The UK government has significantly expanded its development finance beyond ODA. The strategic use of guarantees, export finance, and other instruments is not a substitute for grants to the poorest, but instead offers the prospect of mobilising significant lending to developing countries, which can ...

CGD conducted a landscaping exercise to better understand the current landscape of organizations headquartered in sub-Saharan Africa that boast impact evaluation capacity. The resulting database is intended as a resource for funders looking to advance locally led development; to help facilitate coor...

On June 27, 2023, CGD senior fellow Charles Kenny submitted evidence to the UK International Development Committee inquiry on “Investment for Development: the UK’s strategy towards development finance institutions and the effectiveness of aid spending through British International Investment (BII).”

Looking back on the run up to the creation of DFID in 1997, those involved tend now to tell two somewhat conflicting stories: first that it was simply “in Labour’s DNA” to uplift development and give it a separate voice in government, and second that the creation of DFID was very much about the circ...

The World Bank’s lending function is important and irreplaceable. But providing countries with an important source of financing and investing in evidence do not have​ to be in tension. The role of evaluation should shift from an assessment function to one in which evaluation is a central tool of pro...

Most non-DAC cooperation providers show openness to multi-partner engagement for development, but whether and how such openness can be transformed into more active cooperation—if not deeper collaboration—for development, including between DAC and non-DAC actors, remains to be seen.

With global challenges high on the international agenda and financing set to increase in the coming years, a big push on evidence, backed by dedicated resources, is essential. This note makes the case for a reinvigorated evidence agenda to boost the impact of financing for development and global pub...