This paper discusses the evolution of India's Universal ID program, the innovative organization and pathbreaking technology behind it, how it is being rolled out, and how robust ID is beginning to be used.

Nancy Birdsall discusses the future role of the World Bank in addressing global commons problems, using the example of climate management and financing to set out the principal-agent problem facing the global development and climate communities.

This paper briefly summarizes how the FORMA tool and the fCPR rating system could provide provide a performance scorecard and an interim performance-based payments scheme for safeguarding forests.

With the growth in yields for key staple crops falling and global population projected to increase by two to three billion 2050, global agriculture will need to improve to meet demand. "Pull mechanisms" are one tool that could help. Kimberly Ann Elliott examines to what extent donors have embraced t...

Vijaya Ramachandran and Julie Walz propose changes to the business of aid to Haiti to help develop the capacity of the government there.

In this paper, written as the introduction to New Ideas on Development after the Financial Crisis (JHU Press, 2011), Nancy Birdsall discusses two themes. The first is the pre-crisis subtle shift in the prevailing model of capitalism in developing countries—away from orthodoxy or so-called market fun...

In this joint report, Thomas J. Bollyky, CFR senior fellow for global health, economics, and development, and Amanda Glassman, director of global health policy at the Center for Global Development, propose applying Cash-on-Delivery (COD) Aid as a new incentive mechanism for tobacco control in low- a...

Nancy Birdsall and Michele de Nevers propose a system for climate adaptation finance that builds off the lessons learned in development assistance.