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12. Haiti: Where Has All the Money Gone?
- Author:
- Vijaya Ramachandran and Julie Walz
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Since the 2010 earthquake, almost $6 billion has been disbursed in official aid to Haiti, a country with a population of just under 10 million. An estimated $3 billion has been donated to NGOs in private contributions in addition to official aid. The United States Government alone has disbursed almost $2 billion of this total amount and has pledged over $3 billion for relief and reconstruction.
- Topic:
- Corruption, Humanitarian Aid, Non-Governmental Organization, and Foreign Aid
- Political Geography:
- United States, Caribbean, and Haiti
13. West African Experience with the World Rice Crisis, 2007–2008
- Author:
- Vijaya Ramachandran, Peter Timmer, Steven Block, and Jenny C. Aker
- Publication Date:
- 02-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Rice production in Africa has tended to be low-yielding, geographically dispersed, and uncompetitive against low-cost Asian imports, even when protected by high freight costs and substantial trade barriers. Skyrocketing prices in world markets in 2007—08 were a shock to African consumers, producers, and governments alike. When international rice prices were relatively low, rice imports did not pose economic or political problems for West African governments. Extremely expensive imports reverse that equation. This paper addresses the response to that reversal first by presenting a historical review of trends in the West African rice sector and, second, by assessing the effect of world rice prices on domestic prices, primarily at the consumer level.
- Topic:
- Humanitarian Aid and Food
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Asia
14. TrAid+ Channeling Development Assistance to Results
- Author:
- Alex Ergo and Ingo Puhl
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Development assistance is meant to improve the lives of poor people in developing countries, but the effectiveness of aid in meeting this goal is uncertain. Demonstrating failure—or success—is difficult because traditional donor financing mechanisms track inputs, not results. This is compounded by poor coordination between actors and a lack of transparency, accountability, and country ownership. Development assistance that is ineffective or has unknown outcomes wastes resources, erodes the constituency for aid, and most importantly fails to improve the lives of poor people as much as it could. TrAid+ is a new mechanism that aims to address these problems by creating a market for certified development outputs—outputs for which both the delivery and the quality have been verified. By ensuring that these outputs, such as safe deliveries or gas connections, meet certain standards, trAid+ acts as a third-party stamp of approval that donors, tax payers, recipient-country governments, service providers, and beneficiaries can trust to know that their aid is being used effectively and is contributing to the development objectives of the recipient country. And trAid+ makes all information accessible online, making it easier for funders to link with projects that are working and projects that are working to link with anyone interested in purchasing certified development outputs. TrAid+ can be tailored to any sector where outputs can be clearly defined and measured, whether health, education, infrastructure, or agriculture. This paper describes the trAid+ concept in detail and proposes practical steps to establish the trAid+ platform.
- Topic:
- Development, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, and Foreign Aid
15. Beyond Aid: Migration as a Tool for Disaster Recovery
- Author:
- Michael Clemens and Kaci Farrell
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes can devastate people's lives and a country's economy, particularly in the developing world. More than 200,000 people perished when a catastrophic earthquake struck Haiti in January 2010, and Americans responded with an outpouring of private and public assistance. Those relief efforts, as they nearly always do, focused primarily on delivering aid. The United States barely used another tool for disaster relief: migration policy. This policy brief explores the various legal channels through which the U.S. government could, after future overseas disasters, leverage the power of migration to help limited numbers of people. We describe what could have been done for Haiti, but the lessons apply to future scenarios.
- Topic:
- Humanitarian Aid, Migration, Natural Disasters, and Foreign Aid
- Political Geography:
- United States
16. Migration as a Tool for Disaster Recovery: A Case Study on U.S. Policy Options for Post-Earthquake Haiti
- Author:
- Royce Bernstein Murray and Sarah Petrin Williamson
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- After a natural catastrophe in a developing country, international migration can play a critical role in recovery. But the United States has no systematic means to leverage the power and cost-effectiveness of international migration in its post-disaster assistance portfolios. Victims of natural disasters do not qualify as refugees under U.S. or international law, and migration policy toward those fleeing disasters is set in a way that is haphazard and tightly constrained. This paper comprehensively explores the legal means by which this could change, allowing the government more flexibility to take advantage of migration policy as one inexpensive tool among many tools for post-disaster assistance. It explores both the potential for administrative actions under current law and the potential for small changes to current law. For concreteness, it focuses on the case of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, but its policy lessons apply to future disasters that are sadly certain to arrive. The paper neither discusses nor recommends "opening the gates" to all disaster victims, just as current U.S. refugee law does not open the gates to all victims of persecution, but rather seeks to identify those most in need of protection and provide a legal channel for entry and integration into American life.
- Topic:
- Humanitarian Aid, Migration, Natural Disasters, and Foreign Aid
- Political Geography:
- United States
17. New SME Financial Access Initiatives: Private Foundations' Path to Donor Partnerships
- Author:
- Benjamin Leo
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- In recent years, a number of private foundations and organizations have launched ambitious initiatives to support promising entrepreneurs in developing countries, on both a for-profit and not-for-profit basis. Many of these programs have focused exclusively on building business capacity. While these tailored programs play an important role in supporting small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) development, their overall effectiveness remains hamstrung in part by continuing constraints on entrepreneurs' access to expansion and operating capital. Simultaneously, the U.S. government, other bilateral donors, and international financial institutions (IFIs) have launched a series of initiatives that provide both financial and technical assistance to SMEs in developing countries. Surprisingly, collaboration or formalized partnerships between private foundations and donor agencies has been somewhat limited-particularly on a strategic or globalized basis. This paper is targeted for these private foundations, especially those focused on women entrepreneurship. First, it provides a brief literature review of the rationale for and against SME initiatives. Second, it presents an overview of existing targeted USG and IFI programs. Lastly, it offers several new, incremental options for private foundations to establish focused partnerships with donor agencies in support of their ongoing organizational goals.
- Topic:
- Development, Humanitarian Aid, and Foreign Aid
- Political Geography:
- United States
18. Find Me the Money: Financing Climate and Other Global Public Goods
- Author:
- Nancy Birdsall and Benjamin Leo
- Publication Date:
- 04-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- The global community faces a number of critical challenges ranging from climate change to crossborder health risks to natural-resource scarcities. Many of these so-called global commons problems carry grave risks to economic growth in the developing world and to the livelihoods and welfare of their people. Climate change is the classic example. Despite the risks involved, donor governments have funded programs addressing global challenges such as climate change at far lower levels than traditional programs of country-based development assistance. The prospects for dealing with such global challenges will depend at least in part on new collective financing mechanisms.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Development, Health, Humanitarian Aid, and Foreign Aid
19. How Can Bill and Melinda Gates Increase Other People\'s Donations to Fund Public Goods?
- Author:
- Dean Karlan and John A. List
- Publication Date:
- 04-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- We develop a simple theory which formally describes how charities can resolve the information asymmetry problems faced by small donors by working with large donors to generate quality signals. To test the model, we conducted two large-scale natural field experiments. In the first experiment, a charity focusing on poverty reduction solicited donations from prior donors and either announced a matching grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, or made no mention of a match. In the second field experiment, the same charity sent direct mail solicitations to individuals who had not previously donated to the charity, and tested whether naming the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as the matching donor was more effective than not identifying the name of the matching donor. The first experiment demonstrates that the matching grant condition generates more and larger donations relative to no match. The second experiment shows that providing a credible quality signal by identifying the matching donor generates even more and larger donations than not naming the matching donor. Importantly, the treatment effects persist long after the matching period, and the quality signal is quite heterogeneous—the Gates\' effect is much larger for prospective donors who had a record of giving to "poverty-oriented" charities. These two pieces of evidence support our model of quality signals as a key mechanism through which matching gifts inspire donors to give.
- Topic:
- Development, Government, Humanitarian Aid, Markets, and Foreign Aid
- Political Geography:
- United States
20. Measuring the Quality of Aid: QuODA Second Edition
- Author:
- Nancy Birdsall, Homi Kharas, and Rita Perakis
- Publication Date:
- 11-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- As demonstrated by the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and Accra Agenda for Action, the development community has reached a broad consensus on what constitutes good practice for the delivery of development assistance. But since these high-level agreements were made, there has been almost no independent quantitative analysis of whether donors are meeting the standards they have set for themselves.
- Topic:
- Development, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, Treaties and Agreements, and Foreign Aid
- Political Geography:
- Paris