Haiti: Where Has All the Money Gone? – Vijaya Ramachandran and Julie Walz

May 15, 2012

Posted by Lawrence MacDonald in Aid Effectiveness Tags: Aid Effectiveness, Haiti, USAID

Since the 2010 earthquake, $6 billion has been disbursed in official aid to help the people of Haiti. Nearly all of it has gone to intermediaries such as international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and private contractors. Yet there has been a surprising lack of reporting on how the money has been spent. CGD senior fellow Vijaya Ramachandran and research assistant Julie Walz try to follow the money in a new CGD policy paper: “Haiti: Where Has All the Money Gone?” They joined me on this week’s Wonkcast to explain their findings.
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USAID Modernization Efforts Amid Budget Cut Fever: Connie Veillette

January 24, 2011

Posted by Lawrence MacDonald in Rethinking US Foreign Assistance Tags: Connie Veillette, USAID

It’s been a busy time for Connie Veillette, director of the Rethinking US Foreign Assistance Initiative here at the Center for Global Development. Last week we hosted a major address by USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah describing the achievements of his first year in office and his ambitious plans for modernizing the agency. No sooner had Shah finished speaking than a group of Republican legislators proposed a budget cutting plan that would zero out USAID’s operating budget. I was eager to learn how Connie—an advocate for effective aid who spent much of her career working for Republicans on Capitol Hill—would assess these developments.

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Tempered Optimism on New U.S. Development Policy: Connie Veillette

September 27, 2010

Posted by Lawrence MacDonald in Aid Effectiveness, Global Development, Rethinking US Foreign Assistance Tags: Barack Obama, Connie Veillette, USAID

After months of study, work, negotiation and anticipation, the Obama administration has announced its development policy. What’s new here and what are the chances of implementation? To find out, I chatted with Connie Veillette, who has recently joined the Center for Global Development as director of our Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance program. Connie comes to us from Capitol Hill, where she spent many years with the Congressional Research Service and worked most recently as a senior professional staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee minority staff, specializing in U.S. foreign assistance and USAID.

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Development and Obama’s Budget; Interview with CGD’s Sarah Jane Staats

February 10, 2010

Posted by Lawrence MacDonald in Rethinking US Foreign Assistance Tags: Foreign Aid, HIV/AIDS, Sarah Jane Staats, USAID

I’m joined for this week’s CGD Wonkcast by Sarah Jane Staats, director of policy outreach here at the Center for Global Development. Last week, President Obama released his proposed budget for the next fiscal year. Sarah Jane and others here at the Center have been poring over the budget request, examining what signals the budget sends on the administration’s approach to development.

$3.8 trillion is a number a little too large to comprehend; Sarah Jane and I break down some of the numbers in the budget and have some fun comparing development and diplomacy programs with some of the government’s big ticket spending items.

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Birdsall on Clinton, Elevating Development, Taking Stock in 2010

January 11, 2010

Posted by Lawrence MacDonald in Aid Effectiveness, Global Development, Rethinking US Foreign Assistance Tags: Foreign Aid, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Birdsall, Poverty, Secretary of State, USAID

I’m joined this week by Nancy Birdsall, president of the Center for Global Development. Nancy introduced Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when Clinton came to speak to CGD last week. On the Wonkcast, she shares her impressions of Clinton’s speech and places it in the broader context of U.S. development policy reform—including two ongoing assessments, the White House Presidential Study Directive or PSD and the State Department’s first Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review or QDDR.

In the second half of the interview, Nancy reviews the past year in development and offers a policy wish for 2010.
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  In Global Prosperity Wonkcast, Lawrence MacDonald interviews Center for Global Development experts and others on innovative, practical policy responses to poverty and inequality in a globalizing world.

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