Global Development: Views from the Center

Not with a Bang but a Whimper

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 19:22:03 +0000

By Lawrence MacDonald - T.S. Eliot proves prophetic on the Hollow Men of the U.S. Senate: Lack of votes for Senate Democrats’ energy bill may mean the end By Perry Bacon Jr. Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, July 23, 2010; A02 Conceding that they can’t find enough votes for the legislation, Senate Democrats on Thursday abandoned efforts to put together a comprehensive energy bill [...]

Is ODA DOA?

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:33:42 +0000

By David Wheeler - Something’s stirring out there, as the perennial grumbles about official development assistance (ODA) morph into claims of its demise. Last year, Jean-Michel Severino and Olivier Ray ventured a coup de grace in a CGD working paper, The End of ODA: Death and Rebirth of a Global Public Policy. Their proposals for resuscitation have [...]

What Is the Counterfactual for COD Aid?

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:19:00 +0000

By William Savedoff - This is a joint post with Nancy Birdsall. We often hear criticism of the COD Aid approach from people who question whether a high-level incentive would really alter the behavior of recipient countries. Paolo de Renzio raised this issue in a recent blog, saying that COD Aid is unlikely to work because  recipient “[g]overnments have not [...]

PBS Documentary Raises Tough Questions about Top-Down Development

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 22:03:02 +0000

By Lawrence MacDonald - POV, the PBS web portal for discussion of documentaries, invited me to write a comment on Good Fortune, a film about problems with top-down development efforts in Kenya, which is to be broadcast on PBS affiliates tomorrow evening (Tuesday). Below is my comment, which is also available on POV along with a variety of other [...]

COD Aid as Part of a Problem-Solving System

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 15:58:52 +0000

By Nancy Birdsall - Bill Easterly struck a chord with his recent Aid Watch post on development being about problem-solving systems not “direct solutions to problems”. I couldn’t help thinking: A-ha – another argument for the merits of Cash on Delivery Aid (aka #CODAid on twitter).  Here are two reasons why (I could think of more. . . .) . First [...]

New IMF Database on Financial Access Indicators

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 21:25:11 +0000

By Liliana Rojas-Suarez - I am encouraged by the IMF launch last week of a new online database of financial access indicators. When the initiative was announced at 2009 World Bank/IMF annual meetings in Istanbul, I wrote of the potential and need for such a database. This new resource will be an important tool for increasing financial inclusion. I’m [...]

Where Is Obama’s Trade Policy?

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 20:24:33 +0000

By Kimberly Ann Elliott - The New York Times this morning published an editorial titled “Waiting for a Trade Policy,” which noted that presidential backing for a single bilateral trade agreement does not a policy make: “South Korea is an important ally in a dangerous neighborhood, and the White House should push hard to get this deal finished and through the [...]

Is Your Citizenship Worth $1 Million? An Alternative to Obama’s Proposal on Immigration

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:47:12 +0000

By Michael Clemens - President Obama spoke yesterday on overhauling U.S. immigration.  He went straight to the thorniest issue, what to do about the millions of unauthorized migrants already here. Obama wants a third path between the extremes of blanket amnesty and mass deportation. That compromise approach, he goes on to sketch, would be a combination of sending troops to [...]

Liberia’s Debt Relief Party

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:24:07 +0000

By Ben Leo - This week, Liberians celebrated in the streets – faces painted, drums blaring, and dancing with abandon.  They’re not rejoicing over some recent triumph by the Liberian soccer team or a local festival.  The streets of Monrovia were overflowing because of debt relief.  That’s right, debt relief.  On Tuesday, Liberia secured nearly $5 billion in irrevocable [...]

What Year Is It in the Congo? Five Development Lessons on the 50th Birthday of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:24:56 +0000

By Michael Clemens - Today the Democratic Republic of the Congo turns fifty.  That half century is hard to summarize in general terms; it produced Joseph Mobutu, but it also produced Valentin Mudimbe.  Summary is much easier, however, in terms of economic development: D.R. Congo has gone back to the Bronze Age. Fifty years ago today, the average person in [...]

Comments (0) - Read and Add your own Comments