Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
On Tuesday a Wall Street Journal editorial writer took it upon himself to introduce me to the paper’s readers. As character assassinations go, this one was relatively mild. No accusations of nepotism, sexual impropriety or gross financial mismanagement, not really up to current Washington standards. The writer did say that I am soft on corruption, and have been consistently so.
Andrew Jack at the Financial Times reports that the International Finance Corporation (IFC) is "in discussions" to create a $500 million fund to finance commercial healthcare projects in Africa.
The project draws on a $2.6m research project conducted by McKinsey, the management consultancy, which is being finalised and was funded jointly by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the IFC.
This week, the third working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is meeting in Bangkok to finalize its report on measures to curb global carbon emissions. According to numerous press accounts (see for example, the AFP report in the Hindustani Times: India, China, Brazil Hold Up Climate Change Talks), China, India and Brazil have slowed the proceedings by demanding that the North accept its dominant role in climate change.
You might have seen a recent New York Times Magazine cover story (subscription req.) about Filipinos working overseas. It is a colorful portrait of what life has been like for the Comodas family, two generations of which have worked abroad.
The sudden resignation on Friday of Ambassador Randall Tobias, the first U.S. director of foreign assistance, stunned staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department and left the administration’s beleaguered aid reform effort without a leader.
With bittersweet pleasure, I post the final two MCA Monitor Field Reports from Sarah Lucas. Over the past 2 years, Sarah has traveled throughout Africa and Latin America capturing the successes and challenges faced by the MCA and partner countries in implementing a new foreign assistance model. Her insights and reflections from the field have been tremendously useful to our Washington-based analysis and monitoring of the MCA.
The UN Security Council has lifted its ban on diamond exports in Liberia, on the grounds that the post-conflict country has made significant progress in establishing necessary internal controls to comply with the Kimberley Process--a me
Every week we hear of new strides against infectious disease: greater access to ARVs for poor country AIDS patients; more pledges of assistance from the G8; new therapies coming on-line from non-profit partnerships. Infectious diseases in poor countries are finally getting the attention and resources they deserve. However, it would be easy in all the attention given to infectious diseases to forget that the greatest mortality and illness in the world is now caused by chronic diseases.
Jack Valenti, the White House insider who became a legendary lobbyist for the movie industry, died yesterday - and some of the obituaries have missed an important contribution Jack made in his later years. For the past three years, Valenti was President of the Friends of the Global Fight, a Washington-based organization that works to build awareness about public policies to support the fight against AIDS, TB and malaria. (Friends of the Global Fight was founded by Ed Scott, who also co-founded CGD.
Today at 4:00 p.m., Randall Tobias officially resigned from the position of Director of Foreign Aid and Administrator of USAID for "personal reasons." In the wake of this news folks are left wondering why he resigned and what happens to the foreign aid reform agenda he just launched. There appear to be two camps emerging on the "why". Given the fact that very close aides to Tobias say they were shocked, -- including Deputy USAID Administrator Jim Kunder who, in his email to staff says, "today I received shocking news..." -- one camp believes it is truly very personal.
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