Global Development: Views from the Center

EBRD Raises the Bar for International Appointments

Owen Barder — Mon, 21 May 2012 19:56:45 +0000

By Owen Barder - On Friday evening, the governors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) selected a new president: British civil servant Sir Suma Chakrabarti. The decision is important because the EBRD has recently taken on a major global challenge: assisting the countries of the Arab Spring. It also matters because the selection process raised the [...]

From Zoellick to Kim: Three Seedlings to Nourish

Nancy Birdsall — Thu, 17 May 2012 22:02:34 +0000

By Nancy Birdsall - Jim Kim, the incoming president of the World Bank, has gotten a lot of free (as in unsolicited) advice. I’ve participated happily, indeed eagerly (e.g. here), on the grounds that—to use Robert Zoellick’s apt title in a recent Foreign Affairs article—the world still needs the World Bank, and a better World Bank is better for [...]

It’s not an IDA world anymore

Nancy Birdsall — Thu, 17 May 2012 21:57:57 +0000

By Nancy Birdsall - This is a joint post with Christian Meyer. One of the pressing questions for Jim Kim in the years ahead as the World Bank’s new president is what to do as many countries graduate out of IDA, the bank’s fund for grants and concessional loans to the poorest countries. To generate ideas and possible directions [...]

Why Don’t They Want What We Know They Need?

Charles Kenny — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:46:22 +0000

By Charles Kenny - I’ve been blogging a little about technology adoption of late. It’s a subject close to my heart: my last book was pretty much all about how new technologies and the spread of ideas were behind much of the global progress we’ve seen in the quality of life over the last fifty years. But there are [...]

Interviews with EBRD Candidates

Owen Barder — Tue, 15 May 2012 00:57:41 +0000

By Owen Barder - On Friday the Governors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will decide who will be the Bank’s next President. Today we are publishing interviews with four of the candidates. In September 2009, the leaders of the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh called for the “the heads and senior leadership of all international institutions [to] [...]

CGD Europe Asks: Who Should Be the EBRD’s Next President?

Owen Barder — Thu, 10 May 2012 13:35:47 +0000

By Owen Barder - The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will appoint its next president in ten days, after months of deliberation. Many in the international development community are pushing for the process to be open, transparent and merit-based–a rallying cry you’ll recall from the recent World Bank presidential selection process. On behalf of CGD Europe, We’ve invited each [...]

Africa’s Child Health Miracle: The Biggest, Best Story in Development

Michael Clemens — Fri, 04 May 2012 19:14:55 +0000

By Michael Clemens - If you’re sick of the sad, hopeless stories coming out of Africa, here’s one that made my year. New statistics show that the rate of child death across sub-Saharan Africa is not just in decline—but that decline has massively accelerated, just in the last few years. From the middle to the end of the last [...]

A Review of the U.S. Government’s Review of Its Haiti Quake Response

Vijaya Ramachandran — Tue, 01 May 2012 15:14:19 +0000

By Vijaya Ramachandran - This post is joint with Julie Walz. Last week, USAID finally published an external review on its activities in Haiti: “Independent Review of the U.S. Government Response to the Haiti Earthquake”. The report is dated March 28, 2011. Yes, 2011. It took over a year to post the document on the USAID website. The review [...]

Liliana Rojas-Suarez: Economist of the Year

Nancy Birdsall — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 21:54:29 +0000

By Nancy Birdsall - Congratulations to our colleague Liliana Rojas-Suarez, named by the Peruvian Chamber of Commerce as economist of the year. Past winners include Hernando de Soto and Julio Velarde of Peru. The annual award recognizes Liliana’s many contributions on financial sector challenges and related development issues in emerging market economies – including this one and her role [...]

Haiti: Where Has All the Money Gone?

Vijaya Ramachandran — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 21:26:58 +0000

By Vijaya Ramachandran - This is a joint post with Julie Walz. The Assessing Progress in Haiti Act (H.R. 1016) was approved by a voice vote in the Senate this week, almost a year after it was passed by the House. The Act “directs the President to report to Congress on the status of post-earthquake humanitarian, reconstruction, and development [...]