Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) such as cancer, diabetes, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, and mental illnesses are the leading cause of death and disability worldwide. The good news is that much of the NCD burden can be prevented through interventions that are affordable in most countries. The United States can help now by taking five low-cost or no-cost steps.
The U.S. military has become substantially engaged in economic development and stabilization and will likely continue to be for some time to come. This brief takes U.S. military involvement in development as a given and concentrates on five recommendations for it to operate more efficiently and effectively.
This policy brief explores the various legal channels through which the U.S. government could leverage the power of migration to help provide disaster relief.
The Center for Global Development Working Group on UNFPA’s Leadership Transition urges the UNFPA to sharpen its focus in pursuing the Programme of Action developed at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development.
Guillermo Perry assesses whether arguments in favor of such MDB direct support are valid and whether MDBs are living up to priorities coherent with such arguments and finds that they do so only partially.
This brief examines options for a COD Aid contract in Pakistan’s education sector and its potential benefits for improving the relationship between official donors and the government of Pakistan, and for increasing the effectiveness of aid spending in Pakistan.
Most of the world’s poor no longer live in low-income countries. An estimated 960 million poor people—a new bottom billion—live in middle-income countries, a result of the graduation of several populous countries from low-income status. That is good news, but it has repercussions. Donors will have to change the way they think about poverty alleviation. They should design development aid to benefit poor people, not just poor countries, keep supporting middle-income countries, think beyond traditional aid to craft coherent development policies, and work to help create space for more inclusive policy processes in new and old MICs.
This brief describes a new approach, Cash on Delivery Aid, which gives recipients full responsibility and authority over funds paid in proportion to verified measures of progress.
The Commitment to Development Index (CDI) ranks 22 of the world’s richest countries on their dedication to policies that benefit the five billion people living in poorer nations. Moving beyond standard comparisons of foreign aid volumes, the CDI quantifies a range of rich country policies that affect poor people in developing countries.
In this brief Kimberly Ann Elliott discusses the two main priorities the Obama administration should focus on in order to revive the AGOA program and expand its benefits.
For the past decade, global AIDS donors have responded to HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa as an emergency and have mobilized health workers from weak and understaffed workforces. They must begin to address the long-term problems underlying the shortages and the effects of their efforts on the health workforce more broadly.
In this essay Steven Radelet explains how since the mid 1990s seventeen Sub-Saharan African states have transcended the conflict and dictatorships of decades past to establish themselves as burgeoning world states. Approaching the discussion by delineating between cultural differences across the region, Radelet offers a dynamic analysis of the new and encouraging growth observed in several African countries.
Improving adolescent girls’ health and wellbeing is critical to achieving virtually all international development goals. Start with a Girl: A New Agenda for Global Health shows why doing so is a global must and identifies eight priorities for international action.
After dramatically increasing their lending during the global financial crises, the international financial institutions are requesting an unusual General Capital Increase. Senior fellow Todd Moss and co-authors explain what this means—and why it’s important.
The Center for Global Development’s Drug Resistance Working Group urges pharmaceutical companies, governments, donors, global health institutions, health providers, and patients to collectively and immediately tackle this global health threat by implementing four key recommendations.
With the African Development Bank (AfDB) seeking approval from its shareholders for a three-fold increase in its capital base, CGD senior fellow and vice president Todd Moss has evaluated the bank’s progress against six recommendations offered by a CGD working group in 2006. How much progress has the AfDB made?
Billions of dollars have been allocated to fight HIV/AIDS in poor countries over the past decade, yet less than half of those requiring treatment receive it, and for every two people put on treatment, five more become infected. Donors have to do more with available funds. Now is the time to link funding decisions to performance.
This brief summarizes the findings of the CGD Global Trade Preference Reform Working Group and its recommendations to make preference programs better promote prosperity and stability in the world's poorest countries.
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