Does channeling government-to-person (G2P) payments through bank accounts encourage financial inclusion and use? This paper explores the factors that have driven the adoption of digital payments in India by beneficiaries of PMGKY, the large-scale COVID-19 relief program launched in May 2020.

India imposed a lock-down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 and began a gradual re-opening in June. A telephonic survey in April examined the early effectiveness of information and the massive PMGKY social protection program (Policy Paper 217). This paper analyzes a second-round sur...

The UK has historically prioritised poverty reduction in its aid spending, focusing finance where it is most needed. In this note, we assess the poverty focus of the UK’s bilateral official development assistance (ODA) over the past decade and compare this to other major donors. To do so, we examine...

A central commitment of action on climate is the promise of “developed countries” to jointly mobilize $100 billion of climate finance per year by 2020 (and through to 2025), formalised at the UN climate change conference in 2010 (COP16). Five years later, the Paris Agreement reaffirmed this commitme...

The Commitment to Development Index (CDI) ranks 40 of the world’s most powerful countries on policies that affect more than five billion people living in poorer nations. In this brief, we summarize the findings from the 2021 edition of the CDI.

Recent work by the CGD researchers through the COVID-19 Gender and Development Initiative suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted women particularly severely, disproportionately affecting their paid and unpaid work, income, and food security, while also exacerbating the risk of gender-based...

Together with a lockdown and an information campaign, India’s early response to the Covid-19 pandemic included the launch of PMGKY, a major social protection package. This built on previous digital investments including in direct benefit transfer to financial accounts as well as on several establish...