Dear Friends,
Each year, I write to invite you to support the Center for Global Development by joining the CGD Society. This time, I’d like to share concrete examples of how support from our Society members has made a tremendous difference:
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In April, CGD hosted seven of the eight candidates for the next president of the African Development Bank for a public forum on their visions for the AfDB. The event, which connected live by video with two leading think tanks in Africa, was the most recent in a series of CGD forums pushing for more transparent and merit-based leadership selection at institutions such as the World Bank, the EBRD, WTO, IMF, and WHO. The AfDB selected Akinwumi Adesina as its next president and, with CGD’s help, considerably raised the bar for transparency and public accountability in leadership transitions that affect billions of people.
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The United States has been a champion for an open global economy and a system of global rules and institutions that together have lifted millions out of poverty. US development policy, however, has remained narrowly focused on aid as the major tool for building prosperous societies abroad. CGD just launched a series of briefs to broaden beyond aid how the next US administration conceives of and carries out development. The White House and the World (a follow-up to our 2008 book) presents over a dozen concrete, practical policy proposals to promote growth and reduce poverty abroad. The first of these recommendations, outlining the need for a US Development Finance Corporation, was endorsed by President Obama’s Global Development Council in May.
- Support from the CGD Society has given our colleagues in London the flexibility to influence development policies in Europe. They are assessing the effectiveness of Development Impact Bonds, working on the unintended consequences of anti–money laundering policies and deepening analysis of individual countries’ development efforts beyond aid. CGD Europe staff recently moved to their own offices in central London, solidifying the presence of a CGD think-and-do tank model in Europe.
Gifts from our Society members allow CGD to remain nimble in our efforts to shape development solutions, and we leverage your support to make a real difference by informing and improving policies that have the greatest impact on the lives of the world’s poor. I hope you will join/renew your membership to the CGD Society with a gift of $150 or more today.
By joining the 2015 CGD Society with a check, wire transfer, or secure credit card transaction online, you can continue to push for smarter policy ideas to meet the toughest development challenges around the world. Society members are among our most active participants and engaged supporters and, as exclusive insiders to our work, enjoy preferred access to hundreds of CGD events in Washington and London and receive complimentary copies of our publications.
It’s with your support that our practical ideas for global prosperity are reaching more people in more ways than ever before. Thank you for being a part of our efforts.
With regards,
Nancy Birdsall
President
Center for Global Development
P.S. Looking for more ways to support CGD? Share this page with your friends and family, invite your company to join the Partners Council, or work with us to create a planned gift today. For more information, please contact Anna Moran at [email protected] or (202) 416-4049.