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2. Are Current Models of Data Protection Fit for Purpose? Understanding the Consequences for Economic Development
- Author:
- Michael Pisa and Ugonma Nwankwo
- Publication Date:
- 08-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- This brief is based on a roundtable hosted by CGD as part of the Governing Data for Development project, which explores how governments can use data to support innovation, development, and inclusive growth while protecting citizens and communities against harm.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Privacy, and Models
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
3. Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment in the COVID-19 Context
- Author:
- Megan O'Donnell, Mayra Buvinic, Charles Kenny, Shelby Bourgault, and George Yang
- Publication Date:
- 04-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- As donor institutions and governments seek to provide relief and support recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and global recession, CGD’s COVID-19 Gender and Development Initiative aims to ensure that their policy and investment decisions equitably benefit women and girls. We seek to support decision-makers in understanding the gendered impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; assess health, economic, and social policy response measures with a gender lens; and propose evidence-based solutions for an inclusive recovery. Recognizing that the dialogue to date has largely emphasized challenges facing women and girls in high-income settings, our analysis centers on women and girls in low- and middle-income countries. In this policy brief, we summarize the findings of a CGD working paper, Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment in the COVID-19 Context. We explore the impacts of the crisis on women’s economic opportunities and outcomes, document the extent to which governments and donors are taking action to respond to these impacts, and make recommendations for how decision-makers can elevate women’s economic empowerment as a priority in response and recovery efforts. Specifically, we examine the impact of the COVID-19 global recession on women’s work and employment in low- and middle-income countries, including entrepreneurship, wage and salaried work, work in subsistence and commercial agriculture, and unpaid housework and care work.
- Topic:
- Economics, Women, Inequality, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Gender
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
4. Taxing “Bads”: An Overview of Research Initiatives
- Author:
- Ruth Lopert
- Publication Date:
- 11-2019
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Around the world, development economists and researchers are exploring proposals to tax excise goods, and several have produced models demonstrating that such taxes can generate substantial revenues. This note attempts to list the organizations and research initiatives currently addressing taxation of tobacco, alcohol, and sugar-sweetened beverages—the “bads”—to help navigate the landscape of existing research and identify gaps and opportunities for further work.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Tax Systems, and Revenue Management
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
5. Publishing Government Contracts: Addressing Concerns and Easing Implementation (Brief)
- Author:
- Charles Kenny
- Publication Date:
- 11-2014
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Government contracts regarding the use of public property and finances should be published by default. Many jurisdictions already require that contracts be made public in response to requests for the information; some now publish contracts proactively. Doing so helps new entrants compete in the market for public contracts, helps governments model their projects on other successful examples, and allows citizens greater insight into how their taxes are being spent. This brief, summarizing the conclusions of the Working Group on Government Contract Publication, provides a practical outline for reaping the benefits of open contracts while addressing legitimate concerns about costs, collusion, privacy, commercial secrecy, and national security.
- Topic:
- Economics and Government
- Political Geography:
- United Kingdom
6. Stopping Deforestation: What Works and What Doesn't
- Author:
- Jonah Busch and Kalifi Ferretti-Gallon
- Publication Date:
- 05-2014
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- A new Center for Global Development meta-analysis of 117 studies has identified the key factors that drive or deter deforestation. Some findings confirm conventional wisdom. Building roads and expanding agriculture in forested areas, for example, worsen deforestation, whereas protected areas deter deforestation. Encouragingly, payments for ecosystem services (PES) programs that compensate people who live in or near forests for maintaining them are consistently associated with lower rates of deforestation. But contrary to popular belief, poverty is not associated with greater deforestation, and the rising incomes brought about by economic growth do not, in themselves, lead to less deforestation. Community forest management and strengthening land tenure, often thought to reduce deforestation while promoting development, have no consistent impact on deforestation.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Economics, Environment, and Poverty
7. The Quality of Official Development Assistance 2014
- Author:
- Nancy Birdsall, Homi Kharas, and Nabil Hashmi
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- The Quality of Official Development Assistance (QuODA) measures donors' performance on 31 indicators of aid quality to which donors have made commitments. The indicators are grouped into four dimensions associated with effective aid: maximizing efficiency, fostering institutions, reducing the burden on partner countries, and transparency and learning. The 2014 edition finds that donors are overall becoming more transparent and better at fostering partner country institutions but that there has been little progress at maximizing efficiency or reducing the burden on partner countries. The World Bank's concessional lending arm, the International Development Association (IDA), performs very well in QuODA, ranking in the top 10 of 31 donors on all four dimensions. The United States ranks in the bottom half of all donors on three of the four dimensions of aid quality and last on reducing the burden on partner countries. The United Kingdom ranks in the top third on three of four dimensions of aid quality and scores particularly well on transparency and learning. The Global Fund ranks in the bottom third on fostering institutions but ranks in the top third on the other three dimensions of aid quality, including the top spot in maximizing efficiency.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Development, Economics, Foreign Aid, and Foreign Direct Investment
- Political Geography:
- United States and United Kingdom
8. Revisiting the Quality of Agricultural Official Development Assistance
- Author:
- Kimberly Ann Elliott and Edward Collins
- Publication Date:
- 09-2013
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- The Quality of Official Development Assistance (QuODA) measures how well donors score on the dimensions of aid quality that evidence and experience suggest lead to effective aid. Those dimensions are maximizing efficiency, fostering institutions (in recipient countries), reducing burden (for recipient governments), and transparency and learning (on the part of donors). The Quality of Agricultural Official Development Assistance (Ag QuODA), as much as possible, applies the original QuODA methodology to donors giving agricultural aid. In this update of Ag QuODA, we use new data from the Creditor Reporting System to extend our earlier analysis and update it to 2011. We also examine data on aid activities that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is now reporting. We find that the quality of official development assistance (ODA) varies widely, with multilateral donors generally doing better on average than bilateral donors. Improvements in the data quality and availability are making sector-specific assessments like Ag QuODA more feasible, but further improvements are needed to allow a deeper understanding of aid effectiveness.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, Economics, Foreign Aid, and Foreign Direct Investment
9. Making Large-Scale Wind and Solar Power a Reality
- Author:
- Kevin Ummel
- Publication Date:
- 09-2013
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- South Africa and many other countries hope to aggressively expand wind and solar power (WSP) in the coming decades. This presents significant challenges for power system planning. Success hinges largely on the question of how and where to deploy WSP technologies. Well-designed deployment strategies can take advantage of natural variability in resources across space and time to help minimize costs, maximize benefits, and ensure reliability.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Development, Economics, Energy Policy, Environment, and Industrial Policy
- Political Geography:
- South Africa
10. The Rebirth of Education: Why Schooling in Developing Countries Is Flailing; How the Developed World Is Complicit; and What to Do Next
- Author:
- Lant Pritchett
- Publication Date:
- 09-2013
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- More than a billion children worldwide—95 percent—are in school. That's due in part to steady progress toward the second Millennium Development Goal that every child “be able to complete a full course of primary school” by 2015. To put that in perspective, the average adult in the developing world today receives more schooling than the average adult in advanced countries did in 1960. Schooling, however, is not the same as education. Few of these billion students will receive an education that adequately equips them for their future. The poor quality of education worldwide constitutes a learning crisis; donors and development agencies have been complicit in its creation, but they can and should be part of the solution, not by prescribing changes, but by fostering environments where change is possible.
- Topic:
- Demographics, Development, Economics, Education, Foreign Aid, and Foreign Direct Investment
11. Making Large-Scale Wind and Solar Power a Reality
- Author:
- Kevin Ummel
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- South Africa and many other countries hope to aggressively expand wind and solar power (WSP) in the coming decades. This presents significant challenges for power system planning. Success hinges largely on the question of how and where to deploy WSP technologies. Well-designed deployment strategies can take advantage of natural variability in resources across space and time to help minimize costs, maximize benefits, and ensure reliability.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Development, Economics, Energy Policy, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- Africa
12. Commitment to Development Index 2012
- Author:
- David Roodman
- Publication Date:
- 10-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Why does the CDI matter? Because in an increasingly integrated world, the behavior of rich countries can profoundly affect the lives of people in poor countries and because poverty and weak institutions in developing countries can breed public health crises, security threats, and economic crises that know no borders. Committing to policies that promote develop- ment and well-being is a global imperative—no human being should be denied the chance to live free of poverty and oppression and to enjoy a basic standard of education and health. The CDI countries, all democracies, preach concern for human life and dignity within their own borders; the Index looks at whether rich countries' actions match their words.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Education, Health, and Poverty
13. How Can the World Bank Group Improve Its Private Sector Projects in African Fragile States?
- Author:
- Vijaya Ramachandran, Benjamin Leo, and Ross Thuotte
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- In recent years, the World Bank Group has made increasingly strong and explicit commitments to fragile and conflict-affected states, putting them at the top of the development policy agenda. These commitments are promising, but give rise to significant operational challenges for the various arms of the World Bank Group, including the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). The bank also faces steady pressure from shareholders to scale up involvement in fragile states while also improving absorptive capacity and project effectiveness.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Markets, Foreign Aid, and World Bank
- Political Geography:
- Africa
14. Due Diligence: An Impertinent Inquiry into Microfinance
- Author:
- David Roodman
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Microfinance: Few development ideas have been so buoyed by high expectations in recent decades, and few have been so buffeted by difficulties in recent years. Images of microfinance lifting people out of poverty now compete with ones of the poor driven by debt to suicide. Where does the truth lie? David Roodman investigates in Due Diligence. He finds no evidence that small loans lift people out of poverty en masse but argues that financial services, like clean water and electricity, are essential to a modern life. The practical question is not whether microfinance should continue, but how it can play to its strengths, which lie in providing useful services to millions of poor people in a businesslike way. Due Diligence is the most complete investigation ever into the sources and consequences of microfinance. Rood - man explores the financial needs of poor people, the history of efforts to meet those needs, the business realities of doing so, and the arguments and evidence about how well modern microfinance is succeeding.
- Topic:
- Debt, Development, Economics, Globalization, Poverty, and Foreign Direct Investment
15. Global Health and the New Bottom Billion: How Funders Should Respond to Shifts in Global Poverty and Disease Burden
- Author:
- Amanda Glassman, Andy Sumner, and Denizhan Duran
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- After a decade of rapid economic growth, many developing countries have attained middle-income status. But poverty reduction in these countries has not kept pace with economic growth. As a result, most of the world's poor—up to a billion people—now live in these new middle-income countries (MICs), making up a “new bottom billion.” As the new MICs are home to most of the world's poor, they also carry the majority of the global disease burden. This poses a challenge to global health agencies, in particular the GAVI Alliance and the Global Fund, which are accustomed to disbursing funds on the assumption that the majority of poor people live in poor countries.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Health, and Poverty
16. Regional Development Banks (ABCs of the IFIs Brief)
- Author:
- Jenny Ottenhoff
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- The regional development banks (RDBs) are multilateral financial institutions that provide financial and technical assistance for development in low- and middle-income countries within their regions. Finance is allocated through low-interest loans and grants for a range of development sectors such as health and education, infrastructure, public administration, financial and private-sector development, agriculture, and environmental and natural resource management. The term RDB usually refers to four institutions:
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Foreign Aid, and Foreign Direct Investment
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Europe, and Asia
17. International Monetary Fund (ABCs of the IFIs Brief)
- Author:
- Jenny Ottenhoff
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- The primary role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is to promote stability of the international monetary system, the system of exchange rates and international payments that enables countries to transact with one another. To do so, the IMF provides financial assistance in the form of loans to help member countries address balance-of-payments problems, stabilize their economies, and restore sustainable economic growth. The IMF also carries out technical assistance and surveillance activities that help strengthen underlying economic fundamentals of member countries and the global financial systems at large.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, International Monetary Fund, Foreign Aid, and Financial Crisis
18. Leadership Selection at the International Financial Institutions
- Author:
- Jenny Ottenhoff
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- The International Financial Institutions (IFIs) are multilateral agencies. The term typically refers to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which provides financing and policy advice to member nations experiencing economic difficulties, and the multilateral development banks (MDBs), which provide financing and technical support for development projects and economic reform in low- and middle-income countries. The term MDB is usually understood to mean the World Bank and four smaller regional development banks: African Development Bank (AfDB). Asian Development Bank (ADB). European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, International Monetary Fund, Foreign Aid, and World Bank
- Political Geography:
- Africa, America, Europe, and Asia
19. Where Is the Virtue in the Middle Class?
- Author:
- Charles Kenny
- Publication Date:
- 11-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- It is widely agreed by economists and political scientists that the middle class is vital to progress because of its many virtues. But it is difficult to define a middle class by income in a manner that does not either include a lot of very poor people or suggest that most countries have no middle class to speak of. Survey evidence suggests the middle class is not culturally unique, particularly socially progressive, or entrepreneurial. When the middle of the income distribution sides with poor people in demanding equitable access to quality government services (instead of siding with the wealthy for small government and unequal access), pro-poor policies are far more likely to emerge. But this necessary role should not be confused with virtue.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Education, Poverty, and Social Stratification
20. Emerging Africa: How 17 Countries Are Leading the Way
- Author:
- Steven Radelet
- Publication Date:
- 09-2010
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- There's good news out of Africa. Seventeen emerging countries are putting behind them the conflict, stagnation, and dictatorships of the past. Since the mid-1990s, these countries have defied the old negative stereotypes of poverty and failure by achieving steady economic growth, deepening democracy, improving governance, and decreasing poverty.
- Topic:
- Debt, Democratization, Development, Economics, and Poverty
- Political Geography:
- Africa
21. Africa's Private Sector: What's Wrong with the Business Environment and What to Do About It
- Author:
- Vijaya Ramachandran, Manju Kedia Shah, and Alan Gelb
- Publication Date:
- 03-2009
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Why has the private sector failed to thrive in much of sub-Saharan Africa? Drawing on a unique set of enterprise surveys, we identify inadequate infrastructure (especially unreliable electricity and poor quality roads) and burdensome regulations as the biggest obstacles to doing business. We find as well that the private sector in many countries is dominated by ethnic minorities, which inhibits competition and lowers demand for a better business environment. Solutions include investing in infrastructure, providing risk guarantees, and reforming regulations to lower the cost of doing business, as well as increasing access to education for would-be entrepreneurs.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, Globalization, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- Africa
22. Growing Pains in Latin America: An Economic Growth Framework as Applied to Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru
- Author:
- Liliana Rojas-Suarez
- Publication Date:
- 09-2009
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Before the global economic crisis began in 2008, all countries in Latin America, long known as the world's most economically and financially volatile region, had experienced five consecutive years of economic growth, a feat that had not been achieved since the 1970s. Yet despite this growth, Latin America's incomeper-capita gap relative to high-income countries and other emerging-market economies widened, and poverty remained stubbornly high. Latin America, in short, suffered from growing pains even when things were going reasonably well.
- Topic:
- Economics and Emerging Markets
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, Colombia, Latin America, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Peru