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Independent research & practical ideas for global prosperity
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Independent research & practical ideas for global prosperity
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Global Prosperity Wonkcast
What Comes After the Millennium Development Goals? – Charles KennyFebruary 21, 2012By Lawrence MacDonald in Global Development Tags: Charles Kenny, MDGs
The UN is gearing up for discussions about what international development goals should come after the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which expire in 2015. My guest on this week’s Wonkcast is CGD senior fellow Charles Kenny, who recently published a working paper, written jointly with CGD visiting fellow Andy Sumner, that assesses the impact of the MDGs and offers suggestions for what should come next. We start with a brief review of the history of the MDGs, which were adopted in 2001 by the UN General Assembly and cover eight areas of development, such as reductions in poverty and hunger, and improvements in gender equality, education, and child and maternal health. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Comment »What to Do About U.S. Aid to Pakistan — Nancy Birdsall and Arvind SubramanianFebruary 14, 2012By Lawrence MacDonald in Aid Effectiveness, Economic Growth, Fragile States Tags: Arvind Subramanian, Nancy Birdsall, Pakistan
The debate over U.S. foreign assistance in Pakistan has grown hotter lately, with Stanford political scientist Stephen Krasner arguing in Foreign Affairs that the United States should get tough by threatening to halt aid to Pakistan to force the country into cooperating better on security matters. CGD president Nancy Birdsall responded with an article in Foreign Policy. Drawing on the recommendations of a 2011 CGD study group report, Beyond Bullets and Bombs: Fixing the U.S. Approach to Development in Pakistan, she argued that U.S. development assistance should be focused on helping to create a stable, prosperous Pakistan—goals that are in America’s own best interest and would be ill-served by trying to use the aid as a bargaining chip. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Comment »Implementing Oil-to-Cash – Todd MossFebruary 6, 2012By Lawrence MacDonald in Global Development, Governance/Democracy, Oil Tags: Natural Resources, Todd Moss
When a poor country finds oil, bad things often get worse. Countries rich in extractable natural resources, especially oil, frequently suffer from crummy governance, high poverty, endemic corruption and conflict. Is it possible to beat this oil curse? My guest on the Wonkcast this week, Todd Moss, CGD vice president for programs and senior fellow, says yes. He argues that a government that transfers some or all of its oil revenue to citizens in a universal, transparent, and regular taxable payment, could strengthen the social contract, fight corruption, and lay the foundation for future prosperity. Podcast: Play in new window | Download 1 Comment »What’s Driving Deforestation? Surprise Findings—David WheelerJanuary 30, 2012By Lawrence MacDonald in Climate Change Tags: David Wheeler, Deforestation, FORMA
David Wheeler, our lead researcher on climate and development, decided recently to retire from CGD, though he will continue to be active in CGD’s intellectual life as our first senior fellow emeritus. Since joining CGD in 2006, David has published more than 20 working papers and launched two pathbreaking global databases, Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA), which provides data on the CO2 emissions of more than 50,000 powerplants worldwide, and Forest Monitoring for Action (FORMA), which uses satellite data to provide rapid, high-resolution tracking of tropical deforestation. We discuss some surprising findings from David’s newly released analysis (Forest Clearing in the Pantropics: December 2005-August 2011) of the FORMA data. There is both good news and bad news. Total forest clearing has dropped during the global recession, but with enormous variation within countries and across regions, he says. For example, there have been large declines in the rate of forest clearing in Brazil, Bolivia, Indonesia, and Paraguay but large increases in Myanmar, Malaysia, Peru, and Venezuela. A companion paper (Economic Dynamics and Forest Clearing) finds that economic factors such as market prices, exchange rates, and interest rates all influence forest clearing. The availability of communications infrastructure such as mobile phones, zoning, rainfall and terrain slope also play a role. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Comment »Global Health and the New Bottom Billion – Amanda GlassmanJanuary 23, 2012By Lawrence MacDonald in Global Health Policy Tags: Amanda Glassman, Global Health, vaccines
Global health funders have historically focused their aid on countries with the lowest per capita incomes, on the assumption that that’s where most of world’s poor people live. In recent years, however, many large developing countries achieved rapid growth, lifting them into the ranks of the so-called middle-income countries, or MICs, even though they are still home to hundreds of millions of very poor people. Andy Sumner has called the poor people in the MICs a “new bottom billion,” as distinct from the bottom billion in poor and fragile states that Paul Collier wrote about in his popular 2007 book. In this week’s Wonkcast, I ask Amanda Glassman, a CGD research fellow and director of our global health policy program, how global health funders should respond to the emergence of the new bottom billion. Should money that now goes to the world’s poorest countries be reallocated to reach poor people who happen to live in the new MICs? Are there other ways that the global community can help? Amanda’s answers draw on the findings of a new working paper she wrote jointly with Sumner and Denizhan Duran, and an accompanying policy brief. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Comment » |
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