Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
“This child is going to be a leader.” This is what a friend of my father said when I was eight years old. As I recount in a new book—From Day One: Why Supporting Girls Aged 0 to 10 Is Critical to Change Africa’s Path—many African girls are not that lucky.
Is it time to ring the alarm bell on a declining US commitment to global health security? For most of the past year, I would have said no. But after the last few weeks, I’m starting to think so. And the simultaneous news of a new Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo underscores the stakes at play here.
A recent blog post by Ricardo Hausmann caught my eye because it addresses issues that I’ll be focusing on during my visiting fellowship here at the Center for Global Development. Hausmann—a former Venezuelan minister of planning—discusses the difficulty of closing the infrastructure gap in developing countries, and highlights the dilemma of whether governments should finance infrastructure projects through public-private partnerships or through their national budgets. He’s right about the dilemma, but his solution isn’t workable for fragile and low-income countries where infrastructure needs are greatest.
CGD and Brookings recently co-hosted Former Finance Minister of Nigeria and Distinguished Fellow Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to discuss her new book, Fighting Corruption is Dangerous: The Story Behind the Headlines. The book is part memoir, part how-to, as she draws on her years of experience as Nigeria’s Finance Minister to describe the dangers of fighting corruption and how best to do it. I drew four main takeaways from our conversation.
New results from a famous experiment in Kenya have sparked heated debate over whether lump-sum cash transfers have any long-term benefits for those who get them, or even do harm to neighbors who don’t.
Africa’s energy deficits are well known. But it’s very rare to hear policymakers talk openly about nuclear power on the continent.
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