2011
December 2011
Domenico Lombardi and Sarah Puritz Milsom explore the role of the International Monetary Fund in the eurozone crisis and review the policy options that the international community must consider to strategically and effectively address the current situation.
November 2011
This week, government leaders from donor and recipient countries, along with representatives of the corporate and philanthropic community, are descending on Busan, South Korea to discuss the global agenda on aid effectiveness. One of the major themes will be the role of aid in fragile states. Laurence Chandy examines the last 10 years of thinking on fragility and development, and argues for an updated narrative to explode some of the falsehoods that have dominated over the last decade.
November 2011
Homi Kharas examines the international architecture for development cooperation, explaining that now is the opportunity to promote greater clarity in development strategies and adapt to the evolving development landscape.
October 2011
The World Bank has proposed to phase out lending for new coal generation projects in middle income countries in an initial draft of the institution’s new ten-year energy sector lending strategy. Nigel Purvis, Abigail Jones and Andrew Stevenson examine this proposal, arguing that the World Bank should allocate scarce multilateral development funding for other pressing investments that cannot attract private capital as easily.
September 2011
Fragile states have the most serious and urgent development needs in the world; however, they are often the most difficult environments in which to deliver aid effectively. Laurence Chandy outlines an agenda for making aid more effective in fragile states and details how agencies can support these countries in gaining stability and prosperity.
September 2011
Justin van Fleet argues that corporations must come together under the united banner of a Global Business Coalition for Education to address the global learning crisis in the developing countries. Van Fleet says that creating a united coalition would strengthen the business community's engagement in education and force result-oriented changes.
August 2011
The G-20 countries have committed to improving infrastructure investment in low income countries, particularly sub-Saharan Africa. Homi Kharas and Katherine Sierra argue that the G-20 must focus on regional (cross-border) projects in Africa, and on closing the financing gap that exists between project identification and the start of construction.
July 2011
As humankind gradually reduces the number of species on earth, the Convention on Biological Diversity notes the importance of biological diversity on sustaining life. William Brown argues that the Convention’s goals are unattainable with the current practices, and gives eight recommendations on how to maintain healthy ecosystems.
June 2011
Egypt’s state-dominated formal economic sector has emerged as a dynamic market in recent years, however, the informal sector has not experienced the same growth. Ehaab Abdou, Mona Atia, Noha Hussien, Homi Kharas, and Amir Maaty explore how to engage and increase foreign aid to civil society organizations to promote an equitable economy that advances self reliance and reduces dependence on state-sponsored jobs.
May 27, 2011
This November, during the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, Republic of Korea, the aid community is tasked with taking stock of previous commitments to improve the quality of aid, and establishing a new Global Compact to drive further effectiveness improvements. Homi Kharas and Laurence Chandy examine these targets and how they can they can be reached.
April 21, 2011
Although school enrollment has increased dramatically over the years, many parts of the world are still facing a severe learning crisis. Jacques van der Gaag and Pauline Abetti write that many countries are missing accurate information about financial resources for the education sector, impacting their ability to provide quality education. Van der Gaag and Abetti argue that implementing national education accounts would create vast improvements in current financial tracking systems and help address this crisis.
April 19, 2011
Although the World Trade Organization has delivered significant global environment benefits through the liberalization of world trade, Joshua Meltzer explains that a changing international economic environment has created a series of significant challenges for the organization. Meltzer argues the WTO must focus on its capacity for global economic governance to respond to these current challenges.
April 15, 2011
Policymakers continue to prepare for the fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness while considering two key questions: what successes could come from this meeting? And what can be done in the preparation phase to maximize the chances of success? Homi Kharas and Noam Unger further explore these questions and the opportunity to heighten international development support.
January 2011
Nearly half a billion people worldwide escaped extreme poverty in just five years, from 2005-2010, find Laurence Chandy and Geoffrey Gertz. Poverty reduction of this magnitude, and in such a short period of time, is unparalleled in history. So while much of the international community inevitably focuses on the extremely impoverished, there is reason to celebrate successes in poverty reduction and to ensure future policy debates are grounded in reality.
2010
November 22, 2010
Negotiators to the 16th Conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are meeting in Cancún from now until December 10. Katherine Sierra, Nathan Hultman and Sarah Puritz Milsom say that expectations remain modest; and instead of striving for a master agreement, delegates will look to agree on the building blocks that tackle key issues for global cooperation on climate change. This comprehensive policy brief outlines what to watch in Cancún and beyond COP16.
November 2010
Around the world, there have been major gains in primary school enrollment, but students in many countries are spending years in school without learning core competencies. In this brief, Jacques van der Gaag and Anda Adams provide an overview of the global learning crisis and make policy recommendations for the global community and national governments to focus on the crucial knowledge acquisition and skills development of education.
September 2010
Climate change poses one of the most serious challenges to reducing global poverty and requires the acquisition of new knowledge and the development of new skills to reduce vulnerabilities and manage climate change risks. Allison Anderson says that education offers a clear opportunity to help combat climate change, but has not been adequately used. She discusses how leveraging education for climate change action is indeed possible through existing international agreements and relevant agendas.
May 2010
David Gartner explores the ways in which The Education for All-Fast Track Initiative (FTI) could benefit from the knowledge accumulated by other similar organizations. He suggests strengthening the FTI by opening its board membership to a more diverse stakeholder group to ensure effective resource mobilization to achieve education for all.
February 2010
The international community has repeatedly committed to making aid more effective, in part by ensuring country ownership over aid policies and strategies. This policy brief examines the Education for All-Fast Track Initiative in light of these international commitments to improving country ownership and reducing donor conditionalities.
2009
September 2009
The challenges that the judiciary system in Uganda has faced are well known, but the country has come a long way from that past. In a new paper, Cynthia Baldwin proposes a four-part approach to control judicial corruption.
July 2009
It is now generally accepted that development interventions can only be successful and sustainable if they are accepted by stakeholders and implemented in accordance with local institutions, culture and norms. In this policy brief, Clifford Zinnes, answering the demand for foreign aid alternatives, assesses a new class of "tournament" approaches that promise to improve on the lackluster performance of conventional methods.
June 2009
President Obama has proposed expanding the Peace Corps and building a global network of volunteers. To achieve this goal, David Caprara, Kevin F. F. Quigley and Lex Rieffel examine alternative service models and offer policy recommendations to the Obama Administration to further enhance U.S. volunteer opportunities with the goal of strengthening America’s multilateral development engagements.
2008
November 2008
After decades of low and volatile growth, economic performance in Sub-Saharan Africa markedly improved over the last decade. Calls for increasing the effectiveness of development aid will likely become more amplified as recipients and donors alike seek to ensure that current investments yield greater impacts. A new paper reflects on U.S. foreign assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa and offers lessons to the new administration.
November 2008
Despite increasing aid volume and ministerial promises and commitments, there are gaps in the effectiveness of development aid. Using a two-pronged approach, Homi Kharas and Johannes Linn analyze these gaps and provide useful recommendations so that the aid architecture can be strengthened, aid flows coordinated and development sustainable—ultimately making aid better.
October 2008
Scaling up—expanding, adapting, and sustaining successful projects, programs, or policies over time—can substantially reduce poverty. Johannes Linn and Arntraud Hartmann outline the actions that bilateral and multilateral donors and private aid agencies need to take in order to support scaling up for effective, sustainable development.
October 2008
In advance of the annual meetings of the World Bank and the IMF in Washington, Lex Rieffel asserts that both institutions, which were created in 1944 to be at the center of a sound and dynamic international financial system, have overlapping responsibilities and antiquated governance structures that have undermined their legitimacy. In this policy brief, Rieffel offers steps to visibly differentiate the two institutions and improve their effectiveness, including moving the headquarters of the World Bank to Europe.
September 2008
Reversing the negative attitudes toward the United States that prevail in many parts of the world will require a mix of hard power and soft power instruments. Brookings Fellow Lex Rieffel and National Peace Corps Association President Kevin F. F. Quigley provide recommendations for scaling up the Peace Corps and argue that such an effort could contribute measurably to strengthening America’s relations with the rest of the world.
May 2008
At least 77 million children worldwide do not attend primary school, a problem which is often fueled by a lack of resources but also by a lack of political will. In a new Brookings Global policy brief, Stephen Kosack examines the issue of political will and its affect on primary education access.
2007
February 2007
After decades of zealously protecting their banking markets, in the 1990s many developing and transition economies began to scale down or eliminate barriers to foreign direct investment (FDI) in the banking sector. Today, policymakers in a second wave of countries are in the early stages of opening their banking sectors or are under considerable political pressure to do so.
January 2007
Cronyism undermines markets in several ways. It increases the costs of doing business for firms excluded from inner, "favored" circles. It encourages firms to spend more on cultivating political ties and less on innovation. It allows regulators and policymakers to benefit privately from relationships with certain firms. Reducing the inequality in influence between the most-powerful and least-powerful firms—the "influence gap"—can limit the harmful effects of cronyism. This can be done through support for greater public accountability, anti-monopoly enforcement, and more inclusive consultation mechanisms.
2006
November 2006
Urban violence is a serious development constraint in developing countries and increasingly dominates the daily lives of citizens across the globe. The accompanying increase in fear and insecurity has led to a wide-scale preoccupation with the phenomenon.