Global Prosperity Wonkcast

 

Archive for October, 2010

 

Non-Communicable Diseases a Huge Problem in Developing World, Funding Scant (Interview with Rachel Nugent)

October 31, 2010

Posted by in Global Health Policy Tags: , ,

Rachel NugentHeart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and cancers are usually considered diseases of the rich world, the result of too much food and too little exercise. But these serious diseases are already a huge problem in the developing world, accounting for about half of the burden of disease. Yet new research from the Center for Global Development has found that barely 3% of foreign aid and philanthropic spending for developing world health addresses these often overlooked diseases.

My guest this week is the lead author of that research, Rachel Nugent, CGD deputy director of global health. In a working paper co-authored with Andrea Feigl – Where Have All the Donors Gone? Scarce Donor Funding for Non-Communicable Diseases – Rachel examines the impact of non-communicable diseases in the developing world and assesses the response of international donors. In the Wonkcast, we discuss her findings and recommendations for addressing this challenge.

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U.S. Development Strategy in Pakistan after the Floods: Molly Kinder

October 25, 2010

Posted by in Fragile States, Rethinking US Foreign Assistance Tags: ,

Molly KinderAs if Pakistan needed more troubles, this summer’s catastrophic flooding stretched the capacity of that country’s civilian government to the breaking point. How can the United States act to shore up a key ally and put a strategically critical country back on the path towards development and stability? My guest this week is Molly Kinder, a senior policy analyst here at the Center for Global Development. Together with CGD president Nancy Birdsall, she spearheads the Center’s initiative that looks specifically at U.S. development policy in Pakistan and recommends how it might be more effective. Wren Elhai, who oversees the production of the Wonkcast and helps me by drafting these posts, also contributes to our Pakistan initiative, as a writer and analyst.

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Following the Money: Owen Barder on Why Aid Transparency Matters

October 18, 2010

Posted by in Global Development

Lawrence MacDonald is traveling this week, so we’re re-releasing an episode from our archives. This interview was originally posted on March 22, 2010.

Owen BarderMy guest this week is Owen Barder, a visiting fellow here at the Center for the Global Development and the director of the AidInfo project at Development Initiatives, a UK-based NGO. Owen’s current work focuses on improving the transparency of the international aid system—making it easier to know where and how aid is being spent.

Owen explains that more easily available aid data would benefit a number of audiences. Researchers and policymakers need the data to study what aid interventions work best. Developed country taxpayers have a right to information on how government is spending their money. Developing country governments need information on donor spending in order to budget their own resources effectively. However, according to Owen, the most important audience for aid data are the citizens of developing countries-the intended beneficiaries of the spending.

“They need to hold their government to account, they need to hold service delivery organizations to account,” he says. “And to do that, they need to know what services they should be expecting, what money is being allocated, what’s being spent, so they can make sure they’re getting the services they need.”

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Evaluating the Millennium Villages: Michael Clemens and Gabriel Demombynes

October 12, 2010

Posted by in Africa, Aid Effectiveness Tags: , , ,

An aquaculture project in Bar Sauri, Kenya.In development, it’s good to try new, innovative ideas– but even better to know whether or not they work. My guests this week are Michael Clemens, senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, and Gabriel Demombynes, a senior economist at the World Bank, based in Nairobi, Kenya. They have written a new paper in which they argue that one very high profile development program, the Millennium Villages Project, isn’t being evaluated in a way that would provide clear evidence of its impacts. They propose a better way to evaluate the project.

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Good Aid? Bad Aid? QuODA Tracks How Donors Stack Up. Interview with Nancy Birdsall and Homi Kharas.

October 4, 2010

Posted by in Aid Effectiveness, Global Development Tags: , ,

QUODADonors, academics, and development advocates have long recognized that not all aid is created equal. Often, the impacts of aid are blunted because it’s spent in the wrong places or isn’t coordinated with recipient government programs. How can we know which donors give aid well, and which donors need to improve? My guests on this week’s Wonkcast are Nancy Birdsall, president of the Center for Global Development, and Homi Kharas, deputy director of the Brookings Institution’s Global Economy and Development program. They are the co-creators of the Quality of Official Development Assistance (QuODA) assessment, a new tool that tracks and compares donor programs against four dimensions of aid quality.

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