through three pillars of work: improving access to vocational training and helping women secure jobs; supporting women entrepreneurs through access to capital and networks; and removing legal, regulatory, and cultural barriers to women’s economic participation.
‘I’ve been excited to see an emphasis on a whole-of-government approach, which is unprecedented for these issues,’ Megan O’Donnell, assistant director of the gender program at the Center for Global Development, told Devex.
The administration of President Donald Trump has put forward a strategy, defined clear goals that it wants to achieve, and set reporting requirements — all elements that are essential to the success of an initiative, said Lyric Thompson, senior director of policy and advocacy at the International Center for Research on Women.
But she lamented that the White House has, at the same time, consistently tried to cut the overall foreign assistance budget. ‘If they want to do more work, it should be in addition to gender and development globally,’ she said.
W-GDP reached 12 million women in its first year, according to the administration…”
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